Wall of Thorns and Woodland Stride

[Victor Zajic]

From Wall of Thorns:

Any creature within the area of the spell when it is cast takes damage as if it had moved into the wall and is caught inside. In order to escape, it must attempt to push its way free, or it can wait until the spell ends. Creatures with the ability to pass through overgrown areas unhindered can pass through a wall of thorns at normal speed without taking damage.

Woodland Stride (Ex): At 3rd level, you can move through any sort of undergrowth (such as natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at your normal speed and without taking damage or suffering any other impairment. Thorns, briars, and overgrown areas that have been magically manipulated to impede motion, however, still affect you.

Does Woodland Stride let you pass through a Wall of Thorns unmolested?

[RuyanVe]

No, since it is magically manipulated.

Ruyan.

[Ughbash]

Yes, Specific takes precedent over general and the spell specifically says "Creatures with the ability to pass through overgrown areas unhindered can pass through a wall of thorns at normal speed without taking damage."

Contrast this to Entangle which will slow down a druid since it does NOT have that statement in it.

[Victor Zajic]

To play devil's advocate, Ughbash, wouldn't both Woodland Stride and Wall of Thorns be specific rules that take precedent over the general rule of "You are hindered by magical and nonmagical hindering plant terrain." If two specific rules contrast, how do you pick which one to use?

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

I'm with Ughbash on this one.

Woodland Stride allows you to "pass through overgrown areas unhindered." It specifically doesn't allow you to do this with undergrowth that is magically manipulated.

But wall of thorns says that if you can pass through overgrown areas unhindered, you can move through the wall of thorns. Part of its magic power is to ignore people who move through overgrowth. This isn't Woodland Stride having an exception, this is wall of thorns having an exception that happens to apply to people who have Woodland Stride.

[Ughbash]

I view as class ability as more general than a specific spell, which is why I also mentioned the Entangle spell which does not have that text in it.

For example lets make up a higher level spell called "Bilked the Vengefuls Thiefbane Fireball" and give it the text this spell does damage as a regular fireball but ignores evasion and improved evasion.

While that may be poor spell design... I would say the specific spell text overrules the general effect of the evasion class ability.

[Victor Zajic]

That's how our DM ruled it on the fly when it came up in game (Wall of Thorns from a cleric of Eristil took us all by surprise).

I'm convinced at this point that it was the right call, not that I questioned him on it at game.