I always thought it was since it straight up makes you immune to a basic attack form (grappling) and is only a level 4 spell.
It seems to just kind of be a necessary thing, imo
Without it being retooled to be massive bonuses (to the point where they would almost always win a grapple anyways), Freedom of Movement is one of the only answers to truly grapple-focused enemies.
Their bonuses scale quickly to the point where Full BAB, High Strength characters can struggle to succeed against them, and the Caster with 1/2 BAB, Low Strength, and possibly even a size penalty, has next to no chance.
That being said, Fly is available a level sooner, and shuts down a lot of grappling (unless they can also fly), albeit for a shorter amount of time.
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Pretty par for the course as far as 4tg level spells go.
Death Ward renders you immune to negative energy and energy drain.
Dim Anchor just shuts down teleporters.
Planar Adaptation exempts you from needing to breathe and all sorts of other effects.
4th level spells are super good.
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It leaves you less impervious to attack than Emergency Force Sphere, also a 4th.
Part of the problem in my opinion is the duration--it's long enough to last several encounters.
And yet also defeated by dispel magic.
EFS isn't subject to dispel magic.
When the players start using Freedom of Movement, the enemies start adapting to their tactics, as verisimilitude will allow. Can’t grab the wizard? Start using nets, manacles, and gags. Magic enemies start using dispel magic, or silence spells. Barriers are still barriers, even if they take the form of nets, or manacles. They can still effect spellcasting as FoM only helps with movement and attack.
When the players start using Freedom of Movement, the enemies start adapting to their tactics, as verisimilitude will allow. Can’t grab the wizard? Start using nets, manacles, and gags. Magic enemies start using dispel magic, or silence spells. Barriers are still barriers, even if they take the form of nets, or manacles. They can still effect spellcasting as FoM only helps with movement and attack.
Nets and manacles work because they're assumed to actively be on you. With FoM they're not on you so they don't work. They just fall off. Well to be more specific you can never be held in place to have them put on you, and if have them put on first you automatically make any check to escape them.
Net's grant entanglement which FoM gets to ignore so it's like the net was never there.
PS: FoM is also not a wizard spell. It is cast by clerics, druids, and bards. I'm not sure if rangers and inquisitors get it or not.
edit: If you can grab or gag a wizard you can likely kill him. Unless you need to take him alive killing is also likely the easier option.
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Efs uses an immediate action and you lose your next turn dismissing it, for most things you will want to do on the following turns. It can be adapted to by preparing disintegrate. Many enemies can teleport into it leaving the PC traped with no option to 5f step.
The other problem is the spell does not have a bottom so it does not combine well with flight.
I didnt know about those Talismans. I used the unfettered shirt which allowed me to use FoM once per day. It's 5000 gp, which also isn't bad.
Nets and manacles work because they're assumed to actively be on you. With FoM they're not on you so they don't work. They just fall off. Well to be more specific you can never be held in place to have them put on you, and if have them put on first you automatically make any check to escape them.
Net's grant entanglement which FoM gets to ignore so it's like the net was never there.
PS: FoM is also not a wizard spell. It is cast by clerics, druids, and bards. I'm not sure if rangers and inquisitors get it or not.
edit: If you can grab or gag a wizard you can likely kill him. Unless you need to take him alive killing is also likely the easier option.
Sorry, but no. The spell makes no mention of automatically slipping out of anything other than grapple or pins attempts. while you can ignore the entangled condition and the movement/attack pentalties associated with that condition, you do not simply shed your bonds. The spell makes absolutely no mention of you being immune to the “bound” condition. Otherwise, you could argue that being entombed in 30ft of solid ice doesn’t stop you from moving out of it.
If you disagree, fine.
I didnt know about those Talismans. I used the unfettered shirt which allowed me to use FoM once per day. It's 5000 gp, which also isn't bad.Unfettered shirt cost 10k. It is 5k to craft it.
Its price is why some prefer the talisman.
You're correct, and I did end up crafting it instead of paying full price
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Bound in pathfinder mean helpless. Helpless mentions a number of conditions the first of which the spell makes you immune to paralysis. Becuase freedom of movement gives a list of some potential examples and is not exhaustive and bound restricts movement and attacks it is reasonable to be 'virtually immune' to being bound and if you need to be 'truly free' attack the ropes or net.
It gets more complicated. Tied up is a different 'condition' than bound that requires are grapple check. This check always fails. Thus it is impossible to tie up a person that is under the effect of the spell.
Next manacles. These have clarified rules in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Path of the Hellknight pg.15.
There are many different ways they can be used all 'restrict movement' in some way but the only one 'decreases speed'. One gives you the grappled condition in a way that is very hard to reconcile with any rules at all. I have yet to pars all the ways these interact.
Nets and manacles work because they're assumed to actively be on you. With FoM they're not on you so they don't work. They just fall off. Well to be more specific you can never be held in place to have them put on you, and if have them put on first you automatically make any check to escape them.
Net's grant entanglement which FoM gets to ignore so it's like the net was never there.
PS: FoM is also not a wizard spell. It is cast by clerics, druids, and bards. I'm not sure if rangers and inquisitors get it or not.
edit: If you can grab or gag a wizard you can likely kill him. Unless you need to take him alive killing is also likely the easier option.
Sorry, but no. The spell makes no mention of automatically slipping out of anything other than grapple or pins attempts. while you can ignore the entangled condition and the movement/attack pentalties associated with that condition, you do not simply shed your bonds. The spell makes absolutely no mention of you being immune to the “bound” condition. Otherwise, you could argue that being entombed in 30ft of solid ice doesn’t stop you from moving out of it.
If you disagree, fine.
Obviously, I wasnt talking about getting out of 30 feet of ice since I never implied something that silly.
Bound is also not an official PF condition.
I also said this after I made my "falling off" statement in order to clear things up.
Well to be more specific you can never be held in place to have them put on you, and if have them put on first you automatically make any check to escape them.
<----Comment I made in my last post which you are now referring to. Now with that being said the manacle statement may be false, but the net statement is not since it just grants a a condition that FoM gets to ignore as explained below.
Now to get back to the points being made.
First I'm going to copy and paste the spell.
This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web. All combat maneuver checks made to grapple the target automatically fail. The subject automatically succeeds on any combat maneuver checks and Escape Artist checks made to escape a grapple or a pin.The spell also allows the subject to move and attack normally while underwater, even with slashing weapons such as axes and swords or with bludgeoning weapons such as flails, hammers, and maces, provided that the weapon is wielded in the hand rather than hurled. The freedom of movement spell does not, however, grant water breathing.
Also before I go any further my point was that the net and the manacles are not going to work in a real game if you follow the rules.
The spell enables you to move normally even against magical effects, and no I'm not saying it allows you to walk through walls.
I am saying that if something tries to cripple/penalize your movement such as a net then you can ignore it just like the web spell. The words "such as" are there to show magical examples, and I think most would consider a web spell to be better than a net.
The web spell actually gives the grappled condition which is more restrictive than the entangled condition.
The net tries to give you the entangle condition and FoM ignores the entangled condition by allowing you to move normally when your movement would be restricted. Since it ignores the entanglement condition there is no way to restrict spellcasting so effectively the net just falls off. I guess you could argue that the net is on the caster, but not appyling any conditions, but at that point it's not doing anything.
Now let's go to manacles.
The rules don't say how to apply manacles, but it makes sense that the potential victim would have to be compliant(not resisting), or be in a position where they can't resist.
So you'd at least need a grapple if not a pin. However you can't grapple or pin someone under FoM. It specifically says all grapple attempts fail.
However let's say you get the manacles on someone who is already grappled or pinned before FoM is activated. Then you let them go.
Manacles, Standard and Masterwork: Manacles can bind a Medium creature. A manacled creature can use the Escape Artist skill to slip free (DC 30, or DC 35 for masterwork manacles). Breaking the manacles requires a Strength check (DC 26, or DC 28 for masterwork manacles). Manacles have hardness 10 and 10 hit points.
Most manacles have locks; add the cost of the lock you want to the cost of the manacles.
For the same cost, you can buy manacles for a Small creature. For a Large creature, manacles cost 10 times the indicated amount, and for a Huge creature, 100 times the indicated amount. Gargantuan, Colossal, Tiny, Diminutive, and Fine creatures can be held only by specially made manacles, which cost at least 100 times the indicated amount.
They say nothing about restricting spellcasting, and they don't apply the grappled condition on their own.
So even if you can't just take them off it doesn't matter because they aren't doing anything to restrict casting.
Yeah I was wrong about just walking away from the manacles, but that net isn't doing anything, and the manacles still aren't going to do anything.
Just to be clear I'm not saying you would say this(what is below), but in case your argument is what I suggest below I also decided to address it in advance.
Now maybe you're going to try to argue that the net can be applied while FoM is active because "such as" isn't defined, and maybe you think the mundane net is better than the entangle spell which gives the entangle condition and you may think it's better than difficult terrian, or the staggered, paralysis, grappled, being underwater and staggered conditions.
I disagree, and I see no reason why the entangled condition would apply when more restrictive conditions do not apply.
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@wraithstrike, Your break down of FoM is correct.
Once you have FoM on, the vast majority of movement restricting effects would just fail on you.
Even something like Tanglefoot bag would fail. Its kinda covered in by FoM spell description.
@DeathlessOne,
I know you are trying to find a way to get past FoM's protections using a mundane means, but it just doesn't work that way.
You would need dispel or a Barbarian's Spell Sunder to break it.
A clever Spellcaster can dispel or better yet switch to using the environment against a target under the effects of FoM.
If you can't use black tentacle, then maybe blow up the ceiling and have it collapse on the target. FoM can't help someone trapped under a ton of rocks.
For martial characters, stop trying to grapple or restrict someone under FoM, just beat the target up! FoM don't protect a target from damage or attack of opportunities.
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Sure this messes up grapplers the same way that claws mess up disarm specialists and oozes mess up trip builds.
It's more significant as an anti-monster spell than an anti-PC spell. There are a lot of creatures in the game that rely on grapple / constrict / swallow whole. Freedom of Movement makes them far less threatening.
Regarding Grapple, Nets, or anything else where escape artist can get you out of it, I prefer the level 1 spell Liberating Command. :)
Buddy casts this on you (immediate action) and you have a significant bonus (+20 at level 10) to your escape artist check to escape (also as an immediate action).
Not the automatic negation that FoM is, but almost every spellcaster in my group carries this by the levels where grapple becomes an issue.
As for FoM being OP..I would actually say that many of the attack forms this protects you against are OP. This is an anti-OP spell.
I agree with that Gauss, that grapple is kind of overpowered.
A purpose built grappler basically shuts down anyone not built for grappling. To the point of it not being fun.
In the Zeitgeist campaign my group is playing I'm playing a grappler.
There is a combat thats supposed to take place on top of a tower with a couple minions and a spellcaster (witch I think, but can't recall exactly). Anyways, I rolled very lucky on initiative and went first. I moved into position and grappled the spell caster. Combat was over. She attempted to cast a spell, failed, and then I threatened her life saying she could either surrender and live or continue to struggle and I would kill her. She surrendered, told her minions to surrendered, and lived. Combat over after 1 PC turn.
Actions like grapple can allow you to complete shut down an enemy. Even two-handed fighter enemies can be shut down if they don't have a back up one handed weapon. FoM is the overpowered counter to the overpowered option of grappling.
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Grappling is the most powerful combat manoeuvre and can be frustrating but here is my perspective.
Before greater grapple and rapid grapple, a well-optimized grappler takes 3 round to take 1 enemy out of a fight. Without the grab, ability can't charge and grapple on the first round so has movement limitation compared to damage builds.
3 rounds to end a fight is no different than well-optimized damage builds. It may, in fact, be worse.
At level 6 you still have the movement problems but you can normally grapple round 1, then pin and tie up (if you had the rope in hand the whole time), which many players don't because of the penalties. This still leaves you two or three turns to subdue one enemy.
Grapplers crush single target fights. In multi-enemy fights, they remove themselves from combat for 3 round to remove 1 enemy from combat for the same time.
I think the action economy of grappling keeps it from being unreasonable, though it has the exact same problem as every combat in Pathfinder single enemy combats are poorly balanced.
There are obvious exceptions that can get around the action economy issues or other limitations octopus builds, cavalier dips, tetori monks but I have never found grapplers to be harder to gm for than wizards, druid, optimized archers, etc.
I typically find spells like FoM, endure elements and create food/water to be highly annoying as a GM and player for their impact on making the survival aspect against the elements and/or nature a non-issue. As a GM, if I plan an environmental encounter, I don't want it subverted by a single spell. As a player, I hate to have skilled characters have their niche trumped by one of the many spells a spellcaster can prepare, thus as a player I never take these, or Find Traps, Detect Secret Doors, Knock and the like if there is even a hint of a rogue in the group, that's their schtick, let them have their moment jimmying the lock or whathaveyou.
As for combat encounters, I don't mind FoM that much, because creatures with improved grab can often be a death sentence to most builds, and there a A LOT of creatures with improved grab. Would be happier if it had a shorter duration though