The tanglefoot cantrip gives a spammable (short) range entangle. It appears to give no save.
1) is the skill check to break the entagke an immediate check on the part of the target ( save-like) or simply a choice for it's actions next turn. I was adjudicating as the latter
2) are there rules for entagled flying creatures? Winged versus innately flying.
This cantrip seemed vastly overpowered against flying creatures at least as I interpreted the rules, but I might have missed stuff.
There is no save because it requires an attack roll. I believe few spells now have both.
The skill check is an option on its turn.
Entanglement doesn't stop creatures from running (or flying) around, it just slows them down. This is the sum total of entanglements' effects:
A snare or another entrapping effect holds you back. You’re hampered 10 (see the condition). If you attempt a manipulate action, activity, free action, or reaction while entangled, you must succeed at a DC 5 flat check or it is lost; attempt the check after using it but before any effects are applied.
Your Speed is reduced. Hampered is always followed by a number indicating by how many feet the condition reduces your Speed. This condition can’t reduce your Speed below 5 feet. If the condition doesn’t specify which of your movement types it applies to, it applies to all of them. You can have both the accelerated and hampered conditions at the same time, so if you were accelerated 10 and hampered 15, your Speed would be reduced by 5 feet.
However, if you get a critical success and your target is therefore also immobilized,
You can’t use any action, activity, free action, or reaction that has the move trait. If an external force would move you out of your space, it must succeed at a check against either the DC of the effect rooting you or the relevant defense (usually Fortitude DC) of a monster rooting you, as appropriate.
That means they can't use the Fly action, and the Fly action specifies (page 309) that if you're airborne at the end of your turn and didn't use a Fly action at all, you fall. So if they don't manage to remove the immobile condition and subsequently take a Fly action they'll fall, regardless of the type of flying. Note that they are still able to attempt the Arrest a Fall reaction to land gently, as that does not have the move trait.
#2 brings up an interesting logical error with the rule as written. There are plenty of floating creatures (like say a flumph) that don't need to physically be able to move their limbs to be able to move.
Which brings up a larger issue in this edition: the arbitrariness of a lot of mechanics. It feels like people put so much brain sweat into trying to craft mechanics that are airtight, balanced and impossible to abuse that it seems like creativity and modelling what's actually happening have become distant concerns...and that just feels wrongheaded.
Tanglefoot bags (and consequently the spell) aren't just useful because they slow enemies. You can use them for all sorts of clever things and there's all sorts of corner cases (like the flumph) where they don't work at all. Say you hold an action against a creature that's a spellcaster and wait for them to look like they're about to cast something, then you hit them with a tanglefoot bag? Well that's going to probably disrupt the casting. Say there's a monster that's about to swallow you and you toss the tanglefoot right in it's face--well it's probably suffocating, maybe even blinded. Tag a monster with a two handed axe on a backswing and you might goo it's magic weapon to a wall, trapping its weapon. Heck, it's even a good on the fly adhesive--say there's a foe that's looking for an item you have, hide it in a pile of tanglefoot goo on the ceiling and you've made it a lot less likely they'll find it--even if you're captured.
Clever stuff. Fun stuff. Perhaps even *gasp* unbalanced stuff. But it's a lot of why people roleplay. This edition could use some more of that.
Tag a monster with a two handed axe on a backswing and you might goo it's magic weapon to a wall, trapping its weapon.
Tanglefoot bag literally can't do that. "Strike" does not have the Manipulate trait.
And yet, despite its 'impossibility' in the mechanics it's something that very easily could be imagined to happen in the narrative of the game...which is precisely my point. We've gotten so obsessed with pinning things down with strict mechanical definitions that we care more about the numbers than what's happening in the game.
I assume you were equally irritated with the impossibility of doing this in PF1? Because this isn't new with PF2.
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At least in PF1 it actually stuck people to the floor...
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And yet, despite its 'impossibility' in the mechanics it's something that very easily could be imagined to happen in the narrative of the game...which is precisely my point. We've gotten so obsessed with pinning things down with strict mechanical definitions that we care more about the numbers than what's happening in the game.
Yes, it’s really weird that people playing a game would be concerned with what the rules allow. Calvinball, the RPG, would be a huge seller.
I assume you were equally irritated with the impossibility of doing this in PF1? Because this isn't new with PF2.
Yeah totally. One of my main purposes here in the playtest is to hopefully advocate for more flexible, open-ended rules that give players more sweet freedom and let GMs run games with a little more story flavor and a little less straightjacket. Granted I'm under no illusion that folks like me make up the majority of Pathfinder players, but I think we're a faction, and that it's hopefully meaningful to the discussion to be contributing a different, maybe even dissenting, point of view.
Yes, it’s really weird that people playing a game would be concerned with what the rules allow. Calvinball, the RPG, would be a huge seller.
See here's what I think is probably a big difference between how I see gaming and how you do. For you, I take it, gaming is first and foremost a game and it runs on a spectrum running from Calvinball on one side to maybe a really dense eurogame on the other. The idea is to know all the rules and play the game well, eat some chips and drink some soda, maybe tell some Monte Python jokes.
My take on gaming is that I want to tell the stories of the characters who come to my table. I'm mostly concerned with setting and lore, how the characters relate to each other and how their agendas might mesh together. I need a framework of rules for that, but mostly just when I need to figure out how a particular thing works out. I dip into the rules, roll the dice, mull over how that relates to the issue at hand, and we're back off to the races with the story.
I don't play it like a game...in fact for me the game part of it is largely disposable and frequently gets in the way. It is the means to an end of telling a fun story for my players that weaves all of their stories together and hopefully resolves their business in a satisfying way. That is, if they don't get eaten.
Stuff that's great for me is when a new mechanic saves me time and fuss, or when it offers a new bit of spotlight to shine on our characters (like the new Backgrounds), or when the rules get tidied up so they make more sense (like with the new Alchemists--which make much more sense), or when you get new options (goblins as PCs is great!), or when there's some new bit of lore where a monster suddenly becomes more meaningful and connects to a bit of setting plot or to other monsters. That's the stuff I laud when it comes up. But fundamentally when I play I want the rules to provide a loose structure that doesn't get in my way--or at least to be modular enough that I can pick the rules up and move them out of my way without the entire system imploding. I think I just value different stuff.
So yeah, we still play and laugh and eat chips and soda and make the same jokes--but I think at the end of the day I'm probably on the complete other end of roleplaying games than you are. And I think that's okay.