What are some things in the game that might warrant having a heightened freedom of movement spell cast?
I took it as a sorcerer signature spell four levels ago, and I don't recall having ever cast it. So now I'm wondering if there is any reason at all in this game. What abilities exist that it could defend against?
Black Tentacles is a 5th level spell. Really ruined my party's day when the spellcasting boss filled the room with it before any of them could move. They had a lousy time making even a handful of Escape rolls that day.
Black Tentacles is a 5th level spell. Really ruined my party's day when the spellcasting boss filled the room with it before any of them could move. They had a lousy time making even a handful of Escape rolls that day.
Wouldn't they still grab you round after round you were in the area? Being able to automatically escape doesn't mean they can't still grab you and waste your actions in the first place.
Best case after being tentacle wrapped woth freedom of movement, you lose two actions: one to escape and another to move out of the area.
If the effect is not magical, then you only need the level 4 version of Freedom of Movement.
You would only need a heightened version of the spell if you want it to negate parts of other spells. And then it only works on spells of lower level than itself.
Some cantrips that it would work on are Tanglefoot, the speed reduction of a critical hit of Ray of Frost, and the Psychic Amp version of Mage Hand.
Similar to Ray of Frost, there is the focus spell Clinging Ice that has a speed penalty that could be ignored.
Entangle, Magical Fetters.
I think it works on parts of Oneiric Mire also. It wouldn't do anything about the difficult terrain, but it would negate the Immobilized condition.
it's kind of like saying that as a bridge player I shouldn't bother learning how to execute a compound squeeze because I've never seen it come up at the table. Soon as I decide to forget about it, it'll come up. :-)
Black Tentacles is a 5th level spell. Really ruined my party's day when the spellcasting boss filled the room with it before any of them could move. They had a lousy time making even a handful of Escape rolls that day.Wouldn't they still grab you round after round you were in the area? Being able to automatically escape doesn't mean they can't still grab you and waste your actions in the first place.
Best case after being tentacle wrapped woth freedom of movement, you lose two actions: one to escape and another to move out of the area.
You're not wrong, but you'll lose a lot more actions if you keep trying to escape while wasting MAP (they haven't errata'd that yet, have they?) and even worse still if there is no place you can move where the tentacles can't find you.
Not arguing that it's good or necessary to heighten FoM, just wanted to share the anecdote/example of the first higher-level grappling spell that came to mind. I expect there are possibly monsters with bespoke supernatural restraining abilities but that is mere conjecture.
What do you mean by "wasting MAP"?
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The escape action has the attack trait. So each time you attempt it, your multiple attack penalty increases.
It is not a mistake that will be errated. It is an important part of grappling.
To clarify, I didn't think it was a mistake, but I only vaguely recall some debate and discussion followed by an errata to something with relation to the attack trait, which was further debated and discussed. I couldn't remember in the moment whether the errata changed how the attack trait worked on certain actions. My inopportune choice of the word 'yet' seems to have induced unnecessary confusion.
And yeah, attempting an Escape check eats up your best attack of the round if you started your turn with it, or is very unlikely to succeed if you instead attempt to end with your throwaway third action. Fortunately, the only penalty for a critical failure is that you cannot attempt again, which if it was already your final action of the round is no real issue.
(Incidentally, having time now to go to errata and see what had changed, I realize that the 'change' was simply confirmation that the attack trait worked the way we thought it did in the first place--applying MAP to all rolls with the attack trait whether skill check or attack roll.)
