Unfettered Movement vs Paralyze

[Boonaza]

Greetings fellow Pathfinders!

I’m a 1e GM learning 2e, and I have a question about a spell interaction.

In 1e, Freedom of movement would protect the caster from a variety of effects, including hold person. In the better codified 2e, it seems that Unfettered movement now works against “immobilized” and conditions that reduce movement, etc.

Hold person was likewise updated to give the “paralyzed” condition, matching its new name.

Notably, Paralyzed is not mentioned as a condition prevented by freedom of movement.

Does this mean these two spells no longer interact? And if so, what spell (if any) has replaced freedom of movement as the “anti-paralysis ward”?

Thanks!

[YuriP]

Paralized is a condition that you can't use Escape that's why Unfettered Movement doesn't work with it.

Once that Paralized it's your body being unable to move by itself it's countered only by things that removes the condition like Sure Footing and many items/feats that are able to remove the condition.

[Boonaza]

Okay, that makes sense. So you could use sure footing or other things to remove the condition. Is there nothing that prevents it ahead of time?

[Claxon]

Boonaza wrote:

Okay, that makes sense. So you could use sure footing or other things to remove the condition. Is there nothing that prevents it ahead of time?

No, but with the incapacitation trait and 4 levels of success it's generally not as bad as you might think (being used on players or NPCs).

Lower (than party) level NPCs are unlikely to get a lot out of it because you would need to crit fail (not common) and even then it's still only 1 round of paralysis. This cuts the same way for PCs trying to use it on higher level NPCs.

Paralysis is really only a big deal (IMO) on a critically failed save.

[Finoan]

Claxon wrote:

the incapacitation trait and 4 levels of success it's generally not as bad as you might think

Yes. I think the 4 degrees of success is the bigger change.

In PF1 there are only two levels of success: 'save', or 'suck'.

In PF2 those extremes were renamed to 'critical success' and 'critical failure' and pushed 10 dice values away from the standard DC. Then two new degrees of success were created, named 'success' and 'failure'.

The impact of getting a success or failure on the spell results are rather reasonable.

The Paralyze spell gives Stunned 1 on a success and Paralyzed for 1 round on a fail.

Dominate also gives Stunned 1 on a success. It gives Controlled for up to a day on a failure, but they get a new Will save every combat round to end the effect.

Cursed Metamorphosis (renamed Baleful Polymorph) gives Sickened 1 on a success and can end the condition with their own actions as normal. Failure transforms them into a harmless creature, but leaves their mind intact (though it does prevent spellcasting because of the Polymorph trait on the spell). The target can spend an entire turn of actions to get a new save against the spell.

The target has to critically fail the save on these spells in order to get the truly 'suck' result. That is also where the Incapacitation trait comes in to play. The PCs using the spells against a boss enemy won't even have 'suck' be an option. Similarly, mooks that happen to be able to cast the spell won't be able to make the PCs 'suck' either. No pre-planned prevention countermeasures needed.

[Claxon]

Yep, you explained it much more eloquently than I did but that's what I was trying to get it.

Finoan wrote:

No pre-planned prevention countermeasures needed.

And this is what I was really driving at. Under most success/fail conditions, you're at most out 1 round. Which does suck, but it's not like Hold Person of old (unless you crit fail) that you're completely negated for combat. It's also important to note that unless there are an overwhelming number of enemies it's also not feasible to kill any character (PC or NPC) in that single round of combat.