HR Entangled....

Need some help with this. I have two druids in my current campaign and the thread over on the Rules Forum got me thinking the spell needed clarification in order to avoid arguments later in the game.

So, if I can get some feedback to improve these thought before I hit may players with it...

HR version: Entangle
Transmutation
Level: Drd 1, Plant 1, Rgr1
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: Plants in a 40-ft.-radius spread
Duration: 1 min./level (D)
Saving Throw: Reflex partial; see text
Spell Resistance: No

Grasses, weeds, bushes, and even tree branches wrap, twist, and entwine about creatures in the area or those that enter the area, holding them fast and causing them to become entangled and anchored by the plants. If the creature succeeds at a REF save vs the spell, they are not entangled but still face hampered movement. The creature can break free as a standard action with a Strength check or a Escape Artist check against a DC based on the type of plant that is entangling them {see table below}. Each round on your turn, the plants once again attempt to entangle all creatures that have avoided or escaped entanglement.
Each affected square is treated as if having an obstacle which requires 5' of movement to clear.
Individual plants and squares of terrain gain special properties.
Creatures can destroy the plants within a square by attacking, preferably with fire or slashing weapons.


Entangling Plants: All Entangling plants have Vulnerablity to Fire and are not affected by damage from Bludgening or Piercing weapons.
· Massive Trees: { These trees are too large to be affected by the spell.}
· Trees: AC 4, HP 150, hardness 5, Height 35, DC 20
· Thicket: AC 5, HP 40, DC 20, restricts movement to 5' per round
· Heavy Underbrush: AC 2, HP 20, DC 20, X4 multiplier to movement
· Light Underbrush: AC 2, HP 10, DC 15, X2 multiplier to movement
· Grass/Weeds/etc: AC 2, HP 5, DC 10


Comments: Use of this spell requires that the terrain layout is done properly in advance for encounters. The DMG has rudimentary rules for this.

Other versions, of which I have no idea where to put into the spell levels..
{edited out for clarity...}


Thanks for helping me out!

This spell looks even worse!

Feedback...?

Thanks Ogrork, I will contemplate your incitefull comments in my quest to improve on the RAW version of this spell.

Yes, you've made it even more absurdly overpowered. Entangle is already the best damned 1st-level spell ever, whyever did you feel the need to make the trees and stuff actually hurt the people they're entangling? And have all kinds of different stats and such?

Magic animates the plants, so it's not like they need to be treated like creatures. They don't draw folks closer to them; they just pin them in place, that's all they're animated to do. They don't cause damage from strangulation or squeezing or slapping or whatnot; they're only animated to hold creatures still, and the magic gives them just enough strength to try holding critters in place. The size of the critter should not help.

Now I don't even know exactly what your version is supposed to do; does it cause the listed damage each round based on what plants are holding them? What if a critter is standing in a field of grass or between two trees? Do they all grab onto him/her and start crushing and tearing and pulling them apart? Your version makes even less sense and has even less clarity than the original spell. Sorry.

The plants do not need strength or damage reduction or damage dice. They are inanimate objects in almost every regard. Their magically-animated movement is only supposed to grab onto and hold creatures in place. They do not try dodging. They do not try smacking or crushing their victims. They do not vary in Strength with size or material, because they have no muscles or anything, the only thing giving them mobility is MAGIC, so only the MAGIC should determine how strong they all are; and it's just enough strength to hold critters in place. The plants are not critters themselves, so they do not need ability scores or anything. Trees and bushes might have the default amount of Hardness appropriate to a wooden object. Other plants will not have any Hardness, nor Damage Reduction or anything. One good sweep of a sharp sword should destroy a swath of grass, ferns, or other such flimsy/fragile plants, so perhaps you might want to give the option of a full-round action spent chopping away all Entangling plants in a square (but only for characters not Entangled themselves), if the creature has a slashing weapon handy.

Consider that it is magic making the plants animate, and making them grow long enough (temporarily) to Entangle critters. So likely, the reason why the rules don't already cover such chopping-away, is because the plants probably just grow back into place as they get hacked away, making the effort futile. A Fireball spell, a Blight spell, a Diminish Plants spell, or a simple Dispel Magic should do the trick. Burning Hands should be sufficient to burn away a small swath of growth sufficient to keep it from regrowing for a bit, but then, who knows?

Now maybe you want to make some higher-level versions of Entangle that grant these extra stats and whatnot for the entangling plants, but there is no way in hell that the 1st-level Entangle spell should ever be improved from its Core version. It already makes 2nd-level Web look like a kinda stupid investment for arcane casters.

I think if you keep Entangle as-is except the penalty is for the not-tied-down Entangle, then it works.

Clarification..

My goal is to codify the side issues not addressed by the RAW, such as how to destroy the plants holding you down. As such, they need AC, HP, etc.
The tree's stats I pulled from the DMG. The underbrush I scaled down from the trees. Light underbrush should be able to be destroyed rather quickly

Adding the concept of reach to the plants to allow vines, willow tree's and such to stretch out over roads or rivers to grasp at the targets. I was thinking of the tree's drawing the creatures in ala LOTR and a couple other fantasy novels out there

Added the difficult terrain to reflect the added care a creature has to spend in avoiding entanglement while moving. In RP speak it could be either careful dodging of plants, or the plants santching and and delaying progress without completely entangling.

Added clarification of how size matters.


In essence, this edited version is virtually a duplicate of the RAW.

Arkhandus said:

So likely, the reason why the rules don't already cover such chopping-away, is because the plants probably just grow back into place as they get hacked away, making the effort futile.

Click to expand...

Not at all. The spell does not call into being, grow, increase, or otherwise manipulate the plants. It uses existing plants. The likely reason the rules don't cover chopping-away is because its a 1st ed spell and no WOTC person thought to add that piece.

Added Ogrork's suggestion of scaled DC's based on available plants.

I think the changes you propose make the spell more complex than is necessary. You allude to this briefly when you say that "Use of this spell requires that the terrain layout is done properly in advance for encounters." That's easier said than done. Actually doing all this could be quite burdensome for a DM; it is much easier to generalize about the environment than to place every tree and sapling.

And is it even necessary to treat trees differently than bushes or tall grass? Logically it seems that heavy trees should hamper the targets of the spell more than tall grass could; you accordingly make the DC a whopping 25 for the former and an easy 10 for the latter. But it is just as logical to assume that a spell could not animate massive quantities of wood as effectively as a bit of grass; the heavy branches don't squeeze the victim quite as firmly, and so they are as easy to break free from as the light underbrush even though they are much stronger. In other words, it makes just as much sense to maintain a flat DC as a variable one. (Provided there is a certain minimal amount of vegetation. The spell needs something to work with, after all).

This would make it unnecessary to have a precise map of the local vegetation.

As for some of the other changes- well, the size modifier sounds good at first. Large creatures are stronger and more massive, and so should be able to break free more easily. But since they are larger, they are next to more plants that could entangle them, so any bonus from their size would be more or less cancelled by a size-based penalty. And a creature's size automatically gives them greater strength; they don't need an additional modifier based on size to reflect how well they can break free. So the size modifier, while it sounds nice, is arguably unnecessary.

I don't want to be entirely negative; I do like the notion that a slashing weapon would help get out of entanglement. An adventurer with a machete should escape more easily than one without. But rather than calculate hit points, maybe just a bonus to the strength/escape artist check? A flat +2 or even a +4 bonus should be enough.

It seems to me that the main problem with entangle is the excessively (IMHO) high DC to break free. And of course you have to remember that creatures get to move the round they break free, possibly escaping the area. But the simplest solution seems to be to lower the DC. Make it a DC 15 strength or escape artist check instead of DC 20. Add a few circumstantial modifiers as necessary (e.g. for having appropriate slashing weapons) and you are done.

Just my two c.p.

I agree that the complexity rises with mapping the terrain.. however the terrain should already be mapped to this level as the DMG/SRD talks about the enviroment and having trees provide a bonus to AC, underbrush causing movement issues, etc.

Yes, it is easier to just say the entire area is covered with light underbrush, but one of the balancing factors on the spell in question is that it only provides an effect on the plant life currently present. When the entire area is granted enough plantlife to be useful, the spell then becomes that much more powerful.

THe reason I was thining of using HPs for the plants is also for Fireball.. currently there is no guidelines for fireballing a person free of the entanglement. Or burning the field prior to the battle. The bonus to escape makes sense as well, it just doesn't address the altering of the battle field.
If we assume a base amount of plant life across the field and dont worry about clearing portions of it, then a bonus for slashing would be good...

Perhaps, alter the spell so it does raise up plants in the area, STR check vs DC of 15 + Casting Druid level, +2 bonus is using a slashing weapon, +6 bonus if area has been fireballed. ?

Eh... For my use, I would prefer a detailed map as I also use broken logs and other terrain features to make the game less CRPGish. Which leans more to stating the plants...

BTW, thanks for the input.. I was thinking of ditching this thread as, despite the clamoring of 'broken', no real effort was evident for change


Oh.. the Massive Trees, with thier Whopping DC 25, only exist in Heavy Forests... jungle type terrain or ... just had a thought. Massive trees are too big for the AoE of the spell

The DC 10 for Light Underbrush is also taking into account that the square already imposes a X2 modifier to movement. The spell doubles this to X4. Heavy Underbrush has a hefty cost of X6.

Primitive Screwhead said:

Perhaps, alter the spell so it does raise up plants in the area, STR check vs DC of 15 + Casting Druid level, +2 bonus is using a slashing weapon, +6 bonus if area has been fireballed. ?

Click to expand...

Really bad idea. That would make the strength check what, DC 35 for a 20th level druid. At that point, anyone much weaker than a raging 20th level half-orc barbarian needs to have the area fireballed before he can possibly make the strength check to break free.

Eh... For my use, I would prefer a detailed map as I also use broken logs and other terrain features to make the game less CRPGish. Which leans more to stating the plants...

Click to expand...

I agree with this. The game is better when maps are more detailed. However, I'm not convinced that statting the plants with reach is necessary. If you're drawing a detailed map, you can already put the radius of a willow tree's canopy on the map and I think that detailing what would essentially be threatened areas for ever patch of undergrowth and tree in a 40 radius on a detailed map would make the spell take an unacceptable amount of time to adjudicate. Much better to have it only apply to those particular squares and maybe to add a new category or other (like moderate grass) that would not normally justify a terrain type but can put up a DC 10 entangle.

The DC 10 for Light Underbrush is also taking into account that the square already imposes a X2 modifier to movement. The spell doubles this to X4. Heavy Underbrush has a hefty cost of X6.

Click to expand...

How do you imagine light underbrush? I would have thought it at least a DC 15 if we're talking cornstalks and elephant grass. DC 10 is something that might take a fit person for 6-12 seconds to break free from. I would figure that more for the 2-3' high weeds in an abandoned city lot if they all suddenly started wrapping around your ankles.