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stunned freedom of movement


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Warning: Silly post ahead. Read at your own risk, or at least your own pace.

SRD - Conditions said:
Dying: A dying character is unconscious and near death. She has –1 to –9 current hit points. A dying character can take no actions and is unconscious. At the end of each round (starting with the round in which the character dropped below 0 hit points), the character rolls d% to see whether she becomes stable. She has a 10% chance to become stable. If she does not, she loses 1 hit point. If a dying character reaches –10 hit points, she is dead.
SRD - Conditions said:
Dead: The character’s hit points are reduced to –10, his Constitution drops to 0, or he is killed outright by a spell or effect.
The character’s soul leaves his body. Dead characters cannot benefit from normal or magical healing, but they can be restored to life via magic. A dead body decays normally unless magically preserved, but magic that restores a dead character to life also restores the body either to full health or to its condition at the time of death (depending on the spell or device). Either way, resurrected characters need not worry about rigor mortis, decomposition, and other conditions that affect dead bodies.

You will note that the "Dead" condition never says you can't act. That description is reserved for the "Dying". So once you're dead, you resume normal actions, by the SRD.

And to clarify - While a dead person may or may not be conscious, the Unconscious condition never says that you can't act either.
SRD - Conditions said:
Unconscious: Knocked out and helpless. Unconsciousness can result from having current hit points between –1 and –9, or from nonlethal damage in excess of current hit points.

Hey, I warned you that it was a silly post. Don't blame me if you went ahead and read it anyway. :)
 

Nobody is talking about magic items here.

What part of "it doesn't matter" do you not comprehend?

Fighters can take purely mental actions. The fact that they don't have many, most of the time, is completely irrelevant.

[EDIT: Additional example of a martial class with a purely mental action: Barbarians entering a rage. This is available from level 1, and is completely nonmagical.]

Now a mental action cannot be substituted for a move action nor can it be for a standard action except to cast spells.

For someone telling people to go read the rules, you should really follow your own advice.

There are purely mental standard, swift, immediate, and move actions out there. Someone who is paralyzed can take all their normal actions on their turn, so long as they are purely mental.

FoM does not prevent you from being stunned.
 
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What part of "it doesn't matter" do you not comprehend?

Fighters can take purely mental actions. The fact that they don't have many, most of the time, is completely irrelevant.



For someone telling people to go read the rules, you should really follow your own advice.

There are purely mental standard, swift, immediate, and move actions out there. Someone who is paralyzed can take all their normal actions on their turn, so long as they are purely mental.

FoM does not prevent you from being stunned.

Actually I have already posted the rules. Please list me some purely mental actions that the Fighter is going to be able to take advantage of to help him out in this situation.

You can't prove that FoM doesn't protect you from Stunned.

There are currently lots of forums with this same thing and nobody has a definite and factual answer.

To the OP: This is a DM decision about whether or not it works.
 

You need to go and read the rules over again. You have to actually be able to make a grapple check in order for you to auto succeed. Stunning keeps you from doing anything.

Look at this from the Illithid's point of view first: it's attempting a grapple against a stunned fighter with FoM. It makes a touch attack, which succeeds - simple, really, since the Fighter loses his Dex bonus to AC and takes a further -2 penalty on top of that. Next, it makes an opposed grapple check to establish a hold. If it succeeds, it is now grappling the stunned Fighter.

What does that mean for the Fighter? He has to roll a grapple check even though he can't take an action. That is because the Illithid has taken an action that requires an opposed grapple check. The Fighter has FoM running, so he auto-succeeds on his grapple check to oppose the Illithid's grapple attempt. The grapple attempt consequently fails.

What that means is the following: once FoM is up, everybody who takes an action against the spell's recipient that would require an opposed grapple check will be unsuccessful.

Note that if the Illithid had been grappling the Fighter first, before he received the FoM spell, the Illithid could not continue damaging the Fighter or attach the rest of his tentacles, because those require opposed grapple checks. But the Fighter wouldn't automaticall come free, either, but would remain grappled until he could take an action to escape from the grapple.
 

Actually I have already posted the rules. Please list me some purely mental actions that the Fighter is going to be able to take advantage of to help him out in this situation.
Nobody ever said that his mental actions would be effective, or "help him out in this situation". Sometimes you just don't have any good choices, and that's the end of it.

But to the point, while stunned he doesn't have any actions, mental or otherwise. Says so in the rules, plain as day, in simple black and white. Your argument that this somehow makes it a DM's call whether or not he gets to act looks like a case of wishful thinking.

His movement is not impaired or impeded by the Stunned condition. He can take a 5 foot move, which does not call for a move action. This movement is not impeded in any way, so FOM wouldn't kick in.
 

Nobody ever said that his mental actions would be effective, or "help him out in this situation". Sometimes you just don't have any good choices, and that's the end of it.

But to the point, while stunned he doesn't have any actions, mental or otherwise. Says so in the rules, plain as day, in simple black and white. Your argument that this somehow makes it a DM's call whether or not he gets to act looks like a case of wishful thinking.

His movement is not impaired or impeded by the Stunned condition. He can take a 5 foot move, which does not call for a move action. This movement is not impeded in any way, so FOM wouldn't kick in.

You do realize that it specifically says in the description for Stunned that the person can take "no" action.

Taking a 5 foot step is an action. Ever notice that crazy word in there "action"? Notice in Stunned it says you "can't" take any "actions"?

This goes for moving or anything. Free actions are actions as well.
 

You do realize that it specifically says in the description for Stunned that the person can take "no" action.

Taking a 5 foot step is an action. Ever notice that crazy word in there "action"? Notice in Stunned it says you "can't" take any "actions"?

This goes for moving or anything. Free actions are actions as well.

I didn't notice that crazy word, because that word action is never mentioned for 5 ft step. Free actions are actions, I agree. FIVE FOOT STEP IS NOT A FREE ACTION, though.
 

Actually I have already posted the rules. Please list me some purely mental actions that the Fighter is going to be able to take advantage of to help him out in this situation.
Dodge [General]

Prerequisite

Dex 13.
Benefit

During your action, you designate an opponent and receive a +1 dodge bonus to Armor Class against attacks from that opponent. You can select a new opponent on any action.
A condition that makes you lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (if any) also makes you lose dodge bonuses. Also, dodge bonuses stack with each other, unlike most other types of bonuses.
Special

A fighter may select Dodge as one of his fighter bonus feats.
 
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As has been pointed out, more than once, 5 foot steps aren't free actions.

But let's play along. The condition of "stunned" doesn't impede movement. Or if it does, it does it in the same way that "dying" does. It simply denies you any actions.

So I'll ask again: Would FOM keep you from dying? Would it keep you from entering that state?

Would FOM allow you to move when it isn't your action?

If you can legitimately answer "yes" to any of those questions, you may have an argument. And I emphasize, "may". I'll still ask you to back up the claim.

The end result may be the same, in that you can't move, but the spell doesn't address the end result, only one possible cause of that result.
 

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