Can a character ever be denied the 5' step?

[kreynolds]

But aren't there some spells that reduce movement below 5ft - solid fog is the only one that comes to mind, but I think Monte has one too.

Monte's is called Zone of Speed.

 

[kreynolds]

For instance, hamstringing a quadriped would reduce its movement by 1/4 since it still has three of its four legs to stagger around on.

EDIT: I wasn't paying attention.

I suppose that could work. Unfortunately, how do you explain to your players that hamstringing a quadraped 4 times doesn't simply stop it's movement all-together?

 

[kreynolds]

Take an armored halfling (move 15 ft.) hamstring him and slow him (move 7.5 ft./ round) and then cast solid fog (.75 ft. pre round) even with very liberal rounding it would be hard to justify giving this person a five foot step.

I agree, justifying it would be hard. My opposition primarily concerns Hamstring, not movement rates as a whole.

 

[Gaiden]

I guess, it just seems to make sense that if you can hamstring one leg, then you can hamstring the other. I was thinking that according to this logic, however, that then there would be an argument for simply making someone's movement 0 and that would be too powerful - right?

I had a couple of ideas - first is if you effectively hamstring all legs then movement is reduced to 5', simplifying all problems. This could then also translate to multilegged creatures - simply reducing their movement by a fraction of the amount of legs that are hamstrung.

 

[Gromm]

But aren't there some spells that reduce movement below 5ft - solid fog is the only one that comes to mind, but I think Monte has one too. I do think that it is possible to lower someone's speed below 5 based on these spells.

IceBear

But you technically still get a 5' step, its just that 5' is now 1/2 a foot.
The only way to really deny someone a 5' step is to hold, grapple, etc.
As far as multiple hamstrings, I don't know how many hamstrings you've got, but I can't really see how multiple hamstrings would work. After 2, you wouldn't be going anywhere (maybe 4 for some creatures).

 

[IceBear]

Yeah, I was just pointing out that there were spells that could lower your movement rate to the point where you couldn't move 5ft in one round, so therefore I think that there is a precedent to disallowing someone a *5* foot step.

Also, only moving 1/2 a foot doesn't get you out of your current 5-ft square so it'll be useless for "stepping back and shooting a bow" or "stepping back and casting a spell" so for all intents and purposes you don't have a 5-ft step.

IceBear