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Message: <blockquote data-quote="VorpalStare" data-source="post: 2373367" data-attributes="member: 31325">Been away for a few days. Correct, because the last action you described is a grapple attack followed by an unarmed strike within the grapple.  Of course! The type of action used in the rules follows the player's description of the character's actions. This is NOT just flavor text. Here, the player is describing what his character is doing. Players's are free to declare their actions any way they please. It is the job of the DM to determine what rules to apply to any given situation. If the player says "I hit him," you use the melee attack rules. If he says "I grab him," you go to the grapple rules. "I shoot him" --- rules for a ranged attack. "I push him off the cliff" -- use the bull rush rules, etc. So, yes, you do need to be careful in describing your actions, because different actions use different rules. On the other hand, most players just say what rules they are using ("I'm making an unarmed strike.") so that there is no ambiguity.  I think the only point on which we really disagree is whether you have to grab (and hold) someone as part of the bull rush and trip special attacks. I believe that (under most circumstances) you do, and you disagree, because the rules don't specifically say that is part of the attack. Please correct me if I am mischaracterizing your point on this. Here's the problem:Assume that a bull rush can affect a subject of the Freedom of Movement spell as you described. For purposes of illustration only, assume a medium sized attacker attempts to bull rush a medium sized defender from an adjacent 5' square. Assume also that there is room for the attacker to run past the defender if he wishes (i.e. he's not wielding a large table per the exception I described above, and it's not some creature that completly fills a 5'x5' square.). Finally, assume the defender tries to foil the attack by all means at its disposal and that the attacker executes his attack using any means not prohibited against a defender under this spell. (There's no reason to believe that the defender benefitting from this spell couldn't choose to block the bull rusher if he so wishes.)  Since the attacker must enter the same square as and move with the defender (if he moves the defender more than 5') the attack must be sustained over the distance the defender is moved (5' or more). If only brief contact was required, such as is created by a melee attack, there would be no need to enter the target's square, because this type of contact can be made within the attacker's normal reach. Therefore, the bull rush attack cannot be some form of one-time thrusting, bashing, or ordinary weapon attack, or other form of attack that knocks the defender away from the attacker. This leaves two ways to move the target out of its square, either pushing or pulling over a distance of at least 5 feet. Pulling the target requires that it be grabbed and held onto, but, as a direct consequence of the spell's protection from grapple attacks, the spell allows the target of the attack to automatically avoid being grabbed (and held on to). Likewise, forced movement side-by-side requires the attacker to hold on to the defender somehow, because, otherwise, the defender could simply pull away from the attacker and, at worst, end up in a square of its own choosing rather than the one the attacker is trying to push it into. Therefore, pushing is the only means possible to force the target out of its square (as you said.) Pushing requires the attacker to keep the defender in front of him (i.e. between himself and the square he is trying to push the defender into, which must be straight back as described under the rules for the bull rush attack). Normally, the defender can move out of the way of someone entering his square. ("You can always move through a square occupied by someone who lets you by." -- per the rules for overrun.) But the bull rush attack eliminates this option for the defender. Therefore the attack must somehow prevent the defender from moving from his position between the attacker and the square the attacker is moving towards and some other place in the square that would allow the defender to escape the attack. (Which would then require the attacker to grab and hold the defender as described above.) Normal movement by the spell recipient, in this case, defensive movement within the 5' square that it occupies, is specifically provided for in the spell description, however, and so this means of executing the bull rush attack will also fail. The only possibility remaining is that the Freedom of Movement spell prevents a bull rush attack from succeeding, under the assumptions described.  Let's examine this logic. FoM protects you from being entangled, because that condition impedes your movement. Therefore, the spell will protect you from being entangled by a net, because its description (PHB p. 119) uses the magic word "entangled." Consequently, someone can be protected from a weapon that impedes their movement and covers their entire body, but not one that does the same thing to only their ankles or legs, like several tripping weapons described in the PHB. This is nonsensical. If the greater effect is protected against, the lesser effect is as well. Furthermore, ALL of the tripping weapons in the PHB work (according to their individual descriptions) through impeding the free movement of the target's legs (or other movement-related appendages, presumably). How can the spell enable the subject to move normally if it can't move its legs freely? It can't. The spell must protect the subject against trip attacks, not because it says so in its description, but because the spell could not have the effects described if it didn't.  I agree with you about the powerful nature of this spell, but I'm on the fence about wether it is overpowered or not. The spell fills a critical niche, in that a large proportion of the abilities (spell casting) of several classes are almost completely shut down by a single attack type (grapple, and being pinned at higher levels) that all creatures have, but total immunity is a very strong effect. If Freedom of Movement does need to be rebalanced, however, throwing common sense out the window is not the right answer. The best house rule I've seen so far is to replace the "automatic" success on defensive grapple and escape artist checks with a significant bonus on the die roll. In this case, I'd suggest +20 on the roll, thereby allowing the spell recipient to completely ignore grapple attacks from creatures with a smaller grapple bonus. In the game I played with this rule (with a grapple/trip oriented monk), the bonus was +50. The magnitude of the bonus was irrelevant, however, as the only time my character benefited from the rule, the monster had an arbitrarily high grapple bonus, and my defensive roll of over 100 (!) was not sufficient to escape.</blockquote>

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