Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9414891" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I was only commenting on freedom of movement, I apologize if you felt I was taking offense with your statements about the DM's methodology- I commented on one of your other posts where I found the odds stacked against you and your fellow players to be a bit beyond the pale, and I have no reason not to believe you- I've dealt with "that DM" many, many times in the past.It's just in this instance, I could see freedom of movement interacting differently with forced movement than regular movement.  It's a grey area in the spell, because while it says "This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web.", while I see that this implies the subject's ability to move under their own power, the spell doesn't specify.The argument against that I use refers to the second paragraph of the spell description, where it states that you move and attack normally in water.  Some DM's seem to think that this would cause you to "fall" if you jump into water, but that's simply not so-[SPOILER="From the 3.5 FAQ"]"What happens when a character who has received afreedom of movement spell jumps or falls into water? MyDM seems to think that the character falls straight throughthe water and goes “splat” on the bottom. My DM explainsthat the spell eliminates all water resistance, which preventsthe character from swimming or floating.While the DM is always right, he’s followed a faulty line ofreasoning here. It’s always a bad idea to use scientific—orpseudoscientific—reasoning to adjudicate spells. In this case,your DM has erroneously supposed that water resistance hassomething to do with buoyancy. Buoyancy depends on thewater literally pushing something up toward the surface, and afreedom of movement spell doesn’t prevent that any more thanit prevents a floor from pushing up against a character’s feetand keeping him from falling through it. (You might not be inthe habit of thinking of floors as “pushing” anything, but that isthe way modern physics describes any object or body restingon any surface; the object pushes down and the surface pushesback with equal force.)In any case, the freedom of movement spell (and its cousinfrom earlier editions, the free action spell) has nothing to dowith eliminating water resistance or friction; it allows normalmovement and attacks even under conditions in which normalmovement and attacks are not possible, such as underwater orwhen webbed, held, or entangled. Exactly how the spellaccomplishes that is unrevealed—that’s what makes it magic.Your DM would have been on firmer ground (as it were) if hehad claimed that falling is a form of “normal movement” thatwater usually prevents. That, however, is not the case. “Normalmovement” in water is swimming or walking along the bottom.When a character under a freedom of movement effect enterswater, he makes a Swim check; if he fails, he cannot move, andhe sinks if he fails by 5 or more. Note that failing to makeprogress or sinking are both “normal movement” in thisinstance."[/SPOILER]Because the spell isn't clear either way, however, the DM has to make a ruling, and in this specific instance, I think your DM had the right of it.  But I do agree that how he came to this conclusion, in light of the other things you've stated, is suspect.Many DM's find themselves struggling to challenge their players, and find themselves in positions where the rules hamper their efforts, either through no fault of their own, or simply not being aware of the edge cases.  Some are quick to fall upon fiat, using their authority as "master of rules" to twist things into their favor.I've never found this to be healthy for any gaming group, and when the players feel the DM is their adversary, they become adversarial in turn- there was one DM in my memory whose rulings were so obtuse that I started to compile them in a text document and use their own rulings against them- when they argued, I simply brought up their own words.  As you can imagine, this did not help the situation.  I eventually learned that if you can't trust the DM, you really shouldn't be playing in their game, and I've taken great strides in my own games to try and earn my player's trust, by being as transparent as possible and rolling openly (I have played under a DM who rolled behind a screen and seemed able to ignore any AC when he felt a player "deserved" to take damage).It doesn't help that your group is quite powerful, and have reached the levels where 3.5 really starts to fall apart at the seams, and it seems that this is beyond your DM's ability to really handle.  I hope the campaign comes to a satisfying close, but it doesn't seem likely to occur.</blockquote>

Verification