TOPIC: Proposed change to Free Movement

This is the current definition of Free Movement as seen in the PHB:
Immunity to constriction, hold, paralyze, and slow Spells or effects, as well as a spider's webbing or similar sticky substances. It also negates underwater movement penalties.

This definition is so broad, it makes designing fun/interesting encounters very problematic. I can't tell you the number of times we've had an idea for a room that would have been fun to play, but we couldn't use because FM negates it. If FM was something only very few players had, this wouldn't be such a big deal. But since nearly all characters have FM, that fun challenge gets nerfed into oblivion.

We're considering making FM only negate magical movement restrictions, not mundane. FM would still negate the effects of hold, paralyze, slow, and web Spells. However, things like constriction/being grabbed by a large by a monster, non-magical webbing/sticky stuff, and movement penalties in natural fluids would still affect a character with FM.

Whaddya'll think?

I Love it

+1

I'm afraid what we will see is room design that uses only the things that Free Movement doesn't negate, effectively making those tokens useless.

I imagine it would go like:
"let's give this monster a hold spell"
"Nah, too many players have Free Movement, let's give it sticky webs instead"

If you promise (in writing, in black *wink) to design at least as many encounters that ARE affected by Free Movement as one's that aren't, then this change seems reasonable. If not, please allow us to exchange our Beads of the Lucky Traveler for another Relic we will actually use.

Few things create worse feelings with token collectors than being told "no, token doesn't work against that".

Question - is the problem more tied to the Bead of the Lucky Traveler and the fact that we have 3 bead slots and minimal slot contention as opposed to FM?

I ask because there are only 8 sources of FM listed in token DB + defender set (not listed in token DB under free action). It mostly comes from pants and boots, and there is a lot of contention in those two slots.

Perhaps a better solution would be to nerf Lucky Traveler? If you promised to never expand the bead slot, the slot contention problem would eventually solve itself, but I imagine there are bead expanders imminent in the future.

I think Dergidan brings up the other side of the problem.

Well. Is the problem that FM is too common or that Lucky Traveler is too common? Because the latter ...

Currently, bead slot has actual competition for tokens to some minor degree. With further expansion, it can have enough competition that people can choose to have FM or not, as the other ways of FM are vastly less common at a certain level of play.

As long as there is a BiS option that gives FM, then are stuck [sic]. If there's slot competition, then ... unstuck?

Dergidan wrote: I'm afraid what we will see is room design that uses only the things that Free Movement doesn't negate, effectively making those tokens useless.

I imagine it would go like:
"let's give this monster a hold spell"
"Nah, too many players have Free Movement, let's give it sticky webs instead"

If you promise (in writing, in black *wink) to design at least as many encounters that ARE affected by Free Movement as one's that aren't, then this change seems reasonable. If not, please allow us to exchange our Beads of the Lucky Traveler for another Relic we will actually use.

Few things create worse feelings with token collectors than being told "no, token doesn't work against that".

I'm generally in favor of the change, but do share Degidan's concerns. I do know several times recently in VTD there were effects that may have been cool, completely negated by FM. In in person TD, more players will run up against these type effects as newer players may not have the counter to FM restrictions. So maybe this is slightly less of a concern than VTD has revealed...but I still agree the current FM definition is too broad.

Still, players like to feel smart for make good token choices, there is always satisfaction when you find out you beat a FM effect, or you equipped IS: Topez Sphere and find out the monster deals darkrift or you equip IS: Iridescent Spindle and there is an effect that effects breathing. Feeling smart is satisfying! In the last two examples, those are definitely design decisions, because they are not near BiS, so giving up something better and being reward for a good choice is great. Choices are good as well. But FM is so easy to equip at all levels that it's not hard to have that ability.

So if this can be done in a way that the players still feel smart for making a token choice, then all the better. But as I said up front I generally in favor to stimulate cool encounter design.

What if: freedom of movement grants a saving throw vs the same effects, vs. no FOM characters that would fail automatically?

This deviates from the D&D spell, but would still be universally applied. The save could determined by difficulty or by individual room. I think this prevents people from asking if FOM should apply or not.

I'm comfortable with the idea of a nerf as long as it's still somewhat applicable.

One of my earliest TD memories is getting told an item doesn't do anything because it specified natural insects.

Endgame wrote: Question - is the problem more tied to the Bead of the Lucky Traveler and the fact that we have 3 bead slots and minimal slot contention as opposed to FM?

I ask because there are only 8 sources of FM listed in token DB + defender set (not listed in token DB under free action). It mostly comes from pants and boots, and there is a lot of contention in those two slots.

Perhaps a better solution would be to nerf Lucky Traveler? If you promised to never expand the bead slot, the slot contention problem would eventually solve itself, but I imagine there are bead expanders imminent in the future.

Ian Lee wrote: I think Dergidan brings up the other side of the problem.

Well. Is the problem that FM is too common or that Lucky Traveler is too common? Because the latter ...

Currently, bead slot has actual competition for tokens to some minor degree. With further expansion, it can have enough competition that people can choose to have FM or not, as the other ways of FM are vastly less common at a certain level of play.

As long as there is a BiS option that gives FM, then are stuck [sic]. If there's slot competition, then ... unstuck?

+1 well said

If "nearly all players" have a five-star relic, then either I do way too many PUG's or I play a completely different game from the rest of you. Admittedly, I do have a Bead myself, but that's 100% because of Laz's generosity, and I would never have one were it not for him (and my skill in picking NFL games).

Before then, I was mostly relying on Earcuff of Freedom, but that was unreliable because PUG's don't have Bards all that often.

I agree that it's too broad, and negates a lot of Dungeon challenges. I'd be fine with the change, although to me it seems more logical that it would prevent the non-magical stuff and not the magical stuff.

I do share other's concerns that room designs will all be such that tokens preventing Free Movement will almost never have an effect. I remember how happy I was after the Smoak Dungeons to get Shirts of Shielding for the entire group, and then it seemed like for years afterwards they never helped. Even in a couple of instances where it seemed clearly like retribution damage we were told that it wasn't really retribution damage and the Shirt of Shielding didn't help.

BasicBraining wrote: What if: freedom of movement grants a saving throw vs the same effects, vs. no FOM characters that would fail automatically?

That's an intriguing solution--I quite like it. The only fly in that solution's ointment is that saving throws take a fair amount of time to resolve--time that could be spent bashing the monster.

Yes, of course TD has saving throws for lots of things. I can't ever imagine a TD (or D&D, for that matter) ever doing away with saving throws. But we are very conscious of when we require them. There have been MANY room design discussions where it would make sense to have lots of saves, but we wind up cutting them because of the time sink involved.