TOPIC: Proposed change to Free Movement

Matthew Hayward wrote: As a player, one of the most frustrating things in TD is thinking you have a token that does X, and being told the dungeon module trumps your token.

1. This^^
2. It's also frustrating when situational tokens you've worked to acquire never ever apply.
3. Both of the above frustrations are 100% determined by dungeon design, and thus 100% avoidable.

Whether FM ultimately gets redefined more narrowly in RP terms is far less important to me than keeping FM pragmatically relevant as a build choice through good dungeon designs.

I strongly dislike nerfing specific tokens except as a last resort, but IMO this isn't a typical nerf scenario since the ability in question is already situational.

I guess I don't understand why this nerf is needed. How is players having free movement preventing TPTB from designing fun environmental hazards? Free movement doesn't mean that the hazards don't exist in the dungeon, it means that the player who equipped the token doesn't want to engage with those hazards, and has more fun not doing so. The hazards can still exist for people who want to deal with them. It's not like players succeeding on challenges costs True Adventures anything,

I feel like, especially with the incoming slot competition, if the hazards were more fun people would be more likely to unequip BoLT. In my experience though most of those hazards amount to "sucks to be you, you can't play the game for a turn", which isn't a whole lot of fun for me. If the hazards instead had me be creative with my play or forced me to interact with it in a unique way I'd be a lot less likely to use FM.

Remember that the PCs usually don't know what would have happened if they didn't have freedom of movement - the DMs aren't supposed to discuss module mechanics openly during a session. If the effect could have been interesting - you'd never know.

I do agree that TD should do its best to avoid, "if you don't have token <X>, you get no actions this round." A more nuanced approach is more fun. Here are a couple examples...
"The glowing goo you are standing in seems to seep through your boots and into your skin. If you don't have freedom of movement, you feel your limbs going rigid. This round you can't take any free actions." Then follow that the next round with, "those still affected by the goo can no longer move their legs and must slide with their non-dominant hand to reflect you going more rigid - monks and rangers get only 1 attack." Then round three, "You find you cannot move your body anymore - you are restricted to just mental actions such as with the skull."

These hazards can also create opportunities like in this example...
"The room is suddenly engulfed in webs as a giant spider appears out of a secret hatch in the wall. If you don't have the ability to move freely in webs, you may not move and can only attack the spider with one handed weapons. If you have freedom of movement, you may work your way through the webs to the spider with effort. If you have the web-walking super-power, you may go anywhere in the room and attack with advantage - allowing you to reslide your puck if you wish. Web walkers may also investigate areas not normally reachable in the room by skating along the webs."

Freedom of movement is a massive change to how combat operates (true in D&D as well.) Of course, in D&D, you have a limited number of attunement slots for special abilities and don't usually have your free action item attuned. True Dungeon has the problem that you can attune to dozens of different tokens in a single build. As TD continues year to year, the problem gets worse.

A possible solution here might be to add a classification of token as "attunable" and limit how many you can attune that have special abilities. D&D had to add that during play-testing for 5th edition because PCs became far too powerful otherwise. It created scenarios where the power difference in a single party required killing everyone to even threaten the more equipped PCs. We see the same problem in TD for the same reason. If you had to choose 3-5 tokens that had special powers beyond a + to hit or AC or a stat, I'm not sure how many people would pick freedom of movement over class necklaces, skull powers, quick strike, spell swapping, spell storing, divine sight (splitting healing), guided strike, supreme elemental resistance, libram of looting, soul coffer, expertise (crown or ring), bardic instrument powers, holy sword special powers, shadowskin, displacement, blending, or artifact powers. That change, by itself, would help balance parties better and force build choices and more party mutual support.

The attunement idea goes beyond the current discussion but would help for future proofing token design.

Fred

Since there are relatively few tokens that grant Free Movement, one possible solution would be to create tokens that are as good or better in those slots, so people choosing Free Movement are giving up something as or more valuable.

To spell out what I mentioned in an earlier post, if Free Movement is restricted, I'd recommend changing the wording to: Free Movement (immunity to spider’s webbing or similar sticky substances). I'll bet that's what a lot of people already think it is. I hadn't realized before this thread that it also worked against all those magic spells.

What if each instance of Free Movement can be used in one room per dungeon?

If you have on Boots of the Marauder and a Bead of the Lucky Traveler you're covered for two rooms. If there's 3 rooms of spiders, you might be stuck.

My proposal is to reword to the following

The wearer gains Free Movement: immunity to magical hold spells, magical paralyze, and slow spells, as well as spider’s webbing or similar sticky substances. This does not prevent grapples, natural poison or natural paralysis effects from a monster.

Here's a riff on what some folks have said:

If you have no FM items you can do X with a major hinderance. (losing a turn SUCKS!)
If you have one item that gives you FM you have FM-1 and can do X with a minor hinderance.
If you have 2+ items with FM you have no hinderances.

EvilJohn wrote: Here's a riff on what some folks have said:

If you have no FM items you can do X with a major hinderance. (losing a turn SUCKS!)
If you have one item that gives you FM you have FM-1 and can do X with a minor hinderance.
If you have 2+ items with FM you have no hinderances.

Do you know how many builds would be impacted if a player had to layer Freedom of Movement just so they could react in a specific room instead of standing around for a full room? Honestly I don't believe this approach works. Giving up three slots to be able to move, why craft at this point?

James wrote: My proposal is to reword to the following

The wearer gains Free Movement: immunity to magical hold spells, magical paralyze, and slow spells, as well as spider’s webbing or similar sticky substances. This does not prevent grapples, natural poison or natural paralysis effects from a monster.

I think this a fair rewording of the effect, the grapple should be "natural". And all of the Natural events should have a saving throw. But this also means there will NEVER be another room that FM will work in again...so effectively...NERF.
As Enfgame said earlier in this thread there are SO many other ways to hamper a party that this NERF is not necessary, trust me I used them all as a DM since 1980.

Juion wrote: 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.

Walk on lava, and still fail the puzzle, and take damage, despite wearing common (under power boots). I hear you, I feel you.

So boots of the marauder also have FM right? Free movement is even on some rare boots. Is Lucky traveler the issue, or just too powerful a token has no competition? I know our fighter and Barbarian use the marauder boots, and our wizard used too (now uses con) and the cleric would except dark knight are going into that slot as soon as he can get them.
I am only on page two, and already I like the “make competitive tokens viable” over the “nerf a current effect.”
V tD already had a “you’re in the monsters belly, and you are not restrained, just can’t act until resolved” which I raised as a concern during that dungeon.

This also has me wondering if “legacy” and “standard” or some such play design space needs to be manufactured so folks can run dungeons with old tokens, and “current” tokens. Reprints would also be beneficial then as old effects would come back into standard play. It would remove problem tokens after … 8 years? So long as legendaries do not become problem tokens, cause I would assume those are timeless. It might also push some relics to be made into legendaries?
Strange economic effects happen with small proposals, this might be better for the L&L forums, I’ll stop.

+1 make the change.

.. on a related note anyone want to buy boots of the marauder?