My first post here, so I hope I'm not posting this in the wrong way or place... : )
Anyway, I've been searching and I can't find a answer on a particular ruling regarding using forced movement on a ally that is being restrained.
I play a artificer/scribe wizard at the moment and me and my party got stuck in Black tentacles spell all being restrained during our last session. On my turn I was trying to use Telekinetic shove from the Telekinetic feat to push one of my party members out of it, that willingly failed the save. But our DM called for strength or dexterity save to actually get free from the restrain to be able to get shoved the 5 ft. out of the spell effect area.
Shouldn't my party member been shoved 5 ft. without any further saves/checks from the restrain?
That's a tricky one. The Grappled condition explicitly says it can be broken by forced movement like a Telekinetic shove, but the Restrained condition doesn't have that wording. It also doesn't say that the Restrained creature CAN'T be moved by such things. Hopefully that's a gap in the rules that gets addressed in the One D&D playtest.
Restrained specifically does not say that the creature can not move or be moved - only that its speed is zero.
The rules do what they say they do - no more, no less - anything further is up to how the DM wants to run their game. If the designers had wanted forced movement to be prevented by the restrained condition they could have added that. Similarly, if they wanted to explicitly allow forced movement to end the restrained condition they could have said that.
The Grappled condition says the following:
"Grappled
A grappled creature's speed becomes 0, and it can't benefit from any bonus to its speed.
The condition ends if the grappler is incapacitated (see the condition).
The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell."
This explicitly allows forced movement to end the condition. Most monster attacks do NOT apply the restrained condition by itself. The rules typically say something like "The target is grappled (escape DC 15). Until the grapple ends, the target is restrained" ... this explicitly allows forced movement to escape the tendrils of a Roper for example since the grapple can be broken by forced movement and the restrained condition is related to being grappled.
The restrained condition does NOT prevent forced movement for these examples.
However, we then have spells like Evard's Black Tentacles that can apply the restrained condition without (apparently) also grappling the target. How the tentacles restrain without grappling is left as an exercise. :)
What happens when a creature is forced to move by telekinetic shove or repelling blast for example while restrained but not grappled. The specific rules for these effects force a creatures location to change. The restrained condition says nothing about preventing such movement and, in fact, when applied to monster attacks that grapple and restrain the target it explicitly does NOT prevent the restraint from being broken by the forced movement.
So, I think it is pretty clear, being restrained does not prevent forced movement from ending the restrained condition since the rules do not say so and specific examples show the restrained condition being ended if the creature happens to also be grappled.
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In addition, the escape conditions from Evard's Black Tentacles and a Ropers tentacles are very similar.
"A creature restrained by the tentacles can use its action to make a Strength or Dexterity check (its choice) against your spell save DC. On a success, it frees itself."
Mechanically, escaping from Evard's black tentacles is about the same difficulty as escaping from a Roper's tentacles (one is a DC of 15, the other the spell save DC of the caster). So Evard's Black Tentacles aren't holding on to a creature any tighter than a Roper might be - the situations would appear comparable - so why would a creature escape a Roper with forced movement but not from the spell? There is no real basis for the DM to rule them differently (but if a DM wants to do so that is entirely up to them).
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Rules wise (RAW and likely RAI), restrained does not prevent forced movement, and if a creature is pushed out of an area where they are restrained using forced movement the condition would end.
Finally, aside from the fact that it should be allowed from a RAW perspective, from a rule of cool perspective, situations like this are exactly why a character might invest in the Telekinetic feat. Extracting party members from situations where they are grappled or restrained is one of the main reasons to take the feat. The others being moving a team mate or monster out of range to take op attacks - and to get the improved mage hand cantrip. So, personally, as a DM, I would let the character use it as much as possible in situations like this since it gives them a chance to shine and makes a feat that may not see a lot of use feel like a good choice for the player.
RAI I believe your DM was right. Your forced movement is definitely competing against the lack of movement.
Nope. Grapple sets the speed of a creature to zero and explicitly allows forced movement to break the grapple. There is no "competition" between forced movement and lack of movement since Grappled and Restrained use exactly the same wording as far as a creatures speed is concerned.
Monsters with tentacles like a roper or octopus use wording like the following: "The target is grappled (escape DC 15). Until the grapple ends, the target is restrained". The restrained condition is often applied in the context of a monster grappling a creature (often with tentacles). In these cases, the restrained condition does not prevent the victim from being moved out of the grapple by forced movement breaking both the grapple and the restrained condition.
Restrained only sets the creatures movement to zero, it says nothing about preventing the restrained creature from being moved. Preventing a restrained creature from being moved is a house rule. It's fine as a house rule if the DM wants to use it but the DM could have mentioned it before the player chose the Telekinetic feat for their character in this case.
As David42 pointed out, the condition itself does not prevent the affected creature from being moved. The nature of the situation might prevent it. If a creature is restrained by being shackled to a wall, forced movement might simply not be possible.
As David42 pointed out, the condition itself does not prevent the affected creature from being moved. The nature of the situation might prevent it. If a creature is restrained by being shackled to a wall, forced movement might simply not be possible.
Absolutely :) ... there should be circumstances where forced movement would not work. However, I'd hope those would be spelled out a bit more rather than just saying "The creature is restrained" and leave the rest to the DMs rulings.
For example, even manacles can be broken out of by a DC20 dex or strength check. Could forced movement push a creature out of a set of manacles attached to a wall? If the description of the mechanism was only that the creature was restrained it would be a DM call in terms of house rules that fit the reality of their game since the rules aren't comprehensive and by itself being restrained does not prevent forced movement.
I think it would be interesting for the grappled condition if the grappler had to make a strength save against the spell save DC to see if they let go other wise they would move with them.
Absolutely :) ... there should be circumstances where forced movement would not work. However, I'd hope those would be spelled out a bit more rather than just saying "The creature is restrained" and leave the rest to the DMs rulings.
For example, even manacles can be broken out of by a DC20 dex or strength check. Could forced movement push a creature out of a set of manacles attached to a wall? If the description of the mechanism was only that the creature was restrained it would be a DM call in terms of house rules that fit the reality of their game since the rules aren't comprehensive and by itself being restrained does not prevent forced movement.
The challenge is where do you stop defining these things? This is really what we have a DM for; they're the one who decides when to override the rules, or add additional checks/saves as appropriate to determine the outcome, because if you start trying to list all the ways that a restrained creature can or can't be moved, then it'd be several pages long.
A bullet point reminder wouldn't go amiss though, like "a creature that is restrained may or may not be able to be moved by other means".
It's also worth considering that conditions themselves might be generalizations that every instance of that condition has in common. Every instance of a restrained creature includes the three bullet points of the condition. Every instance of the restrained condition that I can think of in published material also gives you some amount of description on what is restraining you, and maybe also how it is happening. One way to look at it is to say that regardless of the description, if you are restrained, the condition is the only thing that applies to you. Another way is to say that if the vines bursting from the ground entangle you, or if the kraken wraps its tentacles around you, you are subject to the condition as well as whatever descriptive effects are relevant to the situation. I tend to go with option B.
In the context of forced movement, sometimes it is compatible. With the spell, perhaps the vines entangling you anchor you to the ground, and perhaps they don't. Same with the kraken, although I feel like that's a stronger case for you not being able to be broken free by forced movement. But then again, it also depends on the nature of the forced movement.
As David42 pointed out, the condition itself does not prevent the affected creature from being moved. The nature of the situation might prevent it. If a creature is restrained by being shackled to a wall, forced movement might simply not be possible.
Absolutely :) ... there should be circumstances where forced movement would not work. However, I'd hope those would be spelled out a bit more rather than just saying "The creature is restrained" and leave the rest to the DMs rulings.
For example, even manacles can be broken out of by a DC20 dex or strength check. Could forced movement push a creature out of a set of manacles attached to a wall? If the description of the mechanism was only that the creature was restrained it would be a DM call in terms of house rules that fit the reality of their game since the rules aren't comprehensive and by itself being restrained does not prevent forced movement.
I feel like if someone yanked on you really hard while being shackled to a brick wall, you may leave your hands behind. I think the DM ruled correctly here that something/someone shoving you should have to succeed on the same DC to free you as an action as you would by yourself. Now if this involves teleporting or becoming ethereal, that should work every time.
As David42 pointed out, the condition itself does not prevent the affected creature from being moved. The nature of the situation might prevent it. If a creature is restrained by being shackled to a wall, forced movement might simply not be possible.
Absolutely :) ... there should be circumstances where forced movement would not work. However, I'd hope those would be spelled out a bit more rather than just saying "The creature is restrained" and leave the rest to the DMs rulings.
For example, even manacles can be broken out of by a DC20 dex or strength check. Could forced movement push a creature out of a set of manacles attached to a wall? If the description of the mechanism was only that the creature was restrained it would be a DM call in terms of house rules that fit the reality of their game since the rules aren't comprehensive and by itself being restrained does not prevent forced movement.
I feel like if someone yanked on you really hard while being shackled to a brick wall, you may leave your hands behind. I think the DM ruled correctly here that something/someone shoving you should have to succeed on the same DC to free you as an action as you would by yourself. Now if this involves teleporting or becoming ethereal, that should work every time.
Just curious but how do you handle a character who is restrained by a roper or giant octopus tentacles that requires an escape DC of 15? If that character is forced to move do they need to roll or do you follow the grappling rules that say that forced movement that pushes the creature out of range ends the grappled condition?
How does the above situation differ from a creature restrained by the spell Evard's black tentacles with an escape DC of 15?
I feel like if someone yanked on you really hard while being shackled to a brick wall, you may leave your hands behind. I think the DM ruled correctly here that something/someone shoving you should have to succeed on the same DC to free you as an action as you would by yourself. Now if this involves teleporting or becoming ethereal, that should work every time.
Bear in mind there are several distinct ways you can push a creature and each one is likely to have its own best way to handle it if you want to homebrew forced movement being resistible by the grappler. Bear in mind that there are three distinct possible outcomes from however you handle it: the push can succeed, separating the grappler from grapplee; the push can succeed without separating them, meaning you push both creatures at once; and the push can fail. It's not at all clear how to work out which you want to have happen in what circumstance:
Wall of Stone automatically pushes things it collides with, no rolling involved.
Eldritch Blast upgraded with the Repelling Blast invocation simply pushes a target of arbitrary size and weight once it hits, implying it is infinitely strong and it makes no sense for a grappler to be able to simply stop the movement. Presumably, the options are both move or only one does, but how to decide? Should the grappler's AC matter?
Telekinesis and Shove are resisted with a Strength check. Assuming you have the grappler also roll a Strength check to contest, how do you determine what happens when it succeeds or fails?
For what it's worth, our group has imposed house-rule saving throws when trying to use the telekinesis feat to break a grapple or "fixed area" instances of restrained. It's worked well for us and it feels more realistic. The feat is still an incredibly useful tool even with this extra condition - for any build without good bonus actions it's very strong and I think this helps balance it out a bit.
I feel like if someone yanked on you really hard while being shackled to a brick wall, you may leave your hands behind. I think the DM ruled correctly here that something/someone shoving you should have to succeed on the same DC to free you as an action as you would by yourself. Now if this involves teleporting or becoming ethereal, that should work every time.
Bear in mind there are several distinct ways you can push a creature and each one is likely to have its own best way to handle it if you want to homebrew forced movement being resistible by the grappler. Bear in mind that there are three distinct possible outcomes from however you handle it: the push can succeed, separating the grappler from grapplee; the push can succeed without separating them, meaning you push both creatures at once; and the push can fail. It's not at all clear how to work out which you want to have happen in what circumstance:
Wall of Stone automatically pushes things it collides with, no rolling involved.
Eldritch Blast upgraded with the Repelling Blast invocation simply pushes a target of arbitrary size and weight once it hits, implying it is infinitely strong and it makes no sense for a grappler to be able to simply stop the movement. Presumably, the options are both move or only one does, but how to decide? Should the grappler's AC matter?
Telekinesis and Shove are resisted with a Strength check. Assuming you have the grappler also roll a Strength check to contest, how do you determine what happens when it succeeds or fails?
I would say any forced movement that can be resisted with a save/check can also be prevented by something grappling/restraining someone with a save/check. So Telekinesis/Shove/Gust would/should all allow the grappler/restrainer to make a strength save/check to maintain the grapple/restrain.
The obvious exception to this would be teleportation spells like Vortex Warp as no amount of strength will prevent something from disappearing from your grasp.
Grasping Vine neither grapples nor restrains. The Dex save is to dodge to not be grabbed and subsequently pulled by the vine.
My first post here, so I hope I'm not posting this in the wrong way or place... : )
Anyway, I've been searching and I can't find a answer on a particular ruling regarding using forced movement on a ally that is being restrained.
I play a artificer/scribe wizard at the moment and me and my party got stuck in Black tentacles spell all being restrained during our last session.
On my turn I was trying to use Telekinetic shove from the Telekinetic feat to push one of my party members out of it, that willingly failed the save. But our DM called for strength or dexterity save to actually get free from the restrain to be able to get shoved the 5 ft. out of the spell effect area.
Shouldn't my party member been shoved 5 ft. without any further saves/checks from the restrain?
That's a tricky one. The Grappled condition explicitly says it can be broken by forced movement like a Telekinetic shove, but the Restrained condition doesn't have that wording. It also doesn't say that the Restrained creature CAN'T be moved by such things. Hopefully that's a gap in the rules that gets addressed in the One D&D playtest.
RAI I believe your DM was right. Your forced movement is definitely competing against the lack of movement.
I actually found this now, https://www.dndlounge.com/restrained-5e/ but I don't know where they got it from.
RAW, the restrained condition says nothing about preventing a creature from being moved. It only limits their own movement.
The following is all that the restrained condition does:
"Restrained
Restrained specifically does not say that the creature can not move or be moved - only that its speed is zero.
The rules do what they say they do - no more, no less - anything further is up to how the DM wants to run their game. If the designers had wanted forced movement to be prevented by the restrained condition they could have added that. Similarly, if they wanted to explicitly allow forced movement to end the restrained condition they could have said that.
The Grappled condition says the following:
"Grappled
This explicitly allows forced movement to end the condition. Most monster attacks do NOT apply the restrained condition by itself. The rules typically say something like "The target is grappled (escape DC 15). Until the grapple ends, the target is restrained" ... this explicitly allows forced movement to escape the tendrils of a Roper for example since the grapple can be broken by forced movement and the restrained condition is related to being grappled.
The restrained condition does NOT prevent forced movement for these examples.
However, we then have spells like Evard's Black Tentacles that can apply the restrained condition without (apparently) also grappling the target. How the tentacles restrain without grappling is left as an exercise. :)
What happens when a creature is forced to move by telekinetic shove or repelling blast for example while restrained but not grappled. The specific rules for these effects force a creatures location to change. The restrained condition says nothing about preventing such movement and, in fact, when applied to monster attacks that grapple and restrain the target it explicitly does NOT prevent the restraint from being broken by the forced movement.
So, I think it is pretty clear, being restrained does not prevent forced movement from ending the restrained condition since the rules do not say so and specific examples show the restrained condition being ended if the creature happens to also be grappled.
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In addition, the escape conditions from Evard's Black Tentacles and a Ropers tentacles are very similar.
"The target is grappled (escape DC 15)."
"A creature restrained by the tentacles can use its action to make a Strength or Dexterity check (its choice) against your spell save DC. On a success, it frees itself."
Mechanically, escaping from Evard's black tentacles is about the same difficulty as escaping from a Roper's tentacles (one is a DC of 15, the other the spell save DC of the caster). So Evard's Black Tentacles aren't holding on to a creature any tighter than a Roper might be - the situations would appear comparable - so why would a creature escape a Roper with forced movement but not from the spell? There is no real basis for the DM to rule them differently (but if a DM wants to do so that is entirely up to them).
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Rules wise (RAW and likely RAI), restrained does not prevent forced movement, and if a creature is pushed out of an area where they are restrained using forced movement the condition would end.
Finally, aside from the fact that it should be allowed from a RAW perspective, from a rule of cool perspective, situations like this are exactly why a character might invest in the Telekinetic feat. Extracting party members from situations where they are grappled or restrained is one of the main reasons to take the feat. The others being moving a team mate or monster out of range to take op attacks - and to get the improved mage hand cantrip. So, personally, as a DM, I would let the character use it as much as possible in situations like this since it gives them a chance to shine and makes a feat that may not see a lot of use feel like a good choice for the player.
Nope. Grapple sets the speed of a creature to zero and explicitly allows forced movement to break the grapple. There is no "competition" between forced movement and lack of movement since Grappled and Restrained use exactly the same wording as far as a creatures speed is concerned.
Monsters with tentacles like a roper or octopus use wording like the following: "The target is grappled (escape DC 15). Until the grapple ends, the target is restrained". The restrained condition is often applied in the context of a monster grappling a creature (often with tentacles). In these cases, the restrained condition does not prevent the victim from being moved out of the grapple by forced movement breaking both the grapple and the restrained condition.
Restrained only sets the creatures movement to zero, it says nothing about preventing the restrained creature from being moved. Preventing a restrained creature from being moved is a house rule. It's fine as a house rule if the DM wants to use it but the DM could have mentioned it before the player chose the Telekinetic feat for their character in this case.
Thanks for your answer. Very good.
I hope I can convince my DM to change his mind. : )
As David42 pointed out, the condition itself does not prevent the affected creature from being moved. The nature of the situation might prevent it. If a creature is restrained by being shackled to a wall, forced movement might simply not be possible.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Absolutely :) ... there should be circumstances where forced movement would not work. However, I'd hope those would be spelled out a bit more rather than just saying "The creature is restrained" and leave the rest to the DMs rulings.
For example, even manacles can be broken out of by a DC20 dex or strength check. Could forced movement push a creature out of a set of manacles attached to a wall? If the description of the mechanism was only that the creature was restrained it would be a DM call in terms of house rules that fit the reality of their game since the rules aren't comprehensive and by itself being restrained does not prevent forced movement.
I think it would be interesting for the grappled condition if the grappler had to make a strength save against the spell save DC to see if they let go other wise they would move with them.
The challenge is where do you stop defining these things? This is really what we have a DM for; they're the one who decides when to override the rules, or add additional checks/saves as appropriate to determine the outcome, because if you start trying to list all the ways that a restrained creature can or can't be moved, then it'd be several pages long.
A bullet point reminder wouldn't go amiss though, like "a creature that is restrained may or may not be able to be moved by other means".
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It's also worth considering that conditions themselves might be generalizations that every instance of that condition has in common. Every instance of a restrained creature includes the three bullet points of the condition. Every instance of the restrained condition that I can think of in published material also gives you some amount of description on what is restraining you, and maybe also how it is happening. One way to look at it is to say that regardless of the description, if you are restrained, the condition is the only thing that applies to you. Another way is to say that if the vines bursting from the ground entangle you, or if the kraken wraps its tentacles around you, you are subject to the condition as well as whatever descriptive effects are relevant to the situation. I tend to go with option B.
In the context of forced movement, sometimes it is compatible. With the spell, perhaps the vines entangling you anchor you to the ground, and perhaps they don't. Same with the kraken, although I feel like that's a stronger case for you not being able to be broken free by forced movement. But then again, it also depends on the nature of the forced movement.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I feel like if someone yanked on you really hard while being shackled to a brick wall, you may leave your hands behind. I think the DM ruled correctly here that something/someone shoving you should have to succeed on the same DC to free you as an action as you would by yourself. Now if this involves teleporting or becoming ethereal, that should work every time.
Just curious but how do you handle a character who is restrained by a roper or giant octopus tentacles that requires an escape DC of 15? If that character is forced to move do they need to roll or do you follow the grappling rules that say that forced movement that pushes the creature out of range ends the grappled condition?
How does the above situation differ from a creature restrained by the spell Evard's black tentacles with an escape DC of 15?
They just escape there is no roll.
Bear in mind there are several distinct ways you can push a creature and each one is likely to have its own best way to handle it if you want to homebrew forced movement being resistible by the grappler. Bear in mind that there are three distinct possible outcomes from however you handle it: the push can succeed, separating the grappler from grapplee; the push can succeed without separating them, meaning you push both creatures at once; and the push can fail. It's not at all clear how to work out which you want to have happen in what circumstance:
None of the above involve incorporeal movement.
For what it's worth, our group has imposed house-rule saving throws when trying to use the telekinesis feat to break a grapple or "fixed area" instances of restrained. It's worked well for us and it feels more realistic. The feat is still an incredibly useful tool even with this extra condition - for any build without good bonus actions it's very strong and I think this helps balance it out a bit.
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I would say any forced movement that can be resisted with a save/check can also be prevented by something grappling/restraining someone with a save/check. So Telekinesis/Shove/Gust would/should all allow the grappler/restrainer to make a strength save/check to maintain the grapple/restrain.
The obvious exception to this would be teleportation spells like Vortex Warp as no amount of strength will prevent something from disappearing from your grasp.
Grasping Vine neither grapples nor restrains. The Dex save is to dodge to not be grabbed and subsequently pulled by the vine.