[RPG] Encounter Distance RAW

Stun, Daze and similar stuff don't impede your movement...

...they make your mind funny.

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While you are stunned, there's nothing holding your body to move. You just can't think right to actually do something. If you take a really hard blow to your head, that won't make your body harder to move - it will make your brain go gonzo for a few secs, before you became aware of what's really happening.

Stun is not about movement, is about senses of what's going on.

Freedom of Movement makes "your body work right", not anything else. It allows you to move, but not allows you to think. You can't think if you're dead. Or Stunned.

Paralysis don't block purely mental actions, so it don't block "thinking". Slow makes your body... well, slower, but it doesn't affect your thinking. Web is... well, a web. It hinders your body, not your mind.

Stun, Daze, Dazzle and similar stuff, on the other hand, makes your senses go wacko, so they aren't really blocking your movement. Stun never stopped you from moving, it just stopped you from thinking for a while - and since you don't think, you don't act.

So, the point is,

If something affect your senses, Freedom of Movement can't help you.

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Think like a "Houdini Effect". Houdini can escape from almost anything, considering that he knows what's going on. If you throw him with a concussion inside a closed coffin... well... he will stay there.

So, to determine what Freedom of Movement removes or not, use a simple rule:

Why I can't move?

• If you can't move because a spell or something is hindering your body to move, like Web, Freedom of Movement can help you.

• If you can't move because a spell or something is making your brain go gonzo, like Stun, or because your body becomes something that can't normally move, like stone from Flesh to Stone*, it won't help you.

*Flesh to Stone don't impede your movement, it merely limits you to the movement that a stone statue is allowed to do. A "Freedom of Movement"-ed and "Web"-ed person would become a completely untangled stone statue.

Also, read Freedom, the 9^th level spell:

The subject is freed from spells and effects that restrict its movement, including binding, entangle, grappling, imprisonment, maze, paralysis, petrification, pinning, sleep, slow, stunning, temporal stasis, and web. To free a creature from imprisonment or maze, you must know its name and background, and you must cast this spell at the spot where it was entombed or banished into the maze.

Emphasis mine.

Freedom removes a bunch of effects, like Flesh to Stone and Stun. It would seem rather... strange to say that a way lower-level spell can do almost all the things that a 9th level spell can. Freedom is Freedom, not Freedom of Movement.

Taking This in Steps

• A creature is in a stance until it takes a swift action to change its stance.

• While in the 1st-level Shadow Hand stance child of shadow (ToB 76) "[i]f you move at least 10 feet during your turn, you gain concealment against all melee and ranged attacks until the start of your next turn. You also gain the standard benefits of concealment, but you cannot use this stance to hide in plain sight...."

  Here's all about concealment

  Concealment Miss Chance
  Concealment gives the subject of a successful attack a 20% chance that the attacker missed because of the concealment. If the attacker hits, the defender must make a miss chance percentile roll to avoid being struck. Multiple concealment conditions do not stack.

  Concealment and Hide Checks
  You can use concealment to make a Hide check. Without concealment, you usually need cover to make a Hide check.

  and that's different from

  Total Concealment
  If you have line of effect to a target but not line of sight he is considered to have total concealment from you. You can’t attack an opponent that has total concealment, though you can attack into a square that you think he occupies. A successful attack into a square occupied by an enemy with total concealment has a 50% miss chance (instead of the normal 20% miss chance for an opponent with concealment).

  The stance child of shadow doesn't give the adept total concealment or make the adept invisible; those are different effects. The stance's effect just gives him an opportunity to use the Hide skill to hide and a 20% miss chance versus melee and ranged attacks.

  The DM must decide what movement the stance child of shadows requires. I would argue anytime a creature has gone from one square to a different square it has moved, but stricter interpretations--such as limiting them to actual movement modes (i.e. burrow, climb, fly, swim, and land Speed)--are equally reasonable. Jumping should qualify under either as part of a creature's land speed.

  If movement places a creature in weird position, the standard means to determine if the creature has concealment apply:

  To determine whether your target has concealment from your ranged attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that provides concealment, the target has concealment.

  When making a melee attack against an adjacent target, your target has concealment if his space is entirely within an effect that grants concealment. When making a melee attack against a target that isn’t adjacent to you use the rules for determining concealment from ranged attacks.

  This means while it might be weird and unexpected for the defender to find the attacker suddenly on the ceiling above him--and might entitle the attacker to a bonus to attack rolls for having higher ground--, the target will notice him unless the lines drawn don't allow it or another effect intervenes. It's D&D, and folks actually do check ceilings for enemies.

• A creature then takes a swift action to change his stance from the stance child of shadow to the 3rd-level Shadow Hand stance assassin's stance (ToB 76) is eligible to inflict +2d6 sneak attack damage (PH 50).

  The adept using the stance assassin's stance is eligible to inflict that sneak attack damage if he meets sneak attack's conditions: Is the target denied his dexterity bonus to Armor Class or flanked? If he is either or both, then sneak attack damage applies. As @TheXenocide noted, by itself, although counter-intuitive, neither concealment nor total concealment meet sneak attack's criteria so another method of meeting the criteria must be used. I suggest blinding the creature or turning invisible.

  This question addresses using concealment or total concealment in combination with sneak attack in greater detail.