Does the Freedom of Movement spell prevent petrification by the Flesh to Stone spell?

Question

Among other things, the Freedom of Movement spell prevents an affected creature from being restrained by spell effects:

For the duration, the target's movement is unaffected by difficult terrain, and spells and other magical effects can neither reduce the target's speed nor cause the target to be paralyzed or restrained.

The Flesh to Stone spell initially restrains a creature, and then, if the creature fails enough saving throws, petrifies it:

You attempt to turn one creature that you can see within range into stone. If the target's body is made of flesh, the creature must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it is restrained as its flesh begins to harden. On a successful save, the creature isn't affected.

A creature restrained by this spell must make another Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. If it successfully saves against this spell three times, the spell ends. If it fails its saves three times, it is turned to stone and subjected to the petrified condition for the duration. The successes and failures don't need to be consecutive; keep track of both until the target collects three of a kind.

Clearly, the restraining effect of Flesh to Stone would be prevented by Freedom of Movement. However, can the creature still be petrified if they fail enough saving throws, or does preventing the restraining effect end the Flesh to Stone spell, or prevent it from having any effect?

Answer 1

It would prevent petrification

The flesh to stone spell states:

A creature restrained by this spell must make another Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns.

In this scenario, a creature benefitting from freedom of movement is not restrained and thus does not count as "a creature restrained by this spell". As a result, they do not have to make further Constitution saving throws.

For what it's worth, a tweet from lead game designer Jeremy Crawford agrees, though his tweets are now just unofficial rules interpretations:

@gandhi39: Some MM petrification effects say “The restrained creature must repeat the saving throw ... becoming petrified on a failure....”. If the protected creature is not restrained is it really required to make new saves?

@JeremyECrawford: If you aren't restrained, you aren't the restrained creature.

@gandhi39: So in some cases FoM [(freedom of movement)] protects against petrification effects. In a strange way, but does.

@JeremyECrawford: Indirectly, yes.

Answer 2

FOM does not protect against petrified status.

FOM clearly makes you immune to movement speed penalties of any kind, plus the specific states of paralyzed and restrained. Unless the flesh to stone does not clearly set the final state as either paralyzed or restrained, but sets the state as petrified, as it does, then FOM does only protects against the restrained effect. If you fail 3 saving throws you become petrified, regardless of the restrained effect you are immune to. You will not suffer any restrained effects, but you finally got petrified after failing 3 saving throws.

If we accept that petrification is not possible because it sets/reduces speed to 0, then we must also accept that FOM protects against all states that set speed to 0, e.g. Power Word Stun. So without FOM specifically specifying immunity to the Stunned condition together with Paralyzed and Restrained, also makes immune to being Stunned. If so, then why does it mention the Paralyzed and Restrained conditions? As examples?

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Why "flesh to stone requires that the affected creature first be restrained before it is petrified" is not true:

It is stated that: "A creature restrained by this spell..." which is translated as "requires that the affected creature first be restrained". However the word "restrained" is poorly used here as it leads to this assumption. It should be better described as "A creature under this spell..." or "A creature targeted by this spell...". This is simply because the entire second paragraph makes no sense at all if we accept that "A creature restrained by this spell..." absolutely means "requires that the affected creature first be restrained".

This paragraph is quite clear:

You attempt to turn one creature that you can see within range into stone. If the target's body is made of flesh, the creature must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it is restrained as its flesh begins to harden. On a successful save, the creature isn't affected.

So we have 2 outcomes: you either pass or fail the saving throw, thus:

If you pass, you are not restrained, thus you do not need to roll because paragraph 2 begins with "A creature restrained by this spell..", but you are not that creature.

If you fail, paragraph 2 is relevant and valid. And if you fail the save 3 times total, then and only then are you petrified, because each failure makes you restrained and allows you paragraph 2 to be valid.

But if you fail, fail, and then pass, then paragraph 2 is invalid, because you are not the restrained creature, thus you do not roll!

So why does paragraph 2 state "The successes and failures don't need to be consecutive" as long as the very first passed saving throw halts the progress? Why does it require a total of 3 failures or successes to petrify you or end the spell if even the first saving throw success (pass) ends the spell?

It should simply state that if you fail the saving throw 3 consecutive times then you are petrified, else the spell ends at the first saving throw success.