heya, really appreciate the quick reply but sorry, i havent gotten it to work.
im not using a movement component in my pawn - its a pawn class so whatever movement component is the built-in one. my capsule has physics on, and im using add impulse to my capsule for movement (flying) which, combined with the locked X and Y constraints works perfect and my pawn has momentum, bounces off world objects and doesn’t pitch or roll.
if i also lock the z constraint, i cannot get my pawn to rotate/turn, no matter how i have tried. so, now i’m trying to lock and unlock that Z constraint based on whether the joystick is reading 0. (0 means i lock the plane, !=0 means i unlock it so i can turn myself. i tried the “set absolute rotation” on and off (both ways) in there but that didn’t work.
if i use your first suggestion, i can get a reference to my pawn’s movement component from a “reference to self” and then pull the “constrain normal to plane” node you suggested, and i set all three values to -1, and it returns a vector output - i plugged that into the motion controller (from self) “set plane constrain normal” but that doesn’t seem to work either, probably because of my implementation. see attached image.
i just want to lock that z constraint yet still be able to rotate my pawn 
any suggestions?
thx much in advance!
- khaz