Save vs. Fear
With Assassin joining the Anti-Party, a little welcome-to-the-team introductory questing was inevitable. Clearing rat infestations may be a classic, but don’t let that fool you. It isn’t necessarily easy. Toss a few templates on your rodents, give ’em a minor fear aura, and you may just find yourself on the losing end of an easy fight. That’s the case because (almost) anyone can fail a saving throw. And when you do, you just might find your actions out of your control.
We’ve talked about confusion and dominate and save-or-sucks in general, but there’s something about fear effects in particular that undermines a hero. Just picture it. There you are striding boldly through the dungeon. You’ve got your shining armor. You’ve got your +5 axe of awesomeness. You’re the spitting image of a sword and sorcery badass, and the power fantasy is firing on all cylinders. But then along comes Casper the Annoying Ghost. Along comes a quasit, or an antipaladin, or the literal freaking bogeyman. Whatever the fear-causing dork happens to be, it’s just added “soiled breeches” to your inventory, and you’re suddenly the opposite of a badass. You’re a bloody coward. And that don’t feel so good.
What I’m saying is that fear effects are a massive roleplaying challenge. While we can all picture supernatural terror, we like to believe that our heroes are closer to Eowyn than Butterbur. Cringing away from danger is something that NPCs do, not heroic protagonist types!
Therefore, for today’s discussion question, I’d like to try a bit of a thought experiment. Imagine that your most courageous PC has just failed a save vs. fear. How do you justify that narratively? How do you portray “you are forced to run away” without betraying your character’s cold-blooded stoicism? Give us all your best “advancing to the rear” and “strategic withdrawal” escuses down in the comments!
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A fellow party member tends to resolve this problem by going crazy and lashing out at the source of the fear (and everything in the vicinity) with a knife. Fortunately, my character is good enough at grappling to restrain her before she stabs anything/one important. My character has only failed once so far and retreated into prayer, which is slightly more dignified than curling into a ball and crying.
I quite like the “retreating into prayer” angle. That’s a characterful way to show “I need protection from a higher power.”
Half our northman band in Warhammer failed a Terror test against Daemonette, Including two of the biggest hitters who had been part of the campaing long enough to gain second careers. Also not a fear story but one highloghting criticality of mental defence.
Back in the day I played in a superhero campaing, can’t remember the system top of my heqd, and our group was facing personifications of the Roman/Greek gods. When we encountered Venus the seductress charmed my character and turned against the group. well when teams deadpool starts swinging at the dr. strange wannabe, total wipe wasn’t far away, if not for being put to sleep the team would have had it bad.
Never under estimate need for mental defences.
Now I remember, the game was Wild Talents.
As for the warhammer, when you fail fear, you are just weaker ta hitting the target, when you fail terror, you flee as far away as possible, so having the guy who got lucky mutation roll and gained Chaos plate running away from half naked chick with crab claw is a sight to behold. Mean while the scawny little witch taking her first steps in magig holds her ground.
> running away from half naked chick with crab claw
It is a clever warrior who avoids the combination of half-naked chicks and crabs.
No one wants to deal with any of the deamons, though Khorne is personal favourite as his deamons are just going to kill me, no wierd stuff… unlike the prince of pleasures *shrudders*
“It is a clever warrior who avoids the combination of half-naked chicks and crabs.”
That a reference to Lumberjack Explosion playing Wingman to Fighter?
Oops. It erased my
*snerk!*
that was supposed to follow the quote.
Snerk indeed, Lord Torath. Snerk indeed.
i use a thing like that to expand on the character’s background, giving away glimpse of stuff that they normally hide.
once you know some1’s fear you learn more of them.
examples include:
‘i’m sorry Mother, i’ll go back into the grave, don’t be mad!”
“Ahh! it’s the zombie-man-eating-dog again!”
“nononono! stay away! i’m done with checkered colorful shirts!”
“The books are out to get us!!”
There may be a reason that this was a comic back in the day:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/fear-itself
My half-giant gladiator was recently the target of a Phantasmal Killer spell (2E AD&D version). Not having previously come up with what her fears were, I instead described a winged mass of claws, tentacles, and way too many jaws that was attacking her. She made a couple of attacks at it, then took to bodily throwing her opponents at it (to no meaningful effect – they couldn’t even see it) while shouting “Eat him, not me!” at the top of her lungs.
Eventually a teammate killed the caster, ending the spell.
Even my most courageous characters fear something! Failure, helplessness, harm to the ones they care about …
I do try to vary up reactions, though. I have a character who will start plotting how to take down whatever they fear, a character who has a tendency to panic when overwhelmed, some who will just flee. At least one where you risk being punched in the face. They all brave in some ways and less so in others, so if something comes up they fear, I just lean into the less-brave bits.
Like Creed said is a good chance for background and character building.
How does the “punch you in the face” guy react to “the creature must flee if possible?” Just throwing haymakers on the way out the door?
https://media4.giphy.com/media/Wr4shv0TxEVzO/200.gif
Well if the spell forces her to run, I can’t dictate how she reacts can I? She’d specifically try to attack the source of the fear, so if that isn’t an option you’re stuck with running away (and possibly coming back later with the punch, or, more likely, battleaxe, to the face).
So in most systems there are multiple levels of fear. The first one is fear as the stoic badass knows it, still willing to fight but doing so a little too hesitant/reckless and it’s hindering their performance; generally applied by people trying to intimidate you and more mundane horrors like a freaky looking undead. The later levels which actually make you run away are almost always supernatural effects and failing to save against a Cause Fear says no more about your cowardice than failing to save against a Dominate says about your treachery.
> in most systems
Citation needed. 😛
> failing to save against a Cause Fear says no more about your cowardice
That’s a very rational way to look at an emotion-based effect. I would challenge the notion that a failed save does not reflect character though. Different character have different save bonuses after all. Surely that reflects character in some way.
But in the case of failing a specific save, the actual RP at the table is going to offer some kind of rationalization. If the big tough fighter happens to fail while the sneaky little rogue holds fast, there’s going to be words between characters.
Well, firstly, in 5e, I am not forced to run away, I just can’t get any closer… there is a distinct distinction there.
Even if you are “fearless”, there is always a potential reason to justify not getting closer to a creature that provokes a fear response. The most simple is the old classic: magic.
I am not scared, magic made me scared.
And if you are going up against a dragon, well, it’s a friggin dragon! Plenty to be afeared by there.
As for RP, it changes based on the scene. Why did I scurred? What scurred me? What are the current conditions, etc.
It changes every time, so you have to adapt. I don’t think there is one single way to deal with it, but…
“I am taking a tactical rethink this round… “
Are we doing 5e? Ok then. Let’s pretend your character failed a save vs. the fear spell:
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Fear#content
What happens in terms of RP?
the snarky answer is to use my current character, who is a monk, and say that I “still my mind” and the fear effect is removed… but let’s pretend I forget I have that ability (something that happens regularly in a game, people forgetting they have some ability or another, because there is a lot to remember, and maybe it never comes up, or is a new power, etc)
I don’t actually carry any weapons, I fight unarmed, but even if I did, my character is “fearless”. Not that he is so brave or insane that he has no fear, but more that he doesn’t really understand the concept of fear. He just does what he does, follows orders, and when the fight comes, he stands or runs as is tactically sound and what his allies would be doing in the situation.
my current character is a Forgeborn (warforged, but “politically correct”) monk, who was a former soldier, who gave his life to protect others, and obeyed the commands given. Fear doesn’t exist for him… but maybe we look at it from another angle.
Since he has been with his current group, he has known only companionship with them. They are the first group he has seen not only as ally, but also friend. So taking the narrative that he must run in fear “from” something, what if instead he runs TOWARD something?
His “fear response” and what the illusion shows him is not something to run from like a big spider, or a dragon, or fire or something, but he sees instead his friends in danger. Maybe it is one specifically (the one that brought him back from death and showed him a new path to follow) or perhaps it is one that is most in danger (our wizard for sure… level 15 and she still has just over 50 HP!), or any scenario that he sees as a threat to one of the group he is with.
He uses his move to run 65 feet in their direction, but it is not enough, the threat is too far away, but he is a monk, so he uses his action to dash right up to where they are (at least in his mind) and he plants his feet… and despite it being outside of the specifics of the spell, he uses a Ki point to take the Dodge action as a bonus action… to protect his friends as he presents himself as a target for them! … even tho they are not really there.
That is how I would RP that specific scenario (and why I think each scenario is different)
But, realistically, I would just end the effect on myself, because I have been DYING to try that! XD
Thanks for the thought experiment 🙂
On the opposite end of the spectrum, heck, I once requested a save against fear!
So no shit there we were, neck-deep in a warehouse of criminals and about to face down the evil gangster who had previously enslaved my character. It was my first ever real campaign and I was having the time of my life, but my character was terrified. When we entered the boss chamber, I, not knowing at the time how devastating this could be, overruled the DM and said “I’m gonna need to make a save against Fear.” I explained my character’s history with the evil dude and how she was shaking in her boots at the thought of seeing him again. The DM went along with it and had me roll, then generously applied the Shaken condition to me (Pathfinder 1e). It turned out not to matter, as some bad rolls on the boss’s part made the fight a cakewalk, but I got some extra XP for getting into the spirit of things.
As for getting unintentionally scared, I personally approach it by making my characters fallible in the first place. Making a character who would never reasonably get scared is like making a character who would never reasonably get hit in combat; it just makes it all the more embarrassing for you when they get killed by goblins at level 2. Having a fearful character who must overcome that fear through heroism is far more interesting to me.
> I once requested a save against fear!
This strikes me as a relevant comic:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/frickin-laser-beams
I have a hard time making that kind of play, but mad respect for you sacrificing your in-combat effectiveness in the name of character.
“You’re a bloody coward.”
Everyone (except the Emperor’s finest) can feel fear. Everyone can have a moment of weakness and succumb. But cowards make it their way life.
Don’t be a coward, buck up and once you’ve exchanged for a fresh pair of shorts, turn right around and go back and face your fear. Hopefully with a + to your Will save from something, anything, even if it’s just a +1 from having “extra fresh feeling” tighty whities.
“Give us all your best “advancing to the rear” and “strategic withdrawal” escuses [sic] down in the comments!”
I wouldn’t? Because that would be acting rational, and fear isn’t a rational response (it can be the //sane// response, but real fear isn’t rational). Everyone one of my characters would just run away, or backdown, grovel, whatever was the proper response to the fear agent. A few might make excuses afterward, later once the fear had subsided and rationality had returned. But in the moment? Just run with it.
Especially if it’s my ‘badass’ Holy Slayer who is nigh* immune to fear. Since fear isn’t something he’s actually felt fear since he was in Holy Warrior training pants, he’d be especially poor at making excuses, he’s completely out of practice!
* Not actually immune. Yet. Just very resistant to fear and fear effects, which means his party is likely to run away while he stands there toe to toe with the archfiend that is laying own the fear aura. “Paladins” can suck sometimes…
> Especially if it’s my ‘badass’ Holy Slayer who is nigh* immune to fear. Since fear isn’t something he’s actually felt fear since he was in Holy Warrior training pants, he’d be especially poor at making excuses, he’s completely out of practice!
I imagine that’s just a “hang your head in shame” moment.
Especially as he’s already stood down a few fear and sickness effects unfazed (massive pluses versus Demons and Undead powers helps – ala being a Paladin) but even so I don’t think he’d feel ashamed. Resolved to be better next time.
He does acknowledge he’s been bolstered by the Gods to specifically fight these foes, and as their Chosen Champion he doesn’t consider himself better than anyone else for it (just better than any dwarves who worship //non-dwarven// gods†).
.† Which is kinda weird as he doesn’t worship Dwarven gods either, technically. He worships his ancestors who act as the go between from him to the gods… so he knows they will also seek intervention from non-Dwarven gods and powers as needed, but he comforts himself with the thought they’d go to Dwarven Gods //first//.
Personally, I dislike mechanical fear. But I can also state with certainty that most people don’t roleplay their characters reacting to truly terrifying situations.
In a 5e campaign we just wrapped up, there was a supernatural being manipulating the world with magic that just out and out turned people into murder minded monsters. So we know this is happening, we’re out to stop it.
One of the other PC’s failed the check and was turned into one of these monsters in the middle of a boss encounter. Literally everyone at the table was like “Oh crapbaskets” but just went along with adventuring business as normal and prepared to kill two monsters. In situations like this, as a player, I like to toss a die and add in my Wis mod (or whichever mental stat is most relevant) just to give a bit of randomness to what happens. That little crumbkin came up with like a 2 or 3 after mods.
I decided my character couldn’t mentally handle the situation inside of a combat round and RAN.
Never been a fan of “let the dice decide how I act” styles (bad flashbacks to the “true neutral” characters from high school). But I do appreciate a PC who behaves like a character rather than a pawn on a game board. Case in point from my own career:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/creepy-ghost
I like to give it some spice with the randomness. If that little crumbkin came up N20, you can imagine we have a moment of fear and terror… and then become steely eyed and determined.
As for the ‘and how do I react to this’ “true neutral” players who seem to roll on the alignment chart to determine if they’re going to pet a child or eat it, they aren’t playing True Neutral. Chaotic Neutral maybe. ‘Get thrown out of my gaming group with considerable force’ for certain.
At least that’s how I’d play it off.
we tend do go into ‚semi-comical’ panic mode on a failed save vs. fear.
Kermit Arms-ing it tF out of the effect zone.
I do love me some Kermit-arms:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/parody
That tends to work in a more light-hearted games, but there ain’t nothing wrong with that playstyle.
more like Gunslinger three pages ago, but the comedic element serves as an indicator that it’s not a case of honest phobia on the character side but some supernatural shenanigans involved.
Seeing that most effects in DND/Pathfinder that inspires fear are supernatural, I like to take a cue from the classics and reference Tolkien. The fear Nazgul are able to inspire in others affects anyone but those that are either outright suicidal (Eowyn) or somehow supernatural resistant to it (Aragon, Gandalf, somewhat Hobbits). Whoever feels it is struck by a deep sense of dread, as it not only frightens people into inaction, but can also wear them down mentally.
So I often tend to rule fear effects as targeted something primal in people. Something that almost no amount of non-magical/supernatural courage or training can help with resisting. It is as if something simply goes into your brain and switches on the Flight response.
In general there is a lot of good inspiration to be found in Tolkiens works when it comes to fear and dread. Especially in the build up of the siege of Minas Tirith.
I kept trying to find gifs of “men of Gondor cowering away from Nazgul” for the blog, but could not for the life of me remember where in the films that happened.
You might be thinking of the moment during the siege of Minas Tirith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ElxL76ZBg
I think there might also be a moment during Osgiliath, but I am not sure.
One of the first saves my Kobold Gunslinger failed was against fear – caused by a haunt. The fellow had to cower in a corner from a spooky set of noises whilst the rest of the party disabled the haunt in question. During other encounters with fear, he’d mostly be doing the smart Kobold thing of tactically retreating – which made sense for someone who relied on keeping a distance from their foe.
It was fairly simple to justify, as he was a Kobold who was practicing the ‘fake it till you make it’ approach to leading his party of certified artifact retrievers, and had an immense ego to match his draconic aspirations. Of course, despite being a joke of a leader (his charisma was in the negatives) and his party mostly ‘playing along’ with his assigned role, he would retain his badassness by pulling a few unlikely stunts – like shooting an escaping bad guy through a stone wall, driving a chariot in a race to first place, solving a bunch of riddles from a mad cultist and tricking a disguised demon (who was trying to goad us into making a twisted wish) into revealing their evil alignment (he had a flag that creatures of different alignments see different colors).
Other nasty encounters with fear were from mummies and their nasty paralyzing version of fear.
If the character is badass enough, I imagine the standard approach to failing your fear save is a ‘screw this!’ approach and plain NOPE-ing out of there.
https://youtu.be/f7WI_NwUiNg
So, since Assassin is introduced – what’s his particular ‘character/player flaw’? Absurd phobia(s)? Being too murder-happy and intrigue-drama inciter? PVP-ing? Being incompetent in typical non-intrigue combat?
Fear is an emotion, not different from love, rage or joy. A hero, no matter what, can die and so they can fear death. Oh, yeah, so easy to say otherwise until the whole party is dead and the final PC is one HP away from grave. Fear give humanity to what otherwise would be a power fantasy. Fear is an roleplay opportunity. How much fear did the heroes bring into monsters before their final moments too? How many goblins have died screaming: “Not this way”, “I don’t wanna die”, “I will never see my little goblins grow up”? Fear is a double edge sword, a hero is but a glorified fear-monger that just is on your side. Let them feel fear, let them suffer it, there is nothing to fear but fear itself and heroes are the honor guest on a feast of fear 🙂
My headcanon explanation for Assassin’s phobia – he visited a certain Ratfolk village. And now, whenever someone mentions the word ‘Brie’, he suffers traumatic PTSD flashbacks.
Huh, either there’s a common artistic error with that moon, or the Handbook-verse moon has a big ol’ hole in it.
Naw, it’s just a low flying planar. =P
Looks like it’s a crescent moon, and thus no more has a hole in it than our when that happens here on Earth.
It’s gravitational lensing
or an airship
There’s almost nothing more infuriating than fear effects. Charm at least you can shrug your shoulders and run with the idea that the villain has managed to cloud your mind or mind control you. Fear though just straight up kills the power fantasy that is core to a lot of the game.
It is very hard to justify, especially when you’re trying to portray some of the biggest badasses possible. In the Glass Cannon Podcast, Skid HATES fear effects like nothing else, feeling that they take away from player agency and make it so you’re effectively stuck doing nothing until you make the save, which I have a hard time saying is wrong.
I cases where it clashes with the character/the character in that situation, I tend to just roll with it as the character recognizing it as a supernatural effect. They perceive it no more cowardly than they do getting dominated or charmed.
So… basically it’s just something for them to be pissed off at later.
Though I’ve also had characters who wouldn’t normally experience fear (of that sort or to that sort of thing) react with confusion to this sudden alien emotion that they’re aware is clearly out of place.
In a few cases I believe I’ve even had the character treat it more as a movement/physiological compulsion than an emotional one because that felt like what worked best for the character.
I actually really like supernatural fear effects because I really enjoy the imagery of the character finally succeeding a saving throw to snap out of it. You get that really cool heroic moment where characters muster their willpower to overcome the monster’s supernatural brainjacking to save their friends or strike for justice. It’s a great moment.
There’s a scene I quite like in the Fablehaven books (YA fiction that I greatly enjoyed in middle/high school and still like now as an adult—they’re surprisingly thick) where a revenant appears. They have something akin to a D&D-style fear aura that causes even experienced monster wranglers who have successfully banished demons to nearly die of fright. The revenant is ultimately defeated when one of the teenage protagonists drinks an entire bottle of literal liquid courage that counteracts the fear long enough for him to remove the nail that empowers that series’s revenants before promptly passing out. That’s the kind of moment I want to get when dealing with supernatural fear effects.
You need to carry a ranged backup weapon that preferably has a range increment larger than the radius of a standard fear aura. Then you can stand just outside the edge of the aura and take potshots
Step 1, create a character with more nuance than a spherical Brave Hero in a vacuum. If that’s not an option, either emphasize the supernatural nature of the fear or lean into the comedic angle.
This is why I generally don’t like supernatural fear effects, or at least the compulsive fleeing ones. In my single-book version of the first Strange Aeons AP book, I specifically reduced the main boss’s Aura of Will Save or Run Away to an Aura of Will Save or Get The Shaken Condition. I also had a lot of struggle when I was adding in an extra haunt and discovered that basically all of the low-level haunts on Archives of Nethys are “you panic and run away but are not permanently affected” things, which is just silly. At best, such a haunt just moderately annoys the player. (I was eventually find a “take 1d6 nonlethal cold damage” one, and placed it at a four-way hallway intersection so the party had to keep going through it.)
In general, if the PCs are running away from something, I want it to be because it’s really gross or really dangerous, not because Ye Gods ordered them to.