Does "Terrible Remorse" self-attack void any other actions?


Rules Questions


Simple enough question... the spell Terrible Remorse has this description:

"You fill a target with such profound remorse that it begins to harm itself. Each round, the target must save or deal 1d8 points of damage + its Strength modifier to itself using an item held in its hand or with unarmed attacks. If the creature saves, it is instead frozen with sorrow for 1 round, during which time it can take no actions and takes a -2 penalty to Armor Class, after which the spell ends."

It's clear what happens when a creature fails the save; they freeze. However, if they don't save and they have to do the 1d8 + Str damage to themselves, do they then have the rest of the round to do their normal move/standard/swift actions, and the Terrible Remorse thing is just an extra? Or does it replace their standard action?


consider it a free action. If the spell causes you to lose actions it's just plain broken.
Also remember you can choose to fail your will save. So if you (or the monster) made the spellcraft check you can do a little damage and still act. So a caster could still cast spells and do a little damage to himself.

Grand Lodge

Kyremi wrote:

Simple enough question... the spell Terrible Remorse has this description:

"You fill a target with such profound remorse that it begins to harm itself. Each round, the target must save or deal 1d8 points of damage + its Strength modifier to itself using an item held in its hand or with unarmed attacks. If the creature saves, it is instead frozen with sorrow for 1 round, during which time it can take no actions and takes a -2 penalty to Armor Class, after which the spell ends."

It's clear what happens when a creature fails the save; they freeze. However, if they don't save and they have to do the 1d8 + Str damage to themselves, do they then have the rest of the round to do their normal move/standard/swift actions, and the Terrible Remorse thing is just an extra? Or does it replace their standard action?

Terrible Remorse doesn't specify that it takes up a part of the target's action to harm themselves, so you should consider it to be a free action/not an action.


Thanks for the replies guys :)

Seems this spell is more useful when the save fails rather than when it succeeds, if the target has lots of HP at least... it'd be funny if it beat itself unconscious though.


depending on the target. A BBEG could do some damage before making a save, and if the monster doesn't have spellcraft he'll most likely try to make the save - which would cause him to loose a turn. It's a nice spell - but consider your target. Undeads will be immune, melee types will do some damage to themselves - but is it enough to make the spell worth your action? And casters could make the spellcraft check and fail the saves with little effect. But still nice when facing a single BBEG - that might make his save...

Liberty's Edge

I'd argue that it takes the target a standard action to damage itself, rather than a free action. The spell description states that the target uses an item in hand or unarmed attacks, which would, I think, require an action to do.

EDIT: Heh. Just looked at the FAQ/Errata for the spell...and it certainly seems to imply that the victim can take a full action while under the influence. So maybe I'm wrong here.


Standard action. Or full round action. Hitting things with other things is fairly well defined.

And the making the save bit shouldn't be worse than the failing the save.

Grand Lodge

DeathSpot wrote:

I'd argue that it takes the target a standard action to damage itself, rather than a free action. The spell description states that the target uses an item in hand or unarmed attacks, which would, I think, require an action to do.

EDIT: Heh. Just looked at the FAQ/Errata for the spell...and it certainly seems to imply that the victim can take a full action while under the influence. So maybe I'm wrong here.

Yep, the clarification certainly didn't add an action for the 'damage self' choice. And yes, this makes it a horribly counter-intuitive spell where failure is superior to success when it's cast on you. Even more so for your usual pencil-necked wizard, with his Str of 7 or 8 and his mighty d8-1or-2 damage.

However, the spell is so broken if you pass the save that I'm kind of ok with a saving throw failure being silly and not that bad. It does maean that you want to be packing wands of this spell all over the place, to benefit from the poor DC the wand will have.

Hey, I don't make the rules, I just try and live with them.

...That and ban things.

Grand Lodge

Cheapy wrote:

Standard action. Or full round action. Hitting things with other things is fairly well defined.

And the making the save bit shouldn't be worse than the failing the save.

Attacking things is very well defined. However, you aren't making an attack. You are saving, or you take damage. The source of the damage is you, granted, but at no point do you make an attack. You don't even use the damage die of your natural weapons, if you have any - you use a flat d8.

I agree that it shouldn't work that way, but it does.


Per the FAQ "If you make the saving throw, you are frozen with sorrow and can take no actions, but this causes the spell to end. If you fail the saving throw, you deal damage to yourself, but can otherwise act normally."

My guess is that being able to act normally means that you get your turn as you normally would. I agree with the ninja that the self inflicted damage does not seem to be an attack. I think the spell would be much better if you got a save each round and if you failed you lost your turn and stood around beating yourself for a little damage instead.

I guess that it can be a little boring for casters when the bad guys make the saves against their spells. That probably makes it tempting for folks designing spells to put in an effect which happens even when the save succeeds. Unfortunately I think these effects are starting to get a little out of hand though. I think that making the target staggered for a round would be a very powerful effect, certainly more than enough.

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