Help me work with the Lich's Fear Aura

[HappyDaze]

OK, here's the Fear Aura of the Lich from the Bestiary (1):

Fear Aura (Su): Creatures of less than 5 HD in a 60-foot radius that look at the lich must succeed on a Will save or become frightened. Creatures with 5 HD or more must succeed at a Will save or be shaken for a number of rounds equal to the lich’s Hit Dice. A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same lich’s aura for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.

So here are my questions:
1) If a creature has less than 5 HD, no duration is mentioned. Should the frightened condition last for a number of rounds equal to the lich's Hit Dice in the same manner as the shaken condition for higher HD creatures?

2) If a creature fails the save and the duration of the shaken (or frightened) condition has expired, does the creature have to make another save if they remain in the 60-foot radius? Would this then be repeated every (lich's Hit Dice) rounds until the creature successfully saves (which grants 24 hours of immunity)?

[HappyDaze]

I'd still appreciate any clarifications offered regarding these questions.

[Maezer]

1) Frightened lasts until the affected creature can no longer see or hear the object they are afraid of. (core rules p.563). Effectively when they can no longer tell where the object is, they can't really run from it thus it has no effect.

2) This isn't as clean. By RAW you need save every round in which you look at the lich you have to make the save. And the shaken condition would stack making the character frightened. At this point your probably doing your best not to look at the creature unless your stuck in a cowering position. But if you make the second save you become immune to the effect and thus as the remaining duration of the shaken condition is less than the duration of the immunity it doesn't really matter.

That said I've seen Fear Auras (and fear in general) handled so many different ways by various GMs I may well be wrong.

[Howie23]

The universal monster rule for fear aura is that it acts as either freezing the target or as the fear spell. The fear spell lasts for 1 rd/level. While the lich's fear aura doesn't act exactly like the fear spell, I think that using the duration as being equal to the Lich's HD is a reasonable way to handle it in the absence of better information. The RAW is unclear.

Yes, a failed save would make the creature susceptible to being affected again. Whether this save is required each round that the creature is in the area of the aura isn't clear to me and I'd be happy to be educated on the matter.

[Sir Ophiuchus]

I wouldn't let the aura stack with itself. For creatures with more than 5HD, if you failed and became shaken you'd be shaken until that duration expired. If you're within range and see it again at that time, then you have to save again.

Repeat until you save.

[Howie23]

Agreed. Fear effects are cumulative, but effects from the same source generally do not stack. This is a bit of an overgeneralization, but I think it applies here.