Terrible Remorse

[Chinasaur]

Are you kidding me? Let me get this straight - Let's assume that a caster is able to overcome a pretty high SR, which is pretty easy to do at high levels. If the powerful opponent makes the save, it becomes immobilized for one round, again, after making the save? That is silly, especially for a 3rd level spell. They are better off failing and taking the nominal damage and then being able to act on their initiative.

Consider one of the bad badies in the Pathfinder pantheon - Karzoug the Claimer. His SR is 24. His will save is so high, that saving against something like Terrible Remorse will happen lest he rolls a 1. So, if a PC with a brace of these spells won initiative, they could endlessly immobilize Karzoug, based on his making the save, allowing the other party members to pound away at will simply through the repeated use of a 3rd level bard spell???

That is simply nonsensical.

[Fenzl]

As per the spell the creature that saves is not immobilized, it is staggered.

Staggered

A staggered creature may take a single move action or standard action each round (but not both, nor can he take full-round actions). A staggered creature can still take free, swift, and immediate actions. A creature with nonlethal damage exactly equal to its current hit points gains the staggered condition.

[Pygon]

The original version of the spell immobilized the target for a round. It was later errata'd and the save condition reduced to staggered.

[Fenzl]

Pygon wrote:

The original version of the spell immobilized the target for a round. It was later errata'd and the save condition reduced to staggered.

Which is why I always use d20pfsrd instead of the books.

[Father Dagon]

What I've wondered about TR is how the self-wounding part of the spell works, action-wise. It seems remarkably close to the text for self-wounding in the Confusion spell -

Terrible Remorse:

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.

Confusion:

Roll on the following table at the start of each subject's turn each round to see what it does in that round... Deal 1d8 points of damage + Str modifier to self with item in hand

Now, if the spell is seeming to duplicate that one Confusion effect, then it would imply that self-wounding is all the target does on a round that it fails the TR save, losing all other actions. However, this isn't spelled out specifically, so it's only speculation. On the other hand, if it's just an action taken on the target's round, does the self-wounding take the place of an attack action? That would make it either spend a standard on the effect, or use it as part of a full attack action if one was available... otherwise it would be nearing a bizarre edge case where it's possible to get extra attacks in a round stacking with haste/speed/etc, even if one has to target yourself. (begins looking into damage reflecting builds to exploit bizarre scenario where attacking yourself is a good idea)

[Bigtuna]

The doing damage part doesn't take an action. I'm pretty sure I read and errate somewhere about that. - If not just house rule it...

And Karzoug - does he have spellcraft? - If so he could choose to fail his save - beat him self up a bit and still use a full round action to attack the players...

note that he now get's 2 will saves. 1 initial and an other in his turn - which is just stupid. The spell used to be broken - then they changed it to good - and finally nerfed it to target is staggered 1 round...