What happens when we can't flee from our phobias?

[hillbillyinablimp]

As a player who regularly helps out his GM with rules management and storytelling, I have been looking into the rules regarding a potential situation regarding phobias in which characters become frightened, but cannot escape. I am referring to phobias that specifically refer to the situation, such as being in the dark or being in an enclosed, tight space.
For example, due to previous events in the campaign, my character is now heavily afraid of being bound, especially by magical means. In the event that he would be bound, he would likely fall to the frightened state, or maybe even to the panicked state should my GM deem it necessary (which I think it would be). Assuming several failed Escape Artist checks, or bounds by magical means, fleeing is impossible. What should happen regarding my character's health? I'm specifically looking at the possibilities for shock and hyperventilation, though there is likely other health issues to follow. Are there any rules regarding this, and if not, does anyone have any suggestions?

[Pax Veritas]

I suggest just going with that excellent role-play character aspect, and let the GM adjudicate at will, without a whole lot of details decided upon. It may result in a more heightened and dramatic experience in the imagination and in the story, than if it were codified. But that's my 2 copper pieces on the subject. You may be looking for game mechanics, which, I'm not sure really matter imho.

Regards,
Pax

[hillbillyinablimp]

Pax Veritas wrote:

I suggest just going with that excellent role-play character aspect, and let the GM adjudicate at will, without a whole lot of details decided upon. It may result in a more heightened and dramatic experience in the imagination and in the story, than if it were codified. But that's my 2 copper pieces on the subject. You may be looking for game mechanics, which, I'm not sure really matter imho.

Regards,
Pax

While we would normally do this as per our roleplay-heavy setup, certain aspects, such as affects to health, still require some amount of crunched numbers.

[chaoseffect]

You could consider going to the Cowering condition as it's the end of the Fear line. The Confused condition might be better as it implies desperate but futile struggle more than Cowering which is more passive, like peeing yourself and sobbing quietly.

[Gilfalas]

Pretty big question since there are hundreds of phobias and massively varrying degrees in each that can range from being mildly inconvenienced to completely crippling.

For example I have a friend with a very severe case of Arachnophobia. So severe that she actually will become physicaly paralyzed in terror at the sight of even a cheap black plastic spider ring, like you can get from a bubblegum machine. She will stop breathing until she passes out if the 'spider' stays in visual range. There is a 6 flags theme park in our area with a titanic wooden roller coster that they mount a 5 story high inflatable tarantula to every Halloween season that can be seen from the interstate. She cannot drive past there in October because of that.

What kind of phobia does your character have? How intense is it? Where did it originate from (give detils)? What game effect gave this phobia or is it a pure RP assignement you have taken on since you felt it was appropriate? You will need to be detailed in the degree and type of your characters phobia to determine what it does.

Also remember that sometimes confronting your phobia can cure you of it as well.

The question is pretty huge. If you have access to any of the far realm material for Pathfinder or any of the sanity rules from previous editions I would suggest trying those.

To the best of my limited knowledge, rules for such things have not been codified in Pathfinder and as such you are free to do as you wish with them.

[hillbillyinablimp]

Gilfalas wrote:

What kind of phobia does your character have? How intense is it? Where did it originate from (give detils)? What game effect gave this phobia or is it a pure RP assignement you have taken on since you felt it was appropriate? You will need to be detailed in the degree and type of your characters phobia to determine what it does.

As far as answering this section and narrowing down possibilities, I'll share. We had decided that an incident involving an NPC would happen between sessions to my character. During a rest stop in a city, an oracle snuck into my character's room at the inn in the middle of the night, cast a curse of change gender, magically bound him, and raped him (I know, it's pretty dark for a roleplaying game, but we're daring). As far as that curse, he's learned to get used to it, and later events led to him being able to gain control over it, opting to be able to change gender willingly rather than at seemingly random triggers. The resulting effects on my character's mind, however, were two things: Whenever he hears his rapist's cackling, it's a Will Save or go into a frenzy (already taken care of regarding game mechanics), and a crippling fear of being bound, especially by magical means. While he has yet to be in another situation in which he would be bound like that, I expect that he would fall into hysterics, involving lots of sobbing and begging to be let go in exchange for anything, and if left long enough, hyperventilation and other chances of unintentionally hurting himself as he truly begins to fall into madness.

God, do I love torturing my characters.

[Dekalinder]

I'd stick with the panick rules

CRB wrote:

Panicked: Characters who are panicked are shaken, and they run away from the source of their fear as quickly as they can, dropping whatever they are holding. Other than running away from the source, their paths are random. They flee from all other dangers that confront them rather than facing those dangers. Once they are out of sight (or hearing) of any source of danger, they can act as they want. Panicked characters cower if they are prevented from fleeing.

CRB wrote:

Cowering: The character is frozen in fear and can take no actions. A cowering character takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class and loses his Dexterity bonus (if any).

If you want to roleplay even harsher case of panic attack, you can use the subfucation rules

CRB wrote:

Suffocation

A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution. If a character takes a standard or full-round action, the remaining duration that the character can hold her breath is reduced by 1 round. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check in order to continue holding her breath. The check must be repeated each round, with the DC increasing by +1 for each previous success.

When the character fails one of these Constitution checks, she begins to suffocate. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to –1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates.

Slow Suffocation: A Medium character can breathe easily for 6 hours in a sealed chamber measuring 10 feet on a side. After that time, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage every 15 minutes. Each additional Medium character or significant fire source (a torch, for example) proportionally reduces the time the air will last. Once rendered unconscious through the accumulation of nonlethal damage, the character begins to take lethal damage at the same rate. Small characters consume half as much air as Medium characters.

Remember that cowering character cant perform any action so they won't stop suffocating until an external cause remove the state that provokes the panic.

[Gherrick]

Phobias are an odd thing. They invoke an extreme case of fight or flight, although the extreme cases are usually take some form of catatonia(sp) as a person is overwhelmed with fright. Still, in rarer cases, people attempt to destroy there phobia if it has a physical manifestation.

On the OP's case, being bound/trapped might induce the Rage and Confused conditions, increasing their Str/Con when the adrenaline levels skyrocket, but clouding their judgement as to what is reality. Any "attack" action would become an escape artist check (Str only) until it succeeds, and then they might attack their captors (which might mean other PCs due to their confused state). I'd have it last something like 2d4 rounds.