The intent here is for you to get as far away from the source as possibleIf creature is in a panic to get away, and can at some point cast Teleport, then it seems clear that point would be ASAP. Not 3 rounds later when creature has run itself into a dead-end corridor.
I agree, but the rules say "if no other means of escape are availible".
Personally I don't enforce that, but the rules are not logical at times. After all paralyzed characters still get reflex saves.
"Once you are away from danger you may then cast remove fear."Except that at that point creature no longer needs to as there is no fear to remove. The "panicked" state will not abate until creature is sure its out of danger. And if it's sure it's out of danger, well, then there is no longer any fear to dispel.
The fear spell duration can still be in affect, so the spell is not really over. You are just not near anything dangerous at that point.
As an example I don't care for heights without rails. If I am on the ground my dislike of high places is not being triggered, but it is still there.
Total Defense is a full round action. That does not leave room for much in casting.Bing!
Why are you binging? All he is saying is that you can not use cast a spell because the action is being used for something else. I don't think anyone tried to make that argument anyway.
So, if you can't cast to remove fear. Can you at least use abilities that are swift actions to remove fear? (IE Battle Herald's "Shake it Off" which allows for a new saving throw)
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So, if you can't cast to remove fear. Can you at least use abilities that are swift actions to remove fear? (IE Battle Herald's "Shake it Off" which allows for a new saving throw)
Depends on what level of fear you are being affected by.
For example if you are panicked, while trying to flee, the panicked condition states specifically that you cannot take any actions, other then trying to flee from the source of the fear.A swift action is still an action.
Check the specific condition when under the effect of fear.
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So I think we all agree that a panicked character could drink a potion of expeditious retreat to help them run away faster.
What if they were given a mislabeled potion or lied to about the potion? Could a character drink a potion of remove fear if they thought it was an escape spell potion?
Just a thought experiment. In my games I would allow it to work, once. After that most characters wouldn't believe the person who deceived them enough to make the trick work. Also any character I played would have a chance to use the potion in a non-fear situation where that effect would be useful, thus leading to disappointment.
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One last try here (quoting from the rules and using actual quotation marks):
"A panicked creature must drop anything it holds and flee at top speed from the source of its fear, as well as any other dangers it encounters, along a random path. It can’t take any other actions. In addition, the creature takes a –2 penalty on all saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. If cornered, a panicked creature cowers and does not attack, typically using the total defense action in combat. A panicked creature can use special abilities, including spells, to flee; indeed, the creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape."
1) "A panicked creature must drop anything it holds"So how does said creature use Material Components to cast spells? Huh?
If if creature cannot hold anything, then how can it manage the delicate work of spell Somatic Components?
2) "and flee at top speed from the source of its fear...along a random path. It can’t take any other actions..."
Except that it can and must take other actions.
For instance the taxing and delicate work of casting spells that aid escape.3) And can, when cornered, and here I quote again the official statement, use "the total defense action in combat".
Total defense action? What is that? "You can defend yourself as a standard action. You get a +4 dodge bonus to your AC" Oh, a coordinated (not random!) action?
Huh? I though said creature was "panicked"? And could only run away, randomly.
And if creature has dropped its weapon as it must, and so presents no tactical threat, does "total defense" even make sense?
4) "A panicked creature can use special abilities, including spells, to flee; indeed, the creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape"
If the creature is running in circles, sorry, along a "random path", then how does the creature know said path is a "way to escape"? huh?
If creature doesn't know the way of escape then how could it matter to said creature if a...
1: Simplest answer: IF you are holding your components for that spell when you gain this condition you drop those components and run away from them. Since I can't find a place where it says you have to have them out, I'd say unless the spell says "you throw an acorn at Joe" they just disappear, but that is a Gm decision, as its generally inferred you have them in hand to cast due to needing hands free for them.
"A spell's components explain what you must do or possess to cast the spell. The components entry in a spell description includes abbreviations that tell you what type of components it requires. Specifics for material and focus components are given at the end of the descriptive text. Usually you don't need to worry about components, but when you can't use a component for some reason or when a material or focus component is expensive, then the components are important." - Components
Therefore IF you drop your components(which you tie to the spell during spell prep) you lose the capability to cast that spell.
UNLESS you have eschew materials or similar ability you are therefore unable to cast any spells that require "Material components". The Panicked condition is a penalty for Failing a roll It is typically an upgrade to the frightened/shaken conditions, usually requiring an upgrade to Panicked from one of them.
2: pan·ic(panik)-noun
-1.sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior.- Google definition search.
Your character is fleeing on a path, that due to its failed save, that it feels is the best way to GTFO. By default players control how their character "thinks" and "feels", when a Fear effect is used it takes away your ability to make that call for your char. This is where the word "random" comes into play, due to most players feeling that the "gm is cheating" if the GM moves a PC in a manner they wouldn't have chosen.
"can and must" is are opinions of a rational mind which is currently not in control of the pc
3: standard action doesn't translate to "coordinated action" anywhere in the rules. "total defense" of a person who is in a state of "panic" is literally doing anything physically you can to avoid being killed, ie putting your hand over your soft places to keep the sharp thing from them. Generally a failed save means lack of coordination. the beginning of the statement is "if cornered" is kind of universal for your back is up against two walls and that's the least of your problems. there fore there is no where to randomly run too.
4:I don't see anything in this that gives you the ability to cast if you dropped your components.
A General response to this issue:
The panicked condition has 3 blanket statements, setting the "general rules" for the condition. It follows with 2 clauses in which the general rules might not cover the situation. Then is followed by an important line that this is an upgraded negative condition.
1: A panicked creature must drop anything it holds and flee at top speed from the source of its fear, as well as any other dangers it encounters, along a random path.
>>Pretty Clear: your pc runs away in a way you, the player, don't control.<<<
2: It can't take any other actions.
>>> The source of confusion IF it were a clause and not the general rule.<<<
3: In addition, the creature takes a –2 penalty on all saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks.
>>> this is a carry over from Frightened (see below)<<<
Clause A: If cornered, a panicked creature cowers and does not attack, typically using the total defense action in combat.
>>>This is the writer letting us know that cowering(another condition) is very close by, then giving us an out, by saying you can still defend yourself.<<<
Clause B: A panicked creature can use special abilities, including spells, to flee; indeed, the creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape.
>>> "If" in the middle of the sentence is what make this a clause. "if" means "as long as these conditions are met THEN". meaning if anyone at your table can think of another way to escape then your character can too and thinks of them first and acts upon them.
Panicked is a more extreme state of fear than shaken or frightened.
>>> THE MOST IMPORTANT LINE OF THEM ALL, lets see why:
Frightened's test has a a similar line;
Frightened is like shaken, except that the creature must flee if possible. Panicked is a more extreme state of fear.
Therefore to become panicked you must go from Shaken to Frightened to Panicked. Unless a spell/effect OVERRIDES YOUR WILL and forces you into this state directly. That is 3 saves against your best saves as a caster. (the convo is mostly geared towards wizards it seems, ignore last line if that's not the case)
if you want to get bent about this rule, realize the level of spell that's causing the issue and look for its balancing point. most fear effects cause shaken then upgrade it on subsequent uses.
In Summation
pan·ic(panik)-noun
1.sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior.(via google search)
by failing your save(s) it causes unthinking behavior in your PC.
On a cranky day as a GM I'd say this breaks any concentration spells you have up as well.
On a cranky day as a GM I'd say this breaks any concentration spells you have up as well.
It should absolutely break concentration, since if you are concentrating on some other spell you aren't doing all you can to escape your source of fear.
...Concentrating to maintain a spell is a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity...
Spending that standard doing something other than fleeing is not in your 'interest' of escaping the fear.
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1) "A panicked creature must drop anything it holds"
So how does said creature use Material Components to cast spells? Huh?
If creature cannot hold anything, then how can it manage the delicate work of spell Somatic Components?
Obviously because you are reading it wrong.
"A panicked creature must drop anything it holds"
"A panicked creature cannot hold objects"
See the difference? The idea is identical to that of a Stunned individual—anything you're holding at the moment is dropped. That's the RAW, and in light of the "contradiction" you've brought up, it's obviously the RAI. After the initial shock, you can, with trembling hands, draw out the components to cast.
Again, there's only a contradiction with the most incredibly obtuse reading possible. I can appreciate playing the Devil's Advocate, but it's pretty obviously futile here.
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I think some people have role playing issues.
Panic'd changes your characters goal. The goal of a character in a panic is to get away. Period. It is not your characters goal to remove his fear, but to escape from it. He doesn't care that he's scared, he cares about distance. Often times, your character willbe an absolute idiot when it comes to putting distance between him and the source of his fear.
There's no contradiction in the rules about dropping things and casting spells. Not all spells have verbal components, not to mention SLA's, some of which involve teleportation.
Heck, to even further clarify, your character's goal is to flee, not even escape. Often times by fleeing you end up escaping, but not always.
So, when panic'd, a creature will roll to see what direction he goes, with the given that he runs away. If he has a spell to flee with, he may use it. If he has a spell that helps him escape, ask yourself if it aids with the action of "fleeing" (which requires no thought). No? Then he can't use it.
TL:DR
Spells that aid in escape are only usable when they aid in fleeing. Fleeing != Escaping. Fleeing does not usually make sense.
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I don't understand what this argument is about. The intent is that you can't cast Remove Fear while panicked, so why take the cheesy route of dissecting the wording to say you can?
Welcome to the Rules Questions forum. : D
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Others have already covered this pretty well, but I figured I'd chime in with my 2 cents.
First off, rationality is gone with panicked. It doesn't have to make sense, because your mind is acting in an irrational and self-inconsistent fashion. int/wis checks are out entirely (I'd treat them as auto-fails).
Second, it doesn't matter what "components" a spell has when it comes to the spell description. Argue that material components would have to be dropped? Fine. Eschew Materials. Argue that they don't have the coordination to wave their hands around? Okay, they have still spell. There are even ways to use such abilities as a swift (Quicken Spell), free (Boots of Speed), or non- actions (ghoul sorcerer - Ravenous Frenzy). Since you can't use swift, free, or non- actions to move, using them to move faster is only going to help. Are you rational enough to use/not-use them? That's up to the table (unless you are cornered, then you must use them if they would make it physically possible to escape).
The description of panicked is not written under the assumption that such abilities can only be used as a move, standard or full action, or that they always require X, Y, or Z components. They are written to emphasize that resources can be burned and that you can't cop-out by saying "Welp, I guess I'll just save my special abilities by cowering then." That's it.
How I would run it: I would never allow someone to think ahead while panicked. If you can move, you move. If you can't, you spend a standard or lower action on something that lets you move (physically speaking), then you move. If you can't do that, you spend a full-round action on something that lets you move, then 5ft step. If you can't do that, you cower. Actions like Teleport or Fly only happen when they are strictly required to get further away. Why? Mostly because I don't feel like being a dick. Fear sucks enough already; No need to have the sorc burn all his spell slots on dimension door, despite his perfectly good feet, to make it an effective condition.
Regardless of how you run it, there can be no "check" to determine if you are smart enough for an action. You are irrational, int/wis checks are rationality, therefor they fail. Automatically. Even if it's to remember your name; You just aren't thinking about it. If your table decides that spending a standard action to cast haste before running is appropriate, then that's always what happens, for all similar characters, no check required.
Remove Fear? That's thinking ahead. Precisely the kind of thing that rational minds do and irrational minds do not.
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So I think we all agree that a panicked character could drink a potion of expeditious retreat to help them run away faster.
No we don't. If for no other reason than that such a potion, CAN NOT BE MADE. Expeditious Retreat is a personal only spell.
Panicked means you are fleeing period, you're not rummaging through your backpack, or pouches you are getting out of Dodge.. period, end of story. It's supposed to be an inhibiting condition which means you don't have full control over your range of options.
Oops, forgot that was a personal spell. My mistake.
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No we don't. If for no other reason than that such a potion, CAN NOT BE MADE. Expeditious Retreat is a personal only spell.
Place a wager on that, my friend?
Alchemist and infusions: Can I use the infusion discovery to create an infused extract of a personal-range formula (such as true strike), which someone else can drink?
Yes, you can. The design team may decide to close this loophole in the next printing of the Advanced Player's Guide.
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@Quark
You may take any action that aids you in fleeing. That does not mean you can take actions that will aid you in escaping.
Fleeing != Escaping.
run away from a place or situation of danger.
Teleporting is fleeing. Casting haste helps you flee faster. Casting remove fear helps you escape, it DOES NOT help you flee, which is to simply run away.
Fleeing is an action. It has nothing to do with how effectively you are escaping. It is simply, running away.
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Wait, your telling me we can't use a dictionary? How does one then understand what one another means, if there's no common ground of language?
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.
The definition of Panic'd uses the word flee several times, but no where in the PF is the word flee defined, therefore we default to the English meaning of the word. The designers don't make money from writing dictionaries that have already been written.
I agree that a PC cannot have a plan of escape. BUT he can, in fact, have a plan of how to flee. Your missing my entire point it seems. Forget the word escape, and explain everything in terms of "fleeing", because that is what your character must do. If he has anything that helps him "flee", he must use it.
Casting remove fear does not aid in fleeing. It aids in escape. Two separate words and concepts.
As for dropping things, have you never been startled to the point of dropping the items you were carrying? Or perhaps have you tried to run as fast you could while carrying a heavy shield? Wouldn't it be rational to drop said shield in order to run faster? Who said that dropping your items didn't make sense?
When panic'd, your character's goal is to FLEE (aka RUN). Your character drops his items in order to RUN faster. He doesn't care what path he takes, because that doesn't help him RUN faster. He can cast Expetidious Retreat, because it helps him RUN faster. He does NOT cast remove fear, because it does not help him RUN.
FLEE does not equal ESCAPE.
you get one Mother-of-a-Load-of-Confusion! And an overly long thread on an ostensibly simple topic.
It's only long because you have refused to heed what anyone else is saying. One of your largest problems is that you infer so many things about how this game works. As an example, you assume all spells are so intricate that they cannot be cast while panicked, or that all spells are equally intricate, or that casting a haste spell to run away requires the same level of thought as remove fear, and as such you should be able to do both, or even that if you're so startled that you drop what you are holding that you're subsequently unable to hold anything that you didn't happen to drop initially.
When dealing with raw you can make no assumptions. The rules simply state that you can cast spells that help you flee, and that if you are in a situation where casting one of those spells is your only means to flee, then you must cast that spell.
You personally can spend all day making assumptions about the state of mind of your character (the things that make sense to you but have no foundation in the rules) and you can talk about how you don't feel that the rules are a 100% accurate representation of what YOU think is correct and you can even postulate about the intricacies of spell casting and how they would or wouldn't make sense in a situation where you are running away from some large monster, but in the end those things are not relevant.
Almost every well known and respected person on the rules forum has posted and each has come to the same conclusion, that remove fear is not a spell you can cast while panicked. You asked a question, you presented your arguments, and you then received your answer. You didn't like that answer or you didn't agree with the rebuttals and almost every justification you've had since then has been based only on assumptions or that in your mind the condition rules for panicked don't quite make sense to you.
That's the beauty of it though, they don't have to make sense, they're just the rules. Rules are designed often with more in mind than just "does this make sense from a logical perspective" oftentimes other things like balance and mechanics come into play. you don't have to look too long in the rules forum before you start to see that in places, but 99 percent of the time those rules improve the game. if you don't like it and you're the DM then you can house rule it away, but that is not the purpose of this forum.
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Wait, your telling me we can't use a dictionary? How does one then understand what one another means, if there's no common ground of language?For game definitions you use the definitions supplied in the RAW.
Using other sources, however well respected <cough>Merriam-Webster Online</cough>, or not <cough>Wikipedia</cough>, will only add to the confusion. No doubt one of the reasons Piazo posts the SRD for free.
Show me where "flee" is defined in game terms. It's not. So why are you trying to tell me that using a dictionary is wrong again? I wonder, why are you avoiding my argument so much? Do you not like it because it proves it's point?
This is why whenever I build a caster, I research a custom spell that combines Expeditious Retreat and Remove Fear. It solves the problem and allows my character to remove myself from the scene in an organized and cool-headed manner. But I agree, one cannot cast remove fear while panicking...
Sorry to necro this thread.
What do you guys think about this scenario:
You are trapped in a 30 foot diameter room with no way out (it's The Test to become a Hellknight). You are hit with fear.
You cannot teleport or leave this 30 foot diameter. You also can only fly up 30 feet, but so can the devil.
Can you cast Remove Fear?
Sorry to necro this thread.
What do you guys think about this scenario:
You are trapped in a 30 foot diameter room with no way out (it's The Test to become a Hellknight). You are hit with fear.
You cannot teleport or leave this 30 foot diameter. You also can only fly up 30 feet, but so can the devil.
Can you cast Remove Fear?
No, you try to climb tour way away.
You will try to climb out. If you fail the climb check to get out you can keep trying to get away using any means available including casting relevant spells, fight at -2 to hit (if frightened) or cower (if panicked).
What you cannot do is cast remove fear, or any other spell that doesn't immediately and directly help you get the hell away.
Per RAW, I agree.
There is no climbing out of this situation.
I have to face a Bone Devil and it has a 5' fear aura. If it gets close and I fail my will save, I'm thinking I'm dead. Pass or Fail test.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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You could drink your potion before the devil closes--it won't make you immune, but it'll give you a +4(?) on your save.
Similarly, IIRC, any buffs that can survive the hour long ceremony before the fight are allowed, so you could try to score yourself a Heroes' Feast or something like it (long duration, boosts saves vs. fear.)