Houserule: Alternate Frightened / Panicked thoughts?

[chaoseffect]

"You can't tell me how my character feels!"

The Frightened and Panicked conditions always annoyed me as a player as they never really felt genuine to the situation. Half the game is slaughtering murderous outlaws, vile fiends, the legions of everlasting darkness, and gibbering masses of insanity from beyond the veil of space and time; I just killed half an army of demons without taking a scratch, but now I arbitrarily decide "2 spooky 4 me" because this spooky dog started barking and MUST run away crying? That's just irritating to me.

From a mechanical standpoint the conditions exist to give debuff options and/or crowd control and they can be heavily debilitating in that regard. I'm cool with that, but not to the extent that it gets to tell players how their sole avatar in the gaming world is feeling. With that in mind I'm considering alternate rules for the Frightened and Panicked conditions and would like some input.

Instead of replacing the conditions completely I figured I'd add on an optional clause that allows the "must run away like a b+&*#" part to ignored at a steep price; the conditions are still horrible to be inflicted by, it's just that now you can at least maintain a modicum of self respect in character while being inflicted by them if you so choose.

Frightened add on:

A frightened creature may choose each round to fight even when escape is possible, but by doing so the penalties on all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks increase to -4. Additionally, to cast a spell a caster must make a concentration check equal to 15+double the spell's level or lose it, and the DCs of all spells and abilities are reduced by 2. All rounds spent ignoring the urge to flee do not count toward ending the duration of the fear effect on the creature.

Panicked add on:

A panicked creature may choose each round to ignore the effects of the panicked condition, but by doing so the creature takes a -8 penalty on all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. Additionally, to cast a spell a caster must make a concentration check equal to 20+double the spell's level or lose it, and the DCs of all spells and abilities are reduced by 4. All rounds spent ignoring the usual panicked effect do not count toward ending the duration of the fear effect on the creature.

Do you think the alternate effects are too extreme? I wanted to maintain how bad they suck to get hit with but perhaps I'm pushing too far. As a side note, I added on additional penalties for casters for fairness sake; no subverting the negatives by just choosing to use a spell that doesn't require an attack roll.

[Dazzlerdal]

I honestly can't remember what the original text says for these conditions but i have my own version that i use as follows. Your way seems to do a similar thing as mine so i guess we were both thinking the same thing about these annoying conditions.

Shaken: Characters with the Shaken condition are visible fearful of whatever caused the condition. A character with the Shaken condition suffers a -2 Circumstance penalty on all rolls and checks.
If a character with the Shaken condition gains the Shaken condition again he gains the Frightened condition.
Frightened: The Frightened condition is a more extreme version of the Shaken condition. If a character with the Frightened condition does anything other than use the Total Defence, or Withdraw actions then he suffers a -4 Circumstance penalty on all rolls and checks.
If a character with the Frightened condition gains the Frightened or Shaken condition again he gains the Panicked condition.
Panicked: The Panicked condition is a more extreme version of the Shaken and Frightened condition. If a character with the Frightened condition does anything other than used the Withdraw action then he suffers a -6 Circumstance penalty on all rolls and checks.

The important bit is if he does anything other than the allowed actions he suffers a penalty to his checks because of the nerves/trembling/fear, etc.

Now if its an NPC then i would almost always choose to have them perform the allowed actions. A PC is able to choose what actions he wants to do and so the above text covers both situations.

Of course i also altered all the other rules so casters have attack rolls etc and therefore the penalties penalise everyone equally, but thats not important.

[Arrius]

The rationale here is all over the place.
A GM can tell you what your character feels like when he grants you a morale bonus, and mind-affecting effects do that all the time.
It is understandable that no one wants to lose control of their character, but the fact of the matter is that the player is not in the character's shoes; the character might feel afraid when the player isn't; might be sleepy or even charmed into feeling love or affection while the player is headdesking because his character rolled a natural 1 vs. the domination of the succubus.
The game already assumes that the player and the GM have a mutual agreement on respectful handling of characters. That's part of the game that the mechanics stop and GM-Player relations come in.

So when it comes to mechanics, I think a GM is free to say 'roll a Will save vs. fear', and on a fail say, 'You're frightened. Fly, you fool!' as your character wails, soils his pants, or escapes with a hard face and grit teeth. The flavor (as always) is up to the character.

But in the interests of keeping integrity (and because you have a genuinely good idea), I think it is perfectly acceptable for a player to roll a second Will save to stay in their position (DC equal to the first), while suffering double the penalties for each increment of fear beyond the first.

It would be a nice houserule, in fact.