Splitting Confused into separate conditions.


Homebrew and House Rules


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This is an attempt to split the Confused condition into two separate conditions, Berserk and Erratic. The Berserk condition forces the player to fight aggressively, but still allows them to choose which targets to attack. The Erratic condition randomizes the player's target each turn, but allows the player to choose their actions.

Berserk: You are enraged and attack wildly. You are off-guard, and cannot Delay or Ready.
As long as a viable enemy target is within reach of your Strikes or spells, you must use all of your actions to Strike or cast offensive spells. At the GM's discretion, other actions may be available to you if they would facilitate destruction of your enemies (such as Interacting to draw a weapon).
If you cannot attack any enemies that are currently present, you must use actions to make attacks against enemies possible as expediently as possible. Such actions include Striding within reach of an enemy, Striking or Forcing Open a door to reach enemies hiding behind it, or Seeking to make an invisible enemy detected.
You may use activities comprised of basic actions only if they facilitate your aggression (such as Flurry of Blows, Spellstrike, Quick Draw if you don't have a weapon drawn, or Sudden Charge if no enemies are within reach). The GM is the final arbiter on what activities facilitate aggression.
The condition automatically ends when every enemy is unnoticed. Each time you take damage from an attack or spell, you can attempt a DC 11 flat check to end the condition. If you would become Erratic while you have the Berserk condition, you become Confused. If you would become Fascinated while you have the Berserk condition, you become Provoked toward the subject of your fascination.

Erratic: You don't have your wits about you, and act inefficiently. You cannot Ready or use reactions.
At the start of each of your turns, the GM randomly selects from one viable target (including you). You cannot use actions unless they (or their intended consequences) are related to this target.
Each time you take damage from an attack or spell, you can attempt a DC 11 flat check to end the condition. If you would become Berserk while you have the Erratic condition, you become Confused.

Confused: You are in a violently irrational state and pose a danger to friend and foe alike. You are Berserk and Erratic, and you don't treat anyone as your ally (though they might still treat you as theirs). Neither the Berserk nor Erratic conditions can end as long as you are Confused.
You may let the GM choose your actions for you. If you cast spells, you can only cast cantrips. If you target yourself, your attack rolls automatically succeed (but don't critically succeed) and your saving throws automatically fail (but don't critically fail).
Each time you take damage from an attack or spell, you can attempt a DC 11 flat check to recover from your confusion and end the Confused, Berserk, and Erratic conditions.

Provoked: You're compelled to violently attack a specific target to the exclusion of other viable targets. You are Berserk. You do not treat the subject of your provocation as your ally (though they might still treat you as theirs). The Berserk condition cannot end as long as you are Provoked.
You may let the GM choose your actions for you. You may only use actions that affect the subject of your provocation.
If you begin your turn without the Fascinated condition, the Provoked condition ends. Each time you take damage from an attack or spell, you can attempt a DC 11 flat check to end the Berserk and Provoked conditions.

Fascinated: As RAW. Additionally, if you would become Berserk while Fascinated, you become Provoked toward the subject of your fascination.


I quite like these new conditions, and I like the building-blocks approach to having simpler conditions build towards more complex conditions as well. In this respect, I think you could even go one step further, change fascinated a bit to be a broader focus on a specific target, and define the erratic condition as being fascinated with a random target each round.

The one criticism I have of this setup doesn't have to do directly with the proposal, but with the nature of many of these conditions as hard CC: fascinated in particular sits in this tender spot where in most cases, it's a really weak condition due to how specific it is and how easy it is to break, but in very specific cases where you manipulate your turns just right and use it against the right enemy, it can legitimately break an encounter. For instance, if a Bard Delays so that they start their turn right before that of an enemy lich, whose important actions all have the concentrate trait, and casts hypnotize, if the lich fails their save they basically have their whole turn wasted, because they're fascinated with the cloud.

In this respect, I wonder if it would therefore be better to make some of all of these conditions debuffs, rather than hard CC: for instance, if instead of having to focus on someone while fascinated, you took a status penalty to your checks against anyone else, that could allow the effect to be made much harder to break, since affected creatures would still have a choice, albeit one slanted in favor of the fascination's object. If this were applied to other similar crowd control effects, you could allow these to exist at earlier levels, but also at different levels of intensity: you could inflict perhaps a mild confusion on a successful save with a low-level effect where targets just take a -1 status penalty to anyone they're not focusing on, but then a critical failure or a much heavier confusion effect could apply that penalty at a -4.

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