Questions on Fear Effects

[Gopherknight]

I've been looking into creating a fear based bard and need clarification on a few things:

If I use these two feats in succession:
Haunting Melody - When you sing or use some other Perform skill, you can inspire fear in enemies within 30 feet of you. Any opponent in range must succeed on a Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your bard level + your Cha modifier) or become shaken for a number of rounds equal to your ranks in the Perform skill. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.
Fell Frightened - You can alter a spell that deals damage to foes so that any creature subject to fear effects and mind-affecting spells and abilities that is dealt damage also becomes shaken for 1 minute. A fell frightening spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level.

does the enemy stay shaken or do they move up to being frightened? If they are still only shaken from being hit with two different effects, how can people be elevated in fear levels?

[Doc_Maynot]

My understanding of fear generally, with the exception of Intimidate, are as thus.

Fear level X for Y rounds. With X being 1 (Shaken), 2 (Frightened), or 3 (Panicked)
Any time you use a unique fear effect while one is in place you add +1 to X unless you are at Shaken and have an effect that would go straight to Panicked (Other than Intimidate, which sets fear to 1, unless they are already at 1+ fear)
Y however is equal to the greatest duration among all fear effects.

So as per your example it would be frightened for one minute or a number of rounds equal to your ranks in Perform, whichever is greater.

[Venger]

I've been looking into creating a fear based bard and need clarification on a few things:

If I use these two feats in succession:
Haunting Melody - When you sing or use some other Perform skill, you can inspire fear in enemies within 30 feet of you. Any opponent in range must succeed on a Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your bard level + your Cha modifier) or become shaken for a number of rounds equal to your ranks in the Perform skill. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.
Fell Frightened - You can alter a spell that deals damage to foes so that any creature subject to fear effects and mind-affecting spells and abilities that is dealt damage also becomes shaken for 1 minute. A fell frightening spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level.

does the enemy stay shaken or do they move up to being frightened? If they are still only shaken from being hit with two different effects, how can people be elevated in fear levels?

Your target would be frightened for the entire duration of the effects, once the first one ends.

Let's say you have only 9 ranks in perform and take this feat immediately at level 6. Assuming your combat lasted this long for whatever reason, here is your target's condition by round:

round 1: use haunting melody: target is shaken
round 2: hit target with a fell frighten spell: target is frightened
round 3-8: target remains frightened
round 9: haunting melody's last round. target remains frightened
round 10: haunting melody is no longer in effect, but fell frighten is still active. the target remains frightened anyway.

when you escalate fear, your target remains at their highest state of fear until all effects expire.

heroes of horror does a pretty good job succinctly summarizing fear rules and escalation on page 61.


My understanding of fear generally, with the exception of Intimidate, are as thus.

Fear level X for Y rounds. With X being 1 (Shaken), 2 (Frightened), or 3 (Panicked)
Any time you use a unique fear effect while one is in place you add +1 to X unless you are at Shaken and have an effect that would go straight to Panicked (Other than Intimidate, which sets fear to 1, unless they are already at 1+ fear)
Y however is equal to the greatest duration among all fear effects.

So as per your example it would be frightened for one minute or a number of rounds equal to your ranks in Perform, whichever is greater.

this isn't quite right.

intimidate doesn't have special rules around it that make it function differently from regular fear escalation

when you escalate fear, it doesn't only improve one step per effect. it depends on what effect you're using. think of fear as a 3 point scale

like you said, not afraid is 0, shaken is worth 1 point, frightened 2, and panicked 3.

if someone is shaken and they are hit with an effect that would normally frighten them, they hop directly to panicked (1+2=3) they don't actually have to make a pit stop in frightened first.

intimidate can't be used to drown-heal and lower yourself to shaken if you're at a higher condition. it stacks normally. if someone who is frightened is demoralized via intimidate, then they would hop one step to panicked. they wouldn't step down the ladder to shaken.

[Doc_Maynot]

this isn't quite right.

intimidate doesn't have special rules around it that make it function differently from regular fear escalation

when you escalate fear, it doesn't only improve one step per effect. it depends on what effect you're using. think of fear as a 3 point scale

like you said, not afraid is 0, shaken is worth 1 point, frightened 2, and panicked 3.

if someone is shaken and they are hit with an effect that would normally frighten them, they hop directly to panicked (1+2=3) they don't actually have to make a pit stop in frightened first.

intimidate can't be used to drown-heal and lower yourself to shaken if you're at a higher condition. it stacks normally. if someone who is frightened is demoralized via intimidate, then they would hop one step to panicked. they wouldn't step down the ladder to shaken.

Apologies on the intimidate bit, that's my recent pathfinder play slipping through. :smallredface: And I said it sets it to shaken UNLESS it is already at shaken or higher, which is true for PF. But as I said, I got confused on the differences between the systems.