Conditions and Magic

[Catullus64]

There are fourteen conditions in the game, not counting Exhaustion. Now, of these conditions, two of them, namely Invisible and Petrified, seem like they could pretty much only arise through magic. Charmed seems like an edge case, but I'll put it mostly in the "expressly magical" camp; I can thing of only one non-magical feature that Charms, namely the Swashbuckler's Panache. The others all seem like they all have a number of mundane (or at least non-magical) circumstances that could bring them about; it seems strange for me, then, that the base rules, so far as I'm aware, lack much reference to so many of these rules outside of magic and specialized PC or Monster features.

Poisoned and Paralyzed, I'll concede, probably only come from very specific interactions with things that occur in nature, and as such I can get not including generalized rules for them. Prone, Grappled, and Unconscious already do have standardized rules for how these conditions come about

But Stunned, Frightened, Restrained, Blinded, Deafened, if you're allowing narrow latitude for house rules, basically don't exist outside of magic and some very specific class features. Yes, common sense can impose them for certain extreme circumstances: Blinded for being blindfolded, Restrained for being bound hand and foot, but there's very little guidance for anything outside those more obvious cases, let alone standardized interactions. (I get that there are balance reasons for some of this; if there was a standard way to Stun in combat, people would never stop doing it.) Does that seem strange to anyone else? Does anyone else have a house rule that uses those conditions to represent certain circumstances? I'm particularly interested if anyone has a good system or principle for imposing Frightened outside of spells and abilities that expressly call for it.

[Demonslayer666]

Darkness, heavy fog, or smoke can also impose blindness, along with throwing dirt in someone's eyes. There's also damaging your eyes.

Anyway, for frightened, you are talking about heroes that players are controlling. Players don't want to be told how their characters must act, that's taking away their player agency. I use detailed descriptions of monsters to encourage roleplaying of being worried or scared, but I never force the frightened condition unless something says it imposes that condition. When players encounter something well above their character's level, I telegraph the power. But ultimately, they have the choice of how to react.

[CheddarChampion]

I imagine there isn't much of a need for a book to specify every circumstance that might lead to a condition, but it would be good to give examples. Especially for the charmed condition, as people might be inclined to think 'mind control.'

Regarding the frightened effect, ancient dragon's have a fear aura but that could easily be considered a non-magic thing. You're going up against a flame-spewing, bone-crushing, nigh impervious, house-sized, cannot be hidden from, flying death monster? Running away seems like the smart thing to do.

There's also the feat "Menacing" from one UA, feats for skills or somesuch. It allows a character to use intimidation vs a target's insight to frighten them for one round.

I think a reasonable houserule for frightening without magic is: intimidation check vs a DC of X + double the target's CR. The attempt uses your action and requires that the target is able to understand you. Speaking in elvish to a ettin, for example, wouldn't be effective. To frighten a mundane polar bear you'd have to roar or something.

[Unoriginal]

There are fourteen conditions in the game, not counting Exhaustion. Now, of these conditions, two of them, namely Invisible and Petrified, seem like they could pretty much only arise through magic.

High-level monks can become invisible through their enlightenment and mastery of ki, which isn't magic the way spells are. Still it's the background magic of life etc, which makes it fantastical.

Some creatures are "naturally" invisible, like the Invisible Stalker, since it's made of air.



But Stunned, Frightened, Restrained, Blinded, Deafened, if you're allowing narrow latitude for house rules, basically don't exist outside of magic and some very specific class features. Yes, common sense can impose them for certain extreme circumstances: Blinded for being blindfolded, Restrained for being bound hand and foot, but there's very little guidance for anything outside those more obvious cases, let alone standardized interactions. (I get that there are balance reasons for some of this; if there was a standard way to Stun in combat, people would never stop doing it.) Does that seem strange to anyone else? Does anyone else have a house rule that uses those conditions to represent certain circumstances? I'm particularly interested if anyone has a good system or principle for imposing Frightened outside of spells and abilities that expressly call for it.

Blinded is extremely common, anything that stop you from seeing inflicts the blinded condition. Same for defeaned, but for hearing.

Restrained is indeed everything that restrains you enough.

Stunned can be used to represent someone getting the wind knocked out of them, like by an impact.

Frightened can be used to represent someone who is panicking so much they're not thinking clearly. If if have enemies flee in battle after their morale is broken, for example, you could say they are under the Frightened condition. Or if a civilian suddenly has a demon teleport next to them.

I personally wouldn't do that, though, because there's no need to represent everything by mechanical effects.



I think a reasonable houserule for frightening without magic is: intimidation check vs a DC of X + double the target's CR. The attempt uses your action and requires that the target is able to understand you.

Isn't that a special ability for one of the Barbarian subclasses?

[Avonar]

By the sounds of it we're purely talking PCs imposing these statuses, or else Restrained and Frightened are very mundane. A Frightful Aura I don't read as being magical, just that a being is so naturally intimidating. And restrained is part of a myriad of creatures with grapple-based attacks.

Blinded and Restrained are totally possible to be done by PCs, just not in combat. Tie a person to a chair: restrained. Blindfold them: blinded.

I don't see there being a need to list all the ways of imposing a condition, partly because it's irrelevant unless you're trying to make a specific-condition build which outside of a Conquest Paladin is not something I've heard of, and because it will be very much not future proof, not including any options from future monsters or classes.

Outside of proper mechanics, I don't see a need for it. We don't need a default Intimidate action to give something frightened for one round etc.


Isn't that a special ability for one of the Barbarian subclasses?

Yep, 10th level Berserker ability.

[CheddarChampion]

Isn't that a special ability for one of the Barbarian subclasses?

Yep, 10th level Berserker ability.

Oh. I guess that's another Berserker ability I would houserule: everyone gets that frighten ability and the Berserker gets something else.

[Catullus64]

A Frightful Aura I don't read as being magical, just that a being is so naturally intimidating.

I've always assumed that too, but by that logic it's very artificial which creatures are scary enough for it to justify a mechanical presence. Lots of stuff in this game should be just as scary as a dragon, even to brave heroes.

Anyway, I don't hold with the previous comment suggesting that having non-magical fear is an undue amount of influence in a player's control over their character. This is a roleplaying game, sure, but it's also one that uses hard systems to represent character. Frightened effects tend to offer saving throws; your character is more likely to resist them if they have certain traits or training. Simply put, you don't get to decide everything about how a character acts in the moment; you accept that certain facets of your character are determined (if not absolutely) at character creation, and courage in the face of peril can fall under that heading.

At any rate, it's not like the Frightened condition turns you into an NPC, incapable of making choices. You still decide how your character responds when the fear takes hold.

(Which choices affect your resilience to fear is another matter; Fighters and other battle-hardened warrior characters being the most vulnerable to fear effects is something that has always bothered me about 3.0-onward D&D.)

[KorvinStarmast]

I personally wouldn't do that, though, because there's no need to represent everything by mechanical effects. This.

I guess that's another Berserker ability I found your original post to be flawed in premise because ability check does not equal magic/magical effect in this edition.


I think a reasonable houserule for frightening without magic is: intimidation check vs a DC of X + double the target's CR. Ability checks are not magic, so I'd not want to see a PC forced into a condition unless they failed a saving throw or got hit by a unique feature of a monster's attack (like Roper on a hit restrains a character ...)

No need to compound the error by creating an unnecessary house rule. (Berserker has enough troubles as it is).