Talk:Revised Fear Effects (3.5e Variant Rule)

Spell/Power Resistance Tie-In
Since spellcasters have to deal with spell resistance, wouldn't it be easier to add the spell-failure chance to the SR roll? That way if something has a really high SR, they could effectively be immune to your spells while you are scared. --Havvy 08:50, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * As a replacement for the straight up spell failure, this brings back the issue of fear not bothering spell casters when they go against creatures without SR. So that's out. As an addition to the spell failure it does increase ability failure substantially, but it looks to me like too much. This is intended to reduce your odds of success so much that the incentive is to choose to run away, not to leave you with no other alternative. I'm open to arguments otherwise, but this doesn't look like a promising change. - Tarkisflux 17:27, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, by adding to the SR roll, you know that you are probably too scared to go after a creature with SR, so you focus on other creatures, such as yourself. If I was scared, I probably wouldn't be able to cast a spell with enough focus to bypass a lot of spell resistance.  Also, if you aren't playing by the magic-psionics transparency rules, these rules don't affect psionics.  --Havvy 18:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * F#^&$ng psionics (how do they work?). Right, that's an oversight because I don't use that subsystem. Will resolve, and probably just make it every typed ability (ex, su, sla, pla, etc) while I'm at it to catch those sublime classes and anything else I'm forgetting. Nobody gets nice things while they're feared.


 * The thing that I think we're stuck on with SR seems to be this: "If I was scared, I probably wouldn't be able to cast a spell with enough focus to bypass a lot of spell resistance." I don't disagree with that in general, but I don't really see a need to take the sentence much past "If I was scared, I probably wouldn't be able to cast a spell." If you get the spell off, I don't see a reason to make it non-level appropriate against SR on top of that. For panicked casters, against anything with a level appropriate SR (~CR+12ish), this already reduces your chances from 50% to about 20% (frightened casters go from 50% to 35%). Making the SR numbers worse makes the final chances go down, but why do they need to go down any further? Those are already really bad odds. How much worse do you think they need to be for a fear condition to matter? - Tarkisflux 19:26, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Ultimately, by adding it to SR, you remove one more roll that has to be made. Maybe it only adds to the spell resistance roll if you are targeting the creator of the effect that made you shaken?  But then, that increases complexity.  For psionics, just add "psionic-like-ability or power" to your list of "spell or spell-like-ability".  I don't see a need to punish initiators any more than the current penalties.  Initiators tie in heavily with attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks already. --Havvy 19:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't actually care about the extra roll, not compared with my alternatives. What you are suggesting makes the total effect of the fear on a spellcaster vary depending on their target. And while similar things happen with the non-casters of the world, the range here goes from huge effect to no effect for actions that I generally care more about. I don't see that as a positive change, even taking the simplification of rolling into account. - Tarkisflux 22:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Further, I don't want any caster to say "well crap, I'm panicked. guess I'll just stand here and buff myself / the party until someone fixes that or it goes away." Tying this to SR allows exactly that, and it's not cool. I could maybe do a "you check against SR for everyone, and everyone has a minimum SR of X" thing, but that's still more target / character variable than I want, doesn't reduce rolling except in edge cases, and seems just as difficult to remember as a flat percentage failure. - Tarkisflux 22:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)