D&D 5E Fear with no Options

[beaumontsebos]

Problem was that the creature did have somewhere to move. But he didn't have the speed to get there. That was the issue to me. I'm happy with the solution.

 

[Hriston]

Problem was that the creature did have somewhere to move. But he didn't have the speed to get there. That was the issue to me. I'm happy with the solution.

No movement speed is the same as nowhere to move. There is no path available, but there are numerous other options. No solution is required. It works just fine as written.

 

[Barolo]

Problem was that the creature did have somewhere to move. But he didn't have the speed to get there. That was the issue to me. I'm happy with the solution.

Just imagine someone trying this argument of "no options" if the frightened creature was not grappled but completely cornered, and then someone pointed out it still had somewhere to go, if only it could fly.

 

[beaumontsebos]

Well, we just interpret the phrase "while Frightened by this spell, a creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move" differently. There was a place to move. The creature just couldn't do it.

In any event, it worked out. Thanks!

 

[pming]

Hiya!

To OP: Here's a Pro Tip: "If you find a situation where the rules don't make sense...take off the RAW glasses and put on the RAI glasses. Read the rules for the situation again and make a DM Adjudication". Seems you did just that, so...congratulations! You're now a Pro DM!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Hriston]

Well, we just interpret the phrase "while Frightened by this spell, a creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move" differently. There was a place to move. The creature just couldn't do it.

In any event, it worked out. Thanks!

Like I said up thread, your ruling was 100% correct according to the RAW. It seems that the "problem" you've identified stems from coming up with an interpretation that has a built-in problem. I find that, for me, interpreting rules so they work together without creating such problems is helpful. Frankly, it annoys me when I read about someone whose interpretation yields a nonsensical result who then claims the rules are at fault and that the solution is to depart from the rules.

 

[ad_hoc]

Well, we just interpret the phrase "while Frightened by this spell, a creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move" differently. There was a place to move. The creature just couldn't do it.

In any event, it worked out. Thanks!

In that case there is always somewhere to move.

You could move through the wall or the ground.

You could move between planes.

There will always be a place where you aren't where you are now.

In your interpretation the clause 'unless there is nowhere to move' is meaningless because, unless your character occupies all points in the multiverse, there is somewhere to move.

 

[WhosAChaoticGoodBoy]

Fear spell:

You project a phantasmal image of a creature’s worst fears. Each creature in a 30-foot cone must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or drop whatever it is holding and become frightened for the duration.
While frightened by this spell, a creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move. If the creature ends its turn in a location where it doesn’t have line of sight to you, the creature can make a Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, the spell ends for that creature.

If I read it literally, "must take the Dash action" means they use Dash and move away 0 feet from you.

And even if they do get a chance to escape, they're still doing the STR (Athletics) or DEX (Acrobatics) check at disadvantage. ("A frightened creature has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while the source of its fear is within line of sight")

My vote is to give the grappled creature /some/ chance to escape. My bias is while it seems entirely reasonable for fear to make escaping someone's grasp harder, it shouldn't eliminate the ability to make it impossible.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Given that the intent of the spell is to make the target run away from you really fast, I think allowing the creature to attempt to break the grapple is fair.

Under the "fight or flight" idea, I might instead have ruled the creature made wild, panicked attacks against anyone and everyone close to it.

 

[transtemporal]

See, this is one of those situations where I'd have a creature follow a logical course of action rather than use the rules. The PCs are obviously trying to exploit the rules to subdue the creature. Instead, the creature gains a huge amount of strength born of fear, using its action to escape and gaining advantage on the roll. Then it uses dash to run, possibly triggering AoO.