Cause Fear: What the heck?

[Mort_Q]

Why? As presented, it could certainly function on allies. I see no reason not to (cleverly) use is to increase an ally's movement.

Your DM is too nice to you. If you hit, the DM controls where you run. I wouldn't make it too easy on you myself.

 

[mvincent]

Your DM is too nice to you.

I'm the DM.

If you hit, the DM controls where you run.

The description says:
"The target moves... away from you. The fleeing target avoids unsafe squares and difficult terrain if it can."

This seems to imply that the target moves itself (provided it moves within these restrictions). At worst, the target moves in an uncontrolled but completely predictable manner.

In practice (in 3.5) I recall the DM typically moving the player's miniature after an opponent affected them thusly, but the player could alter that movement if there were any decision points (or the DM would just ask them while moving the piece).

Similarly, turned undead were often moved by the turning player (or however was closest), but the DM could always still decide on decision points (if any).

 

[webrunner]

It seems to be sort of against the rules as intended.. i mean, you can't go "Okay, now.. scare me!".. if the other player knows about the plan, I'd say he's immune to the effect, since it's not really actually scary. However, I can imagine some humorous situations where the other character DIDN'T know he was going to get scared, and it being a legitimate tactic.

 

[Mistwell]

Well, I guess it comes down to 1) when do they move, on the casters turn or on their turn, and 2) if they move on the casters turn, is it a "bonus" move in addition to all their normal actions when their turn comes around?

 

[Steelabjur]

There are lots of powers that allow others to shift around the battlefield. It is not that different. There is a fighter power called 'Come and Get It' that pulls enemies to stand next to him. That would be similar to running into a barbed wire fence.

You're right, especially in the Fighter's Powers (a class I generally never play so I was unaware).


You know, thinking about Cause Fear made me think back to those armies that would use peasant shock troops with the threat of death if they retreated back toward the line, and got the mental image of a line of Orcish Clerics sending out a host of Goblin shock troops with a healthy dose of Cause Fear to force them to charge into the enemies ranks across the battlefield. Made me smile.

 

[tomBitonti]

Interesting ... that it says "target" and not "enemy". I was looking over the powers and am finding the cases where a power says "ally" or "enemy" or simply "target" to be very interesting. (Interesting in the sense that certain bursts target "enemies", and that is way to nice to the PC's, IMO.)

I wonder whether use of the power against an ally, or worse, against a devout follower of your deity, would be considered a mis-use of the power.

I assumed that the target was "an enemy" because the power seems too useful otherwise. But, from an action economy point of you, it is trading a standard action for a move action, albeit, an unusually long move action.

 

[mvincent]

It seems to be sort of against the rules as intended

I'm a big proponent of RAI, but (even though the writer's likely didn't intend for it to be used this way), this does not appear to actually voilate 'RAI'.

There are all sorts of 'unintended' uses for things that don't violate RAI (that's often a big part of roleplaying). If asked, I don't believe the writer's would actually say "no, that's not allowed".

 

[mvincent]

I wonder whether use of the power against an ally, or worse, against a devout follower of your deity, would be considered a mis-use of the power.

- For a Good deity: I could see using it to give a follower a burst of speed to get out of harm's way ("go on without me!")
- For an Evil deity: I could see using it to prod a follower more swiftly into battle.

 

[Mort_Q]

Well... it'd only be horribly broken if it didn't allow OAs. Still feels like an exploit, but if the players roleplayed it... the fighter may not be so happy that you made her soil her armour and run away screaming in terror.

BTW, can you deliberately allow yourself to be hit? I mean, you keep your DEX and INT bonus to AC and REF when you're unconscious... can you deliberately let the spell affect you?

 

[Ahglock]

No it doesn't.

I think yellow is a putrid color and I can't believe that people paint their houses and cars that color. It defies any logical sense of good taste

It's not particularly confusing, however. It's very clearcut that it's yellow.

I just don't -like that- and wish it otherwise.

Wishful thinking, yeah, that can make it confusing

Actually yes, illogical rules do make it confusing. It is not wishful thinking its reading rules from a context of the game world and what it is supposed to represent. There are different methods of thinking about things and some people don't just look up rule c on page 45 column 3 or whatever to figure things out.

Now apparently the just look up the specific rule on page whatsit for the keyword, and see if there is an exception is the new method. But that does not make this any less confusing to people who don't think like that.

Since, I can't seem to phrase my further thoughts in a way that does not leave a value judgment. I'll just say all methods of thought are equally valid, the lack of logic in some of these rules will lead to confusion to some people who think differently that the D&D 4e rule book was written.