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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ECMO3" data-source="post: 8622002" data-attributes="member: 7030563">I was talking about the spell Fear and as you said it "clears the room" (of everyone who did not save).  They can not attack because they must drop what they are holding and use the dash action to run away from you.  If they have a bonus action attack they could use that with disadvantage I guess.  They don't get to save until they are out of sight.  That means if they fail they are out of the fight for at least 2 turns and probably more.  Since they dashed to get away from you, it is going to take a turn to dash back even if they  get out of sight and make their save on the first turn and if they were holding weapons those are back on the ground where they dropped them.  Obviously ranged attacks and terrain can affect this, but that works both ways, on the flip side in ideal terrain it could take 5 turns or more to get out of sight and even try to make a save.I am a huge fan of Cause Fear as well, and I think that upcasts very well.  It is probably the best 1st level Wizard spell in terms of offensive use upcasting on higher level slots.  It does not clear a room though.The advantage with Cause Fear is you pick your enemies so it is great low on the initiative order when everybody is mixed up.  With Cause Fear frightened enemies absolutely can attack with disadvantage, but they can't move closer to the cause of their fear.   Because of this you can generally limit the number of attacks they can take with positioning.  If you are fighting a frightened enemy and you are the cause of its fear or the cause of its fear is behind you can back up out of reach and then it can't melee you on its turn.  It might get an AOO (at disadvantage) but you would usually be trading one AOO for multiattack.The Gargoyles used in the example are a great example of this; they have a 0 wis save and get 3 attacks.  If three of them are in melee beating up on you and your fighter you can't really use the Fear spell or Hypnotic Pattern easily.  But you can put down cause fear, then you back up taking a single bite attack at disadvantage.  On his turn the fighter does the same thing.  Now the Gargoyles on their turn are screwed.  They can't attack because no one is in reach and they can't move towards you.  Your fighter can kite in and out taking only one attack from the one he targets instead of 3 attacks and you can do whatever it is you would be doing from range.  This is an ideal example, but it is actually one I have played many times with this specific enemy.Cause Fear is also great against a single melee boss with a low wis save for the same reason, keep him at range where he can't hurt you as much.They act on the same initiative roll but they all have individual turns, individual actions, individual moves and individual bonus actions.If you are using group initiative then they can all use actions to shake one and other out of it.  That makes it a lot easier for them and means all happens at once:If 10 goblins are on an 8 initiative count and it gets to them and 9 of them are charmed, the one that isn't charmed wakes another (using bonus action disengage if necessary), that one wakes a second, that one wakes a third. .....All of them are back in one turn.  That is RAW.  As you bolded above they each act at the same time.  Every Goblin can act (take action, bonus and movement) on that count.  The spell does not say a charmed creature loses a turn after it recovers, it also does not say that when freed the charm ends at the start of its next turn or the end of the turn of the creature that frees it.  When the first Goblin wakes the second, it is no longer charmed, it is the same initiative count and that Goblin can "act" as noted above in the description on initiative.  It can use its action immediately and it can use it to do anything it can do with an action to include waking another Goblin.Using inidividual intiative actually gives the spell an advantage in this regard because it gives the party opportunity to intervene as you alluded to before they are all awakened in one big avalanche.</blockquote>

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