Levels of Fright
With my older group of student-players in the gaming club I facilitate whereat I teach, we recently started a sort of mash-up of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (from 1986) and basic D&D. I’ve got three 8th graders involved. All three made up elves with the Career Classes of Ranger, Rogue, and Academic. Their starting basic careers are Fisherman, Hypnotist, and Thief. The trio of elves left Albion aboard the Fisherman’s boat and made their way to the land of humans, eventually arriving at Nuln. Good times.
For those unfamilar with Warhammer‘s Old World setting, it is analogous to late-medieval/early-Renaissance western Europe in many ways. It’s a very human-centric setting. Elves in particular are rather rare, which makes the student-players’ characters something noteworthy in the cobbled streets of Nuln. Typical fantasy races such as dwarves, halflings, orcs, goblins, et cetera exist in the Old World. So too do more monstrous creatures like ogres, giant scorpions, and what not. Back when I played Warhammer while stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, our games seldom involved more exotic monsters. The weirdest we encountered were the undead. Demons, devils, intelligent slimes, and what not never showed up.
In Warhammer, the other-worldliness of certain creatures results in those creatures causing Fear or Terror, which is a lot like Fear but also causes lasting psychological damage. For example, a Manticore causes “fear in living creatures under 10 feet tall.” In contrast, a mummy invokes fear in all living creatures, but causes “terror in living creatures under 10 feet tall.” Even the (in D&D terms) relative mundane undead skeleton causes fear in living creatures. In short, the idea that certain creatures are so fearsome and/or so unnatural that the characters’ minds rebel against their very presence is baked into the Warhammer world.
This sort of baking is not part and parcel of D&D. Even 1st-level characters may face a squad of undead skeletons with no more rules-induced trepidation than they’d experience facing the same number of bandits. Within the reality of the “standard” D&D game-world, walking skeletons are no more unnerving psychologically than walking people. There’s nothing wrong with this, unless you want their to be something wrong with it.
Let’s consider fear conditions for 5E D&D that work in a way inspired by Warhammer, and apply those conditions to encounters with undead of any sort. In 5E, the only condition related to fear is frightened. It’s a sort of one-size scares all condition. Moving back a couple of E’s, we find in the d20 System four fear-related conditions: shaken, frightened, panicked, and cowering (in order from least to most severe). I like these, but they’ll need to tweaked to fit 5E.
A brief digression into the 5E version of exhaustion gives me an idea. The condition of exhaustion in 5E has six levels, each one imposing a certain limitation. A character with one level of exhaustion has disadvantage on ability checks. With two levels, he has disadvantage on ability checks and moves at half speed. And so on. Fear conditions could work in a similar manner. A character with one level of fright is shaken, with two levels is frightened, et cetera.
Now I just need to decide on what each level of fright does. Since frightened is already a 5E condition, that might work as a sort of baseline. Shaken would be less severe than frightened. Panicked and cowering would be more severe. After some pondering, here’s what I came up with:
Shaken: A frightened creature has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while the source of its fear is within line of sight.
Frightened: A frightened creature has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while the source of its fear is within line of sight. The creature can’t willingly move closer to the source of its fear.
Panicked: A panicked creature drops anything it holds and flese at top speed from the source of its fear, as well as any other dangers it encounters, along a random path. It can’t use the attack action. In addition, the panicked creature has disadvantage on ability checks. If cornered, a panicked creature cowers. A panicked creature can use special abilities, including spells, to flee; indeed, the panicked creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape.
Cowering: A cowering creature is incapacitated, meaning the creature can’t take actions or reactions. Also, the cowering creature can’t move, and it can speak (or scream or sob) only falteringly. The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
Most undead creatures cause Fear. More powerful undead cause Terror. In either case, the victim gets a Will saving throw to resist the effect. Set the DC as appropriate for the creature’s CR. All that is required for the saving throw to trigger is line of sight to the monster, at least in most cases. For weaker undead, it might be reasonable to only require the Will saving throw when the undead attacks. For undead that cause Fear, failing the saving throw imposes one level of fright, which means the character would be Shaken most of the time. Terror is more serious. If the saving throw against Terror fails by 5 or more, the victim receives two levels of fright, which means becoming Frightened at a minimum. In any case, at the end of its turn, the victim of fear is permitted another Will saving throw. If successful, the creature’s fright level is reduced by one level.
As Kelly Bundy says, “Viola!” With rules like these, I’ve taken the first step toward creating a world in which unnatural foes such as the undead are not only frightening in concept but also pose psychological risks, at least in the short term. For more horror, I could put into play the rules related to sanity loss found in the 5E DMG, attaching those rules to encounters with Terror-inducing monsters and/or against characters who reach Panicked or Cowering levels of fright.
Good times.
