For the spell's duration, your eyes become an inky void imbued with dread power. One creature of your choice within 60 feet of you that you can see must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be affected by one of the following effects of your choice for the duration. On each of your turns until the spell ends, you can use your action to target another creature but can't target a creature again if it has succeeded on a saving throw against this casting of eyebite.
Asleep. The target falls unconscious. It wakes up if it takes any damage or if another creature uses its action to shake the sleeper awake.
Panicked. The target is frightened of you. On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move. If the target moves to a place at least 60 feet away from you where it can no longer see you, this effect ends.
Sickened. The target has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. At the end of each of its turns, it can make another Wisdom saving throw. If it succeeds, the effect ends.
My question is regarding Panicked section which says: The target is frightened of you. On each of its turns, thefrightenedcreature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move.
Does the target HAVE TO spend it's action on Dash even if it can't move anywhere (dash in place)? Or it can use any other action instead?
Does the target HAVE TO spend it's action on Dash even if it can't move anywhere (dash in place)? Or it can use any other action instead?
The "unless there is nowhere to move" clause means that the requirement to Dash is removed if the creature has nowhere to move to, so in such a case it could act normally.
However, it's worth noting that the target is not required to take a safe route, only "the safest [...] available"; so it can run towards other enemies, trigger attacks of opportunity, climb over spikes etc. if it has to, so long as there is no safer route it could take.
This means that it will normally only be unable to move if you've got it cornered, as being frightened of you prevents it from moving closer, even if that would be the "safest" route it could take.
For the spell's duration, your eyes become an inky void imbued with dread power. One creature of your choice within 60 feet of you that you can see must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be affected by one of the following effects of your choice for the duration. On each of your turns until the spell ends, you can use your action to target another creature but can't target a creature again if it has succeeded on a saving throw against this casting of eyebite.
Asleep. The target falls unconscious. It wakes up if it takes any damage or if another creature uses its action to shake the sleeper awake.
Panicked. The target is frightened of you. On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move. If the target moves to a place at least 60 feet away from you where it can no longer see you, this effect ends.
Sickened. The target has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. At the end of each of its turns, it can make another Wisdom saving throw. If it succeeds, the effect ends.
My question is regarding Panicked section which says: The target is frightened of you. On each of its turns, thefrightenedcreature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move.
Does the target HAVE TO spend it's action on Dash even if it can't move anywhere (dash in place)? Or it can use any other action instead?
My reading of it is that yes the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you...unless there is nowhere to move.
Dashing and moving are two distinct clause and the exception refers to moving as Dashing is not necessary to move, it allow you to gain extra movement for the current turn wether you move or not.
Yeah, we could track backwards on the sentence to see if there's another break point where the "unless" segment could apply. Let's do that.
A) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, [unless there is nowhere to move.] -- This is the original structure of the sentence, just for completeness. The ambiguity is why we're here.
A1) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you [unless there is nowhere to move] by the safest and shortest available route. -- This is a little incoherent, but I read it as saying the creature must still Dash, but isn't obligated to move away from you. It's incoherent, however, because if there's somewhere to move, it must move away from you... even if the only way it can move is towards you. Again: If there's somewhere to move, but that somewhere is towards you, then the creature must move away from you -- but if there's nowhere to move, they aren't obligated to move at all. This peculiarity isn't necessarily enough to throw out the reading, but if you were looking for an excuse to throw out meanings, I do find it persuasive.
A2) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must must take the Dash action [unless there is nowhere to move] and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. -- In this reading, they're allowed to not Dash, but they still have to move. Only they can't move, so essentially that part is irrelevant. It's a little strange to phrase it this way, but I wouldn't call it incoherent. I don't think I'd hold it against you if you would, though.
A3) On each of its turns [unless there is nowhere to move], the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. -- Similarly, in this reading, they're allowed to not Dash, and they're also allowed to not move, which they couldn't do anyway, but at least this time it makes sense.
--
Conclusion: I think the only reading which strongly supports that the creature will always be forced to Dash (A1) is also the only reading that doesn't hold up. In my opinion, the creature doesn't have to Dash if there's nowhere it can move.
PS: Conceptually, like, in terms of the fiction, Dash is just spending more of your turn moving than normal. Devoting more of your approximately-six-seconds to just moving. Obviously if you can't move, you don't Dash. At least not when you're given the choice. Arguably you could say the fear paralyzes the creature into inaction, but the spell COULD just say that, if that were the intention. It doesn't. Instead, it says they Dash. Dashing in place is not the same as inaction, even though it is. You know?
PPS: I think there's a different way to break this down grammatically, too, and I'll do that in its own comment.
My reading of this is the same as the one given by Plaguescarred. The creature takes the Dash action no matter what as a consequence of being "Panicked".
Dash
When you take the Dash action, you gain extra movement for the current turn. The increase equals your speed, after applying any modifiers. With a speed of 30 feet, for example, you can move up to 60 feet on your turn if you dash.
Any increase or decrease to your speed changes this additional movement by the same amount. If your speed of 30 feet is reduced to 15 feet, for instance, you can move up to 30 feet this turn if you dash.
Then, the creature attempts to move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. If no such route exists then the Dash (and therefore the Action) is wasted.
The "unless there is nowhere to move" clause means that the requirement to Dash is removed if the creature has nowhere to move to, so in such a case it could act normally.
I disagree pretty strongly with this interpretation.
In terms of how I would interpret it ... I would tend agree with Plaguescarred and up2ng. I would tend to parse the sentence so that the creature must take the Dash action whether they can move or not.
(the frightened creature must take the Dash action) and (move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move.)
rather than interpreting the clause to allow the creature to take any other action if they are incapable of moving.
(the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route), unless there is nowhere to move.
However, I can easily see it being interpreted the second way since if there is no available route to move at all then the creature can't move in the first place so the "nowhere to move" clause has no real meaning unless it is intended to apply to the "Dash action".
If the sentence had just said "the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route", then in that case, if there was no route to move then the creature would simply take the Dash action and not move since they have no where to go.
Adding the clause "unless there is nowhere to move" is redundant if the creature is always supposed to take the Dash action. This makes me think that perhaps the intent is that the creature should be allowed to take another action if they have no route to move. Conceptually this makes sense since if there is nowhere to run, the creature has been effectively backed into a corner and in desperation might turn and attack or take some other action other than running since they can't run.
I edited my post to try and clarify my point. I don't think I need to clarify that the post-script is a different argument than the main body of the post so I didn't.
Followup grammar breakdown: We can visualize the sentence in more than one way, which leads to ambiguity:
B1) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must [take the Dash action] and [move away from you by the safest and shortest available route], unless there is nowhere to move. B2) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must [take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route], unless there is nowhere to move.
If a writer wanted to clarify that B1 was the correct reading, they could instead write one of the following: B1a) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action, and, unless there is nowhere to move, must move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. B1b) On each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move, the frightened creature must take the Dash action, and must move away from you by the safest and shortest available route.
Likewise, if a writer wanted to clarify that B2 was the correct reading, they could write this: B2a) On each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move, the frightened creature must take the Dash action, and must move away from you by the safest and shortest available route.
B2a and B1b are the same, they just got there differently. Do you find it persuasive that among the three possible rewrites, 2/3 of them agree? I suppose that's as valid a motivation as any, in this case. Myself, I am moreso motivated by the absence of text to this effect: C) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. It must take the Dash action unless there is nowhere to move, in which case it takes no action and does not move. If we had that text, I think it would be crystal clear. It would be the same as (B1a), but even more obvious about its intentions. I choose to interpret its absence as a signal, and thus my personal interpretation is the shared interpretation (B1b)/(B2a). I think a cornered creature can act normally.
There is no clear answer here. Both readings are grammatically legit, because English lacks a lexical scoping operator.
Both:
must (take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route), unless there is nowhere to move.
must take the Dash action and (move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move.)
are valid.
So, there's no definitive answer, and it's up to the DM. That said, I'd argue that "you only have to dash if it's relevant to the amount you move" is the best reading.
The Dash action is an artificiality of the game mechanics. It represents spending so much time moving in the round that you can't do anything else. If you go ten feet and get stuck in a corner, then you haven't spent that much time moving.
This gets into a problem if a PC or NPC has nonstandard movement capacity such as a misty step or teleport.
RAI the creature MUST move to a distance of 60 feet away from the caster out of sight to end the effect. While frightened it can't end it's turn closer to the caster voluntarily.
RAW presumed the creature MUST take the dash action to accomplish the task, which may situationally be completely nonsensical to the point of suicidal given the table situation.. As a Player if a DM did this to my character with say a vampire or lich trying to "dash into a pool of lava", when I had say a teleport available I'd pull an X card, and it would probably be the last game I played with that DM, PERIOD. Taking away player or DM agency even by magical rule means, especially with the intention of causing a character a self harm of sorts is a multiple red line Session zero no no for me. It's a railroading that is asking to end a gaming group - within the rules or not.
What constitutes "possible" is dependent on the theatre of the mind capacity of the target. Movement is compulsory - the method is not, and condemned is a DM for failing to account for dynamic situations at the table, especially at this tier of play.
Wow, it's always interesting when this happens in these threads, and in this case I find it to be pretty surprising. Because to me this is painfully obvious how this is intended to function.
The creature is panicked. This is clearly meant to be sort of a stronger version of being frightened. Like, he is SO frightened that he becomes panicked and all he can think of to do is to Dash and run away as quickly as possible. It's like the sort of sheer terror that instantly kicks in a huge fight or flight response -- and in this case the spell explicitly states that it's "flight". Run! Run away now!
Honestly, the clause "unless there is nowhere to move" feels like it was tacked on in an effort to avoid a series of totally different rules lawyer debates. Like, if that clause wasn't there at all maybe someone might say "But this creature has nowhere to move! Therefore, it's not a valid target!" Or, "Ok, it MUST move and yet it CAN'T move! Now what? I guess this effect ends?" Or, other such shenanigans. So, they decided to be redundant and spell it out that you must move unless you can't move -- in other words, you must "attempt" to move (without using that actual phrase since that would be even worse in the hands of rules lawyers).
There are more interesting ambiguities with this spell though. If you can take more than one action on your turn, do you need to Dash for ALL of those actions or just one of them? Can I take the forced Dash action, not be able to move, and then Action Surge and turn around and unleash a 9th Level spell at the offending creature? That feels pretty unintended to me but it's less obvious that the RAW prevents this.
Or, how exactly should a DM rule what constitutes both the "safest" and the "shortest" path if there are several options which all have a mixture of varying degrees of safety combined with path length? And, if the creature really is surrounded on 3 sides by a fatal path such as a pool of lava, is the creature really compelled to choose one of these paths?
But, as for the parsing of the sentence in question, it really feels like there's a best answer. If the ambiguity is such that there are two valid ways to parse a sentence and one of those is a lot more likely to be intended, we should probably choose that one.
If you can take more than one action on your turn, do you need to Dash for ALL of those actions or just one of them?
The spell doesn't say that you have to use your actions to Dash, it just says that you have to take the Dash action. "On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action." If you've already taken the Dash action on your turn, the spell isn't forcing you to do it again. Technically, this also means that a Rogue, a Monk, or someone who can cast expeditious retreat could take the Dash action as a bonus action and still use their action as normal, which is something I didn't think about until right now.
Can I take the forced Dash action, not be able to move, and then Action Surge and turn around and unleash a 9th Level spell at the offending creature?
Yes.
But, as for the parsing of the sentence in question, it really feels like there's a best answer.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Since it's a combat game, you're always going to have to contend with the whole, "If I'm afraid of something, I try to kill it!" approach.
I think that's in bad faith, most of the time.
Just accept that your PC, or more likely your monster, is afraid. Like, really afraid. It's literally magic, it doesn't even need to make sense. Maybe they're usually not susceptible to such things but guess what, they are this time. You're compelled to run away. Don't try to finagle it so you still get to be cool, or still get to do damage. Play the role of your character in this situation, whoever or whatever they might be. Get scared and run.
But that's play philosophy, not rules. I should be interested in helping people with radically different play philosophies here. So sure. Do what the rules say and nothing more. Action Surge to attack after you're done running away, rather than Action Surging to run faster.
The spell doesn't say that you have to use your actions to Dash, it just says that you have to take the Dash action. "On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action."
Interesting. So, what would you guys say about if I am incapacitated for some reason, but now I "must take the Dash action"? Does one of these supersede the other?
The spell doesn't say that you have to use your actions to Dash, it just says that you have to take the Dash action. "On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action."
Interesting. So, what would you guys say about if I am incapacitated for some reason, but now I "must take the Dash action"? Does one of these supersede the other?
If you can't Dash, you can't Dash. "Must" doesn't give you the ability to do something, just the requirement. Sometimes requirements aren't met.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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The "unless there is nowhere to move" clause means that the requirement to Dash is removed if the creature has nowhere to move to, so in such a case it could act normally.
I disagree pretty strongly with this interpretation.
I'm assuming you mean you think the "unless there is nowhere to move" clause only applies to moving rather than dashing? But this would be a completely redundant thing to say as if you can't move you can't move, and what matters really is why you can't move; a frightened creature that is also restrained can surely still attempt to free itself, and then try to move as far away as it can from you, a creature that you have cornered has no choice but to try to fight back (though because it's frightened it'll be at disadvantage) etc.
The Panicked option is definitely worded a bit weirdly, as there are all kinds of different emphasis you could put on the text, but the "unless there is nowhere to move" clause is placed with the "must take the Dash action and move away from you" part of the text, meaning that's the obvious place to apply it, it just happens to be two things rather than one, i.e- you must do this unless there's nowhere to move, but "this" is "Dash and move away". But this isn't the only part of the text giving the creature a reason to move away, as the effect ends if it gets more than 60 feet from you, so the target is still encouraged to flee, even if it's no longer forced to do so in a specific way.
But like I say, the cases in which "there is nowhere to move" are pretty limited; the creature needs to be cornered by you (can't move due being unable to move closer), be unable to move in general (restrained like I say, grappled etc. would also work) because until they escape from such restraint there is also nowhere to move to (as movement isn't possible), or there needs to be literally nowhere it could move to (fighting inside a demiplane maybe? It's hard for think of examples when the target isn't prevented from taking dangerous paths).
It could be a lot clearer in the intention though, as you could argue that even when a creature is unable to move there might still be somewhere to move to (they just can't get there) but it seems weird for a creature trying to flee to Dash uselessly rather than attempt to try to free itself, because the key thing is it wants to get away and doesn't care about its safety in doing so. Dashing is something you do because you want to get away as fast and as far as possible, but even a panicked creature has to deal with obstacles – the point is that it would be dashing if it could.
clause only applies to moving rather than dashing? But this would be a completely redundant thing to say as if you can't move you can't move
Well, as I was saying earlier in the thread, it really looks to me like this clause was added specifically because the description is saying that the creature must move. It might be reasonable to assume that when you must move but you can't move then you don't have to move -- but that's not the only conclusion you could draw, so they were being explicit about it. You must move. Unless you can't, in which case you don't have to move. It's not necessarily redundant. it's a clarification.
We should be careful about comparing this effect to what happens when you are ONLY frightened.
From the description of the frightened condition, the idea seems to be that your mind is somewhat preoccupied by fear but you are still functional -- you just function poorly. Your attacks are at disadvantage, etc. You don't want to get any closer to what you are frightened of, but you are sort of ok with it being where it is -- but you are distracted by keeping a close eye on it in case anything changes.
When we become panicked, on the other hand, it's a bit different. Just to factor in the common plain English usage of the term, the first dictionary hit in my google search defines panic as:
"a sudden overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or irrational behavior, and that often spreads quickly through a group of persons or animals."
So now, we're dealing with overwhelming fear. We really do want to just get away from the thing now, and we might behave irrationally in our attempts to do so. We're not thinking logically or tactically. This is why I don't like the interpretation that after you Dash once you can just turn around and cast a 9th Level spell as if you don't have a care in the world. This seems like it should be wrong, although from the RAW perspective this doesn't seem to be explicitly prevented.
I do agree with you that the sentence can be parsed both ways. I would have never thought of this second way to parse it if it hadn't been mentioned in this thread because, again, it just seems so obvious to me that it's not supposed to work that way. Like, there are very real scenarios where the creature just doesn't have to burn his Action and can now just use his Action for whatever he wants? That just seems wrong. You are meant to be running away. You are panicking. But I agree the RAW is technically ambiguous on that.
So now, we're dealing with overwhelming fear. We really do want to just get away from the thing now, and we might behave irrationally in our attempts to do so. We're not thinking logically or tactically. This is why I don't like the interpretation that after you Dash once you can just turn around and cast a 9th Level spell as if you don't have a care in the world. This seems like it should be wrong, although from the RAW perspective this doesn't seem to be explicitly prevented.
I do agree with you that the sentence can be parsed both ways. I would have never thought of this second way to parse it if it hadn't been mentioned in this thread because, again, it just seems so obvious to me that it's not supposed to work that way. Like, there are very real scenarios where the creature just doesn't have to burn his Action and can now just use his Action for whatever he wants? That just seems wrong. You are meant to be running away. You are panicking. But I agree the RAW is technically ambiguous on that.
I feel that you are adding a lot of rules mechanics just because of your interpretation of the name of the feature. Even if you would require the creature to take the Dash action even if it can't move (which I don't think I agree with) there is nothing in the text that would stop it using a bonus action or a reaction (or an action surge action).
If the meaning was to be so strictly restrictive as you seem to suggest then it really would have been better written something like "the only actions the target can take is the Dash action".
Imagining an alternate timeline where optimization advice for spellcasters tells you not to take certain teleportation spells because if you get scared you'll be forced to waste a spell slot casting them if they go further than you can run. 😅
The issue really seems to the interpretation of this line only:
the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move
But if you simplify this down as much as possible then the form of this sentence is basically "you must do X, unless Y".
In this case X seems like it should be "take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route", I see no reason why any of that should be separated as it's one continuous piece of text with no basis on which to decide that X is only "move away from you". I mean it literally says "Dash and move away from you" so there's clear emphasis on these being treated as a single command.
If it were intended that you must always Dash no matter what, then like Thezzaruz says surely it would say exactly that? Or it would at least say something more like "the frightened creature must take the Dash action, after which it will attempt to move away from you [etc.]"?
Of course they also could have made it a lot easier by phrasing it something like "must move away from you as fast as possible (taking the Dash action, if it is able)" which would have been a lot clearer that moving away must always be the goal where possible.
My question is regarding Panicked section which says: The target is frightened of you. On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move.
Does the target HAVE TO spend it's action on Dash even if it can't move anywhere (dash in place)? Or it can use any other action instead?
The "unless there is nowhere to move" clause means that the requirement to Dash is removed if the creature has nowhere to move to, so in such a case it could act normally.
However, it's worth noting that the target is not required to take a safe route, only "the safest [...] available"; so it can run towards other enemies, trigger attacks of opportunity, climb over spikes etc. if it has to, so long as there is no safer route it could take.
This means that it will normally only be unable to move if you've got it cornered, as being frightened of you prevents it from moving closer, even if that would be the "safest" route it could take.
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My reading of it is that yes the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you...unless there is nowhere to move.
Dashing and moving are two distinct clause and the exception refers to moving as Dashing is not necessary to move, it allow you to gain extra movement for the current turn wether you move or not.
Yeah, we could track backwards on the sentence to see if there's another break point where the "unless" segment could apply. Let's do that.
A) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, [unless there is nowhere to move.] -- This is the original structure of the sentence, just for completeness. The ambiguity is why we're here.
A1) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you [unless there is nowhere to move] by the safest and shortest available route. -- This is a little incoherent, but I read it as saying the creature must still Dash, but isn't obligated to move away from you. It's incoherent, however, because if there's somewhere to move, it must move away from you... even if the only way it can move is towards you. Again: If there's somewhere to move, but that somewhere is towards you, then the creature must move away from you -- but if there's nowhere to move, they aren't obligated to move at all. This peculiarity isn't necessarily enough to throw out the reading, but if you were looking for an excuse to throw out meanings, I do find it persuasive.
A2) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must must take the Dash action [unless there is nowhere to move] and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. -- In this reading, they're allowed to not Dash, but they still have to move. Only they can't move, so essentially that part is irrelevant. It's a little strange to phrase it this way, but I wouldn't call it incoherent. I don't think I'd hold it against you if you would, though.
A3) On each of its turns [unless there is nowhere to move], the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. -- Similarly, in this reading, they're allowed to not Dash, and they're also allowed to not move, which they couldn't do anyway, but at least this time it makes sense.
--
Conclusion: I think the only reading which strongly supports that the creature will always be forced to Dash (A1) is also the only reading that doesn't hold up. In my opinion, the creature doesn't have to Dash if there's nowhere it can move.
PS: Conceptually, like, in terms of the fiction, Dash is just spending more of your turn moving than normal. Devoting more of your approximately-six-seconds to just moving. Obviously if you can't move, you don't Dash. At least not when you're given the choice. Arguably you could say the fear paralyzes the creature into inaction, but the spell COULD just say that, if that were the intention. It doesn't. Instead, it says they Dash. Dashing in place is not the same as inaction, even though it is. You know?
PPS: I think there's a different way to break this down grammatically, too, and I'll do that in its own comment.
My reading of this is the same as the one given by Plaguescarred. The creature takes the Dash action no matter what as a consequence of being "Panicked".
Then, the creature attempts to move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. If no such route exists then the Dash (and therefore the Action) is wasted.
I disagree pretty strongly with this interpretation.
This simply is not true. See the rule for the Dash Action, posted above.
And therefore that's what happens since spells do what they say.
In terms of how I would interpret it ... I would tend agree with Plaguescarred and up2ng. I would tend to parse the sentence so that the creature must take the Dash action whether they can move or not.
(the frightened creature must take the Dash action) and (move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move.)
rather than interpreting the clause to allow the creature to take any other action if they are incapable of moving.
(the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route), unless there is nowhere to move.
However, I can easily see it being interpreted the second way since if there is no available route to move at all then the creature can't move in the first place so the "nowhere to move" clause has no real meaning unless it is intended to apply to the "Dash action".
If the sentence had just said "the frightened creature must take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route", then in that case, if there was no route to move then the creature would simply take the Dash action and not move since they have no where to go.
Adding the clause "unless there is nowhere to move" is redundant if the creature is always supposed to take the Dash action. This makes me think that perhaps the intent is that the creature should be allowed to take another action if they have no route to move. Conceptually this makes sense since if there is nowhere to run, the creature has been effectively backed into a corner and in desperation might turn and attack or take some other action other than running since they can't run.
I edited my post to try and clarify my point. I don't think I need to clarify that the post-script is a different argument than the main body of the post so I didn't.
Followup grammar breakdown: We can visualize the sentence in more than one way, which leads to ambiguity:
B1) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must [take the Dash action] and [move away from you by the safest and shortest available route], unless there is nowhere to move.
B2) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must [take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route], unless there is nowhere to move.
If a writer wanted to clarify that B1 was the correct reading, they could instead write one of the following:
B1a) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action, and, unless there is nowhere to move, must move away from you by the safest and shortest available route.
B1b) On each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move, the frightened creature must take the Dash action, and must move away from you by the safest and shortest available route.
Likewise, if a writer wanted to clarify that B2 was the correct reading, they could write this:
B2a) On each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move, the frightened creature must take the Dash action, and must move away from you by the safest and shortest available route.
B2a and B1b are the same, they just got there differently. Do you find it persuasive that among the three possible rewrites, 2/3 of them agree? I suppose that's as valid a motivation as any, in this case. Myself, I am moreso motivated by the absence of text to this effect:
C) On each of its turns, the frightened creature must move away from you by the safest and shortest available route. It must take the Dash action unless there is nowhere to move, in which case it takes no action and does not move.
If we had that text, I think it would be crystal clear. It would be the same as (B1a), but even more obvious about its intentions. I choose to interpret its absence as a signal, and thus my personal interpretation is the shared interpretation (B1b)/(B2a). I think a cornered creature can act normally.
There is no clear answer here. Both readings are grammatically legit, because English lacks a lexical scoping operator.
Both:
must (take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route), unless there is nowhere to move.
must take the Dash action and (move away from you by the safest and shortest available route, unless there is nowhere to move.)
are valid.
So, there's no definitive answer, and it's up to the DM. That said, I'd argue that "you only have to dash if it's relevant to the amount you move" is the best reading.
The Dash action is an artificiality of the game mechanics. It represents spending so much time moving in the round that you can't do anything else. If you go ten feet and get stuck in a corner, then you haven't spent that much time moving.
This gets into a problem if a PC or NPC has nonstandard movement capacity such as a misty step or teleport.
RAI the creature MUST move to a distance of 60 feet away from the caster out of sight to end the effect. While frightened it can't end it's turn closer to the caster voluntarily.
RAW presumed the creature MUST take the dash action to accomplish the task, which may situationally be completely nonsensical to the point of suicidal given the table situation.. As a Player if a DM did this to my character with say a vampire or lich trying to "dash into a pool of lava", when I had say a teleport available I'd pull an X card, and it would probably be the last game I played with that DM, PERIOD. Taking away player or DM agency even by magical rule means, especially with the intention of causing a character a self harm of sorts is a multiple red line Session zero no no for me. It's a railroading that is asking to end a gaming group - within the rules or not.
What constitutes "possible" is dependent on the theatre of the mind capacity of the target. Movement is compulsory - the method is not, and condemned is a DM for failing to account for dynamic situations at the table, especially at this tier of play.
Wow, it's always interesting when this happens in these threads, and in this case I find it to be pretty surprising. Because to me this is painfully obvious how this is intended to function.
The creature is panicked. This is clearly meant to be sort of a stronger version of being frightened. Like, he is SO frightened that he becomes panicked and all he can think of to do is to Dash and run away as quickly as possible. It's like the sort of sheer terror that instantly kicks in a huge fight or flight response -- and in this case the spell explicitly states that it's "flight". Run! Run away now!
Honestly, the clause "unless there is nowhere to move" feels like it was tacked on in an effort to avoid a series of totally different rules lawyer debates. Like, if that clause wasn't there at all maybe someone might say "But this creature has nowhere to move! Therefore, it's not a valid target!" Or, "Ok, it MUST move and yet it CAN'T move! Now what? I guess this effect ends?" Or, other such shenanigans. So, they decided to be redundant and spell it out that you must move unless you can't move -- in other words, you must "attempt" to move (without using that actual phrase since that would be even worse in the hands of rules lawyers).
There are more interesting ambiguities with this spell though. If you can take more than one action on your turn, do you need to Dash for ALL of those actions or just one of them? Can I take the forced Dash action, not be able to move, and then Action Surge and turn around and unleash a 9th Level spell at the offending creature? That feels pretty unintended to me but it's less obvious that the RAW prevents this.
Or, how exactly should a DM rule what constitutes both the "safest" and the "shortest" path if there are several options which all have a mixture of varying degrees of safety combined with path length? And, if the creature really is surrounded on 3 sides by a fatal path such as a pool of lava, is the creature really compelled to choose one of these paths?
But, as for the parsing of the sentence in question, it really feels like there's a best answer. If the ambiguity is such that there are two valid ways to parse a sentence and one of those is a lot more likely to be intended, we should probably choose that one.
The spell doesn't say that you have to use your actions to Dash, it just says that you have to take the Dash action. "On each of its turns, the frightened creature must take the Dash action." If you've already taken the Dash action on your turn, the spell isn't forcing you to do it again. Technically, this also means that a Rogue, a Monk, or someone who can cast expeditious retreat could take the Dash action as a bonus action and still use their action as normal, which is something I didn't think about until right now.
Yes.
Eh, that's subjective.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
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Since it's a combat game, you're always going to have to contend with the whole, "If I'm afraid of something, I try to kill it!" approach.
I think that's in bad faith, most of the time.
Just accept that your PC, or more likely your monster, is afraid. Like, really afraid. It's literally magic, it doesn't even need to make sense. Maybe they're usually not susceptible to such things but guess what, they are this time. You're compelled to run away. Don't try to finagle it so you still get to be cool, or still get to do damage. Play the role of your character in this situation, whoever or whatever they might be. Get scared and run.
But that's play philosophy, not rules. I should be interested in helping people with radically different play philosophies here. So sure. Do what the rules say and nothing more. Action Surge to attack after you're done running away, rather than Action Surging to run faster.
Interesting. So, what would you guys say about if I am incapacitated for some reason, but now I "must take the Dash action"? Does one of these supersede the other?
If you can't Dash, you can't Dash. "Must" doesn't give you the ability to do something, just the requirement. Sometimes requirements aren't met.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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I'm assuming you mean you think the "unless there is nowhere to move" clause only applies to moving rather than dashing? But this would be a completely redundant thing to say as if you can't move you can't move, and what matters really is why you can't move; a frightened creature that is also restrained can surely still attempt to free itself, and then try to move as far away as it can from you, a creature that you have cornered has no choice but to try to fight back (though because it's frightened it'll be at disadvantage) etc.
The Panicked option is definitely worded a bit weirdly, as there are all kinds of different emphasis you could put on the text, but the "unless there is nowhere to move" clause is placed with the "must take the Dash action and move away from you" part of the text, meaning that's the obvious place to apply it, it just happens to be two things rather than one, i.e- you must do this unless there's nowhere to move, but "this" is "Dash and move away". But this isn't the only part of the text giving the creature a reason to move away, as the effect ends if it gets more than 60 feet from you, so the target is still encouraged to flee, even if it's no longer forced to do so in a specific way.
But like I say, the cases in which "there is nowhere to move" are pretty limited; the creature needs to be cornered by you (can't move due being unable to move closer), be unable to move in general (restrained like I say, grappled etc. would also work) because until they escape from such restraint there is also nowhere to move to (as movement isn't possible), or there needs to be literally nowhere it could move to (fighting inside a demiplane maybe? It's hard for think of examples when the target isn't prevented from taking dangerous paths).
It could be a lot clearer in the intention though, as you could argue that even when a creature is unable to move there might still be somewhere to move to (they just can't get there) but it seems weird for a creature trying to flee to Dash uselessly rather than attempt to try to free itself, because the key thing is it wants to get away and doesn't care about its safety in doing so. Dashing is something you do because you want to get away as fast and as far as possible, but even a panicked creature has to deal with obstacles – the point is that it would be dashing if it could.
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Well, as I was saying earlier in the thread, it really looks to me like this clause was added specifically because the description is saying that the creature must move. It might be reasonable to assume that when you must move but you can't move then you don't have to move -- but that's not the only conclusion you could draw, so they were being explicit about it. You must move. Unless you can't, in which case you don't have to move. It's not necessarily redundant. it's a clarification.
We should be careful about comparing this effect to what happens when you are ONLY frightened.
From the description of the frightened condition, the idea seems to be that your mind is somewhat preoccupied by fear but you are still functional -- you just function poorly. Your attacks are at disadvantage, etc. You don't want to get any closer to what you are frightened of, but you are sort of ok with it being where it is -- but you are distracted by keeping a close eye on it in case anything changes.
When we become panicked, on the other hand, it's a bit different. Just to factor in the common plain English usage of the term, the first dictionary hit in my google search defines panic as:
"a sudden overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or irrational behavior, and that often spreads quickly through a group of persons or animals."
So now, we're dealing with overwhelming fear. We really do want to just get away from the thing now, and we might behave irrationally in our attempts to do so. We're not thinking logically or tactically. This is why I don't like the interpretation that after you Dash once you can just turn around and cast a 9th Level spell as if you don't have a care in the world. This seems like it should be wrong, although from the RAW perspective this doesn't seem to be explicitly prevented.
I do agree with you that the sentence can be parsed both ways. I would have never thought of this second way to parse it if it hadn't been mentioned in this thread because, again, it just seems so obvious to me that it's not supposed to work that way. Like, there are very real scenarios where the creature just doesn't have to burn his Action and can now just use his Action for whatever he wants? That just seems wrong. You are meant to be running away. You are panicking. But I agree the RAW is technically ambiguous on that.
I feel that you are adding a lot of rules mechanics just because of your interpretation of the name of the feature. Even if you would require the creature to take the Dash action even if it can't move (which I don't think I agree with) there is nothing in the text that would stop it using a bonus action or a reaction (or an action surge action).
If the meaning was to be so strictly restrictive as you seem to suggest then it really would have been better written something like "the only actions the target can take is the Dash action".
Imagining an alternate timeline where optimization advice for spellcasters tells you not to take certain teleportation spells because if you get scared you'll be forced to waste a spell slot casting them if they go further than you can run. 😅
The issue really seems to the interpretation of this line only:
But if you simplify this down as much as possible then the form of this sentence is basically "you must do X, unless Y".
In this case X seems like it should be "take the Dash action and move away from you by the safest and shortest available route", I see no reason why any of that should be separated as it's one continuous piece of text with no basis on which to decide that X is only "move away from you". I mean it literally says "Dash and move away from you" so there's clear emphasis on these being treated as a single command.
If it were intended that you must always Dash no matter what, then like Thezzaruz says surely it would say exactly that? Or it would at least say something more like "the frightened creature must take the Dash action, after which it will attempt to move away from you [etc.]"?
Of course they also could have made it a lot easier by phrasing it something like "must move away from you as fast as possible (taking the Dash action, if it is able)" which would have been a lot clearer that moving away must always be the goal where possible.
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Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.