[RPG] What do victims of the fear spell do if their speed is reduced to zero

dnd-5efearmovementspells

The fear spell reads:

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.

What happens if it has space to move, but its movement speed is reduced to zero?

Best Answer

Empty Handed, Frightened, and down an action

Fear (Basic Rules, 239) states:

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

With a speed of zero, you're not going anywhere (note: this can be a good thing, it keeps the target within line of sight to maintain the line of sight with the caster), but the following still happen:

  • They must use their Action to Dash. Even though the speed is zero, the action is still taken.

  • They must drop whatever they are holding. Weapons, foci, or anything else being held drop to the ground.

  • They have the frightened condition

Nowhere to go or no way to get there?

This is the most difficult aspect to assess; I could see it going either way.

There is a difference between having nowhere to go and no way to get there. In this scenario there is a place to move to, there is just no movement to get there. It's a fine line, but if you've created a condition that sets this up, I say reward that setup. Let the Rule of Cool shine :)

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