D&D 5E The Aura of Courage and You

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

A paladin's aura of courage ability states: Starting at 10th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can’t be frightened while youare conscious.

If a frightened creature enters the aura is the fear dispelled or suppressed?

 

[mrpopstar]

A paladin's aura of courage ability states: Starting at 10th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can’t be frightened while youare conscious.

If a frightened creature enters the aura is the fear dispelled or suppressed?

The ability would say so if such was the case.

 

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

That's the point of the question. It doesn't say either way. The ability just says, "can't be frightened".

 

[EternalDungeonMaster]

Like many spells and abilities in 5e, this one has too-vague wording. So the question is, do you interpret the text as:

1) You and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can not have new instances of the Frightened condition put on you.

or

2) You and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you are not affected by the Frightened condition.

Personally, as a long-time DM and a currently active 5e DM, I favor the second interpretation. If I were adjudicating this in my game, if a Frightened friendly creature came within 10 feet of a paladin I would rule that the friendly creature was no longer Frightened. In order to become Frightened again, the friendly creature would have to no longer be within 10 feet of the paladin *and* would have to be affected by a new source of Frightened.

That's just one DMs opinion. I don't think that the first interpretation is absolutely ridiculous, however. Like 1st and 2nd edition D&D, 5th edition has become a game ruled by the DM, and different DMs will make their rulings differently.

(edited for clarity)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I also would use the second interpretation. "Be" != "become".

 

[Jediking]

If a frightened creature enters the aura is the fear dispelled or suppressed?

Depends on how you'd like to rule it. If they were frightened by something like a Dragon's Frightful Presence or something that you can gain immunity to, I'd think that the Aura snaps you out of it and it is dispelled.

For an ongoing condition (cast from a spell), standing near the Paladin might allow you to think clearly (maybe advantage on the saving throw to end?), but the fear may take hold when out of the Aura.


How do you flavour the Aura? Is it the Paladin's innate willpower and Charisma, or a divine power that emanates from him? Thinking of how the Aura takes shape can help decide whether it will affect magic or not, but there isn't a wrong call.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

This is a case of natural language being less clear than a more rigidly written rule would be, which means it just takes using that natural language in a natural way to see the intent behind it. Case in point:

A player with a frightened character moves that character into the aura, and asks, "Is my character frightened while in this aura?"

The DM answers with the language present in the aura description; "He can't be."

There is also a tweet found in another thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?481035-some-tweets&p=6882468&viewfull=1#post6882468 ) that states the intent behind a similar aura as suspending the effect while in the aura that prevents said effect.

 

[Guest 6801328]

This is a case of natural language being less clear than a more rigidly written rule would be, which means it just takes using that natural language in a natural way to see the intent behind it. Case in point:

A player with a frightened character moves that character into the aura, and asks, "Is my character frightened while in this aura?"

The DM answers with the language present in the aura description; "He can't be."

There is also a tweet found in another thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?481035-some-tweets&p=6882468&viewfull=1#post6882468 ) that states the intent behind a similar aura as suspending the effect while in the aura that prevents said effect.

There's another implication to this interpretation, though: if the aura does not protect against magic that causes frightened, it just protects against the conditions that result. Which means that you would still have to roll a saving throw, and if you fail then you are only protected against the effects while you are within 10' of the paladin.

Personally I wouldn't rule it this way, but....

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

There's another implication to this interpretation, though: if the aura does not protect against magic that causes frightened, it just protects against the conditions that result. Which means that you would still have to roll a saving throw, and if you fail then you are only protected against the effects while you are within 10' of the paladin.

Personally I wouldn't rule it this way, but....

I don't find that to be implied, because if you are in the area at the time the save would be called for you are asking "Am I frightened, or am I not?" and the answer is still "You can't be frightened."

So there is no uncertainty for the saving throw to be resolving, and dice rolls are only made to resolve uncertainty in this version of D&D.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Except what you are actually rolling for is whether you will have the frightened for the next minute, not just whether you are frightened in the moment.

Again, I wouldn't actually rule it that way, but it is an implication of the "effect is suppressed but not cancelled while you're within the field" interpretation.