baldurs gate comes to mind, with both level drain and fear, it is pretty horrendous to come outside the mines of Nashkal and suddenly meet a wizardlike assassins who's favorite spell is fear! With a bit of luck you will have 2 members left that need to kill that impossible opponent, i found the wand of magic missile very helpful in removing the copies from the mirror defense spell, after that is done, you just need a couple of good weapon rolls.

In total war warhammer fear has a much more subtle effect. Decreasing willpower and the ability to hit in stead of people losing their heads running around. That said fear does also contribute in lowering the morale rapidly which in turn will lead to units loosing their heads and running around. to be honest units that regain composure and rejoin the fight commanded by the a.i. are one of the minor points of the series. Especially Skaven ... bah, if you don't have any fast units available for the chase or just fall short in actions per minute you might find yourself in a situation where you will loose more then needed

The name of the hack is "Carl is Such a Nice Guy", and that search term should yield several youtube videos of the hack being played.

If you actually want to play this level yourself, the author linked the patch in this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Carl_Sagan42/status/1376013647885967361

By the way, Yoshi's Island has a status ailment with a similar effect, as does Super Mario Maker 1 (not 2!) with one of its special effects.

Edit: Just to warn you, the hack is designed to torture the player in some ways. A Mario Maker 2 level with a similar concept has been compared to some game called "Getting Over It", if you've ever heard about that.

What if the wand you were given were a wand of fear? Would you use that?

(Also, would it be feasible to mod the game so that fear effects don't make the target run away? I would also suggest that confusion be adjusted, if possible, in a similar way.)

That sort of thing is perhaps better than the more usual handling of fear in RPGs with tactical combat.

RPGs with non-tactical combat generally handle fear better, or err on the side of it being useless (Final Fantasy 1), with one annoying exception. In Wizardry 7 (maybe 6), if a party member is afraid, that character will often use the "run" command, and if it succeeds, the entire party will run away, causing you to get no experience from enemies you've already killed.

Wizardry 8 would have been better if fear and blindness worked on enemies the way they worked on party members; have the enemy continue to attack rather than running away, but have it suffer the penalties (including missing turns, reduced fighting ability, and taking double damage in melee if blind).

By the way, in Wizardry 8, you *don't* want to cast Slow, as it slows down enemy animations, making the already slow combat take even longer.

The discussion of fear effects reminds me that they are something I always house rule when playing tabletop RPGs. Rules as written are extraordinarily unfun, where failing a fear save usually means "out of this combat" (meaning "sit at this table not doing anything while my friends have a good time for 30-60 minutes") if someone can't save you and remove it right away (within a round or two).

I always house rule it that they stop running when the character is reasonably distant -- out of sight, hearing, line of effect, etc -- of the source of the fear-causing foe. I also then allow them to repeat saving throws every round until they pass. This means usually they're only out for a few rounds rather than indefinitely. The biggest effect of this is getting them back into combat faster when the effect wears off. Run away from fear is usually "run away as best as possible for the whole duration" meaning that if you spend 6 rounds running away and then it wears off... you're going to need 6 rounds to get back to where you were. It's still a giant issue if the wizard somehow is feared and teleports home...

Of course, ttRPGs have "shades of fear". Pathfinder 1e:

Shaken: A shaken character takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. Shaken is a less severe state of fear than frightened or panicked.

Frightened: A frightened creature flees from the source of its fear as best it can. If unable to flee, it may fight. A frightened creature takes a –2 penalty on all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. A frightened creature can use special abilities, including spells, to f lee; indeed, the creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape. Frightened is like shaken, except that the creature must flee if possible. Panicked is a more extreme state of fear.

Panicked: A panicked creature must drop anything it holds and f lee at top speed from the source of its fear, as well as any other dangers it encounters, along a random path. It can’t take any other actions. In addition, the creature takes a –2 penalty on all saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. If cornered, a panicked creature cowers and does not attack, typically using the total defense action in combat. A panicked creature can use special abilities, including spells, to f lee; indeed, the creature must use such means if they are the only way to escape. Panicked is a more extreme state of fear than shaken or frightened.

Cowering: The character is frozen in fear and can take no actions. A cowering character takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class and loses his Dexterity bonus (if any).

those effects sound nice
hmm did u like planetfall? seems like not as good as the others




best ones are when it changes the gameplay or tactics a little bit like berserk the more dmged you get the harder you hit , so letting enemy to hit you a little early is beneficial
card games have plenty of these things

Your mention of table top RPGs reminds me of another mechanic present in at least D&D (at least the editions I am familiar with) that I would houserule away.

Specifically, it's the mechanic where, if a character is sleeping or paralyzed, the character can be easily be killed by a coup de grace attack. I think it's already bad enough that the character is missing turns (and that effect is already quite powerful for a low level spell), but allowing such characters to be killed so easily turns such effects into instant death effects, which are way too powerful for that level.

Then again, I would probably house rule death out of the game mechanics entirely, creating a situation where death can only happen as part of the story, and only if the DM and player in question agree to it. Or, I would adopt something like SaGa Frontier's Life Point system to make death significantly less likely in normal gameplay (though such a rule has interesting implications if the D&D 3.5/Pathfinder rule is in play).

By the way, in Wizardry 4, if every enemy is asleep the battle will end, but the enemies that survived the battle asleep will still be roaming around. (I just wish Wizardry 4 properly implemented level draining.)

I'm thinking I wouldn't force the fleeing, but instead just give them penalties for choosing not to flee (or forcing cowering in those situations where the target chooses not to flee).

Also, in a table top setting, it's reasonable to award XP for enemies that flee, which is something that generally does not happen in CRPGs. (Though Final Fantasy 5 still awards ABP for enemies that flee, and there's one particularly dangerous monster relatively early in the game (in a side area) that will often just run away, giving you some nice easy 5 ABP.)

Good enough to have spend around 50 hours so far. I'm not that familiar with the other 2 games, 3 actually, to provide any sorts of comment on the topic. I tend to play these games on easy and just enjoy building an empire, fighting the occasional battle.

Skull Eaters? Since I don't recall the statues in the Tycoon basement having a penchant for fleeing.

Yes, it's the Skull Eaters.

I remembered another game that does status ailments well: Wario Land 3. (Also Wario Land 2.) You can't die in this game, but enemies can inflict status aliments like making you fat, flattening you, or setting you on fire. What's interesting is that sometimes you need to be hit with a status ailment in order to progress. There's even a vampire status effect, and I remember one place where you need to avoid falling drops of water because you don't want to cure that status until you no longer need it.