Frightful Presence: Friend and Foe? (2024)

Simple question. Does a dragon's frightful presence only effect enemies, or does it effect allies as well?

Frightful Presence (Ex): A young adult or older dragon can unsettle foes with its mere presence. The ability takes effect automatically whenever the dragon attacks, charges, or flies overhead. Creatures within a radius of 30 feet x the dragon’s age category are subject to the effect if they have fewer HD than the dragon. A potentially affected creature that succeeds on a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 dragon’s HD + dragon’s Cha modifier) remains immune to that dragon’s frightful presence for 24 hours. On a failure, creatures with 4 or less HD become panicked for 4d6 rounds and those with 5 or more HD become shaken for 4d6 rounds. Dragons ignore the frightful presence of other dragons.

The first sentence says "can unsettle foes" not "can unsettle creatures". But all later sentences only say "creatures". Most importantly seems sentence #3: "Creatures within a radius of 30 feet x the dragon’s age category are subject to the effect if they have fewer HD than the dragon." Does that sentence override the first reference to "foes"?

Talking to myself now it appears.

I decided to look up a spell which I think everyone can agree only affects your enemies. For this experiment, I am using "Bane".

"Bane fills your enemies with fear and doubt. Each affected creature takes a –1 penalty on attack rolls and a –1 penalty on saving throws against fear effects."

This sounds very similar to the wording of Frightful Presence, with the exception that it adds the word "affected". Does this matter?

I say everyone.

Dragons are scary, even to their underlings. When the boss is angry, you stay away from him. Just because the "game rules" do not allow for accidentally being stepped on, tail slapped or inadvertently clawed, does not mean the allies won’t be worrying about it happening. Thus a paladin can fight just fine along side Big Gold, but Uggreck, Ogre cleric of Tiamat will still worry about being squished by his ‘ally’.

frankthedm said:

I say everyone.

Dragons are scary, even to their underlings. When the boss is angry, you stay away from him. Just because the "game rules" do not allow for accidentally being stepped on, tail slapped or inadvertently clawed, does not mean the allies won’t be worrying about it happening. Thus a paladin can fight just fine along side Big Gold, but Uggreck, Ogre cleric of Tiamat will still worry about being squished by his ‘ally’.

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But the issue in our game is that the army of humans needs to hold back an infernal assault, and a NG planar dragon (Battle Dragon) has decided to aid the humans. Seems odd that a dragon who can inspire courage in allies by roaring would also trigger frightful presence on them by roaring at the same time...

A Dragon is Just that damn scary.

I also believe a dragon can elect to surpress that ability.

I think there are other creatures with frightful presence (demons/devils?) for whom it specifically states the presence can be turned on or off. Since that language is missing for dragons, I'd say dragons cannot turn it on or off.

Isn't there a draconic feat or something that does the same thing?

If your problem is with the Battle Dragon in particular, since fighting alongside humans is what this particular species specializes in, rule zero him the following ability:

I'm Sure Glad He's On OUR Side(Ex) : All allies within the radius of the Battle Dragon's Frightful Presense ability are immune to it.

The question is whether "unsettle foes" is flavor text overridden by later explicit language about "creatures" within a certain range. I am not sure.

As a practical matter, a dragon can give his allies several chances to make their save before battle, and thereby gain effective immunity for 24 hours.

Personally I think that it makes the most sense flavorwise for dragons to be "that scary" that even allies flee. And think it makes a fair feat to be able to protect allies from that effect.

Enemies only:

SRD: Types said:

Frightful Presence (Ex): This special quality makes a creature’s very presence unsettling to foes. It takes effect automatically when the creature performs some sort of dramatic action (such as charging, attacking, or snarling). Opponents within range who witness the action may become frightened or shaken.

Actions required to trigger the ability are given in the creature’s descriptive text. The range is usually 30 feet, and the duration is usually 5d6 rounds.

This ability affects only opponents with fewer Hit Dice or levels than the creature has. An affected opponent can resist the effects with a successful Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 frightful creature’s racial HD + frightful creature’s Cha modifier; the exact DC is given in the creature’s descriptive text). An opponent that succeeds on the saving throw is immune to that same creature’s frightful presence for 24 hours. Frightful presence is a mind-affecting fear effect.

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