Terror points accrue over the length of the campaign.
There are a total of 10 Terror Points you can accrue before requiring a Long Rest following the last encounter or situation where you acquired the 10th Terror Point.
Until you take that Long Rest, all your rolls are done at disadvantage.
*Disadvantage means that any roll you take you roll twice. You use the lower of the 2 rolls.
*Alternatively, if you have Advantage, you roll twice and use the higher of the 2 rolls.
- Terror Points are gained by failing Terror Rolls when the DM calls for you to make them.
- A Terror Roll asks you to beat a number determined by the DM for the severity of the terrible situation.
A practical example:
Ash hears a spooky noise outside. He must roll a 20-sided dice to see if he accrues a terror point. This isn’t that scary so he only has to beat a 6. Ash also has a +1 modifier to Terror, so really he just has to roll a five to not accrue a point.
Ash can also gain a terror point for spending them when casting spells or certain abilities to make them more potent/damaging/last longer.
Why it sucks to have terror points.
- The more terror points you use up, the less you have later to use for powerful spells and abilities. Also, the more terror points you use, the more terror points you must mark down on your character sheet (Out of 10)
- Practically, this looks like:
TERROR POINTS
| -1 Perc | -1 AC | -2 Int | Disadv |
- As you can see, the more terror points you accrue, the more penalties you gain for having those terror points. At 5 terror points you have a -1 on all perception rolls, for example.
When I lose a terror point, are they gone forever?
- Of course not, that wouldn’t be any fun. To gain back terror points you, or someone in your party, can use an ability to gain back points, or you can take a Short Rest to cleanse one terror point (+ terror modifier).
- You may cleanse half of your terror points with a long rest(+ terror modifier).
So why put skill points in Terror?
- For every + terror modifier you have over 3, it costs 1 less terror point to use a terror action under that number. (E.g. if you have a +4 modifier to terror, any action using terror 1-3 would cost one less terror point)
So what happens when you fill your Terror Meter?
- Once you fill your Terror Meter you gain disadvantage on all rolls for the rest of the encounter.
- Until you take a long rest you have become unhinged. All your actions have disadvantage, however if they are successful they also have a random and extreme negative consequence based on their class.