| 7 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
The Demagogue bard archetype gains two abilities I'm confused about.
First is Incite violence.
At 6th level, the demagogue can use his performance to fan the fury of a crowd of people he has fascinated. Using this ability does not disrupt the fascinate effect, but does require a standard action to activate (in addition to the free action to continue the fascinate effect). The bard selects a number of targets equal to his level, who must make Will saves (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard’s level + the bard’s Charisma modifier) or be affected by rage for a number of rounds equal to the bard’s level. The bard indicates who is the intended target of violence (either after using this ability or as part of the performance leading to it) and the enraged members of the crowd immediately attack the target if possible.
How can he fascinate a crowd ? Fascinate can only affect 3 targets at level 6, 7 at level 20, that's hardly a crowd, and he can't select among them a number of targets equal to his level. Does the ability refers to a crowd he has gathered with the Gather Crowd ability of the archetype, instead of fascinated ?
Then
Righteous Cause (Ex): At 18th level, the demagogue can lift a crowd’s emotions and turn them toward a common purpose. First, he must fascinate the crowd, and then use incite violence without designating a target, at which point he can use righteous cause. Instead of driving the crowd with anger, he fills them with purpose. Fascinated creatures must make Will saves (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard’s level + the bard’s Charisma modifier) to resist. Those who fail are affected by mass suggestion of a plausible idea that lingers with them for one day. Typical uses of this ability are to spark rebellion, overthrow a king, build a beneficial structure such as an orphanage, or donate money to a cause. This ability replaces mass suggestion.
7 targets (assuming they all failed their second will save) working together for one day can't overthrow a king or build an orphanage. Even sparking a rebellion would be hard if those seven are just commoners passing on that street (and donating money is something a regular mass suggestion would achieve). How does that work ? Is the rest of the crowd supposed to be affected too ?
Hm. Bumping then.
Bumping as well. It seems like the only way for him to do this is to use Hypnotic Pattern or something like that, but then they are fascinated by his spell, not his ability.
One month and one day, bump again.
Now that I think about it, if the suggestion of the 18th level effect lasts for one day, that wouldn't suffice to build an orphanage even if the crowd numbered one or two thousand.
Well, it says that the effect only last as long as you perform, and that the number of targets for one performance is limited. So there would still be only a few people fascinated.
That's the lamest part about fascinate. Everyone who reads it thinks, "Wow, he can charm a ton of people!" Yeah. Like four.
Meh.
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I've been playing a fairly high-level demagogue, and my GM and I were initially pretty confused about this ability. We finally decided that "a fascinated crowd" means a bunch of people that are sympathetic to the demagogue anyway and aren't likely to pose danger (whereas fascinate also works on enemies). So you can gather a crowd of passers by and fans, and then grant some of them a rage effect. My GM decided not to allow the rage to affect other party members. So basically it's just an ability that makes a bunch of people angry, so it functions like a superpowered diplomacy check.
Not an official ruling, but hopefully it helps clear things up for you since no one seems to be biting.
Did you get much use out of that ability ? A few enraged passer-bys don't sound to be of much help in CR-appropriate situations... maybe as a diversion ?
I think I'd rule something similar to your group's interpretation, but I do hope for an official ruling, or for more opinions in the meantime.
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I've been playing a fairly high-level demagogue, and my GM and I were initially pretty confused about this ability. We finally decided that "a fascinated crowd" means a bunch of people that are sympathetic to the demagogue anyway and aren't likely to pose danger (whereas fascinate also works on enemies). So you can gather a crowd of passers by and fans, and then grant some of them a rage effect. My GM decided not to allow the rage to affect other party members. So basically it's just an ability that makes a bunch of people angry, so it functions like a superpowered diplomacy check.
Not an official ruling, but hopefully it helps clear things up for you since no one seems to be biting.
Any study of mob psychology will reveal that a few well placed agents provocateurs in a crowd can get it riled up to just about any purpose desired. When people are surrounded by so many folks getting angry, as a survival instinct those that would not otherwise partake in such activity find themselves getting riled up right along with the rest of the mob. This is how most riots start. If a particularly charismatic speaker is guiding that anger, they will tend to go along with whatever the speaker is going on about. Hitler used this technique to perfection in the 1930's.
I see this ability in a similar fashion. You spread your message that angers a few folks, and next thing you know the entire crowd is angry.
You would have the entire crowd attack the target ?
Bumping again.
My official rules on this is that the specifics of Incite Violence overrule the fascination rules. It makes no sense otherwise, and it doesn't specifically say that the targets you choose must be fascinated. Only that you must do this as a part of fascinate.
The way I see it, you are getting the fascinated people to rile up the non-fascinated folks.
Bumping this once again. I hope that a designer will rewrite the mechanics of these abilities so that a bard could be better (or at least not worse) at moving crowds than other charismatic characters just roleplaying it.
After all, Prone Shooter was finally fixed more than one year after it was published, maybe this will be fixed before two years have passed.