I really need some help nailing down exactly how these two rules descriptions are meant to work together RAW...
Awesome Display (Su): Each creature affected by your illusion (pattern) spells is treated as if its total number of Hit Dice were equal to its number of Hit Dice minus your Charisma modifier (if positive).
Hypnotic Pattern: Roll 2d4 and add your caster level (maximum 10) to determine the total number of HD of creatures affected. Creatures with the fewest HD are affected first; and, among creatures with equal HD, those who are closest to the spell's point of origin are affected first. HD that are not sufficient to affect a creature are wasted. Affected creatures become fascinated by the pattern of colors.
Subtract your CHA modifier from the total HD of every creature in the targeted area.
Then proceed as normal.
Assume a caster level of 6 and a roll of 4, for a total of 10HD of creatures normally affected by the spell.
You could fascinate as many 5HD or less creatures as there are in the target area, in addition to that, you can fascinate either 10 6HD creatures, 5 7HD creatures, 3 8HD creatures, 2 9-10 HD creatures, 1 11-15HD creature, or an appropriate combination.
For example, let's say you have a 20 Charisma (+5) at level 5, and you roll averagely on your dice so you can affect 10 HD.
This means you can successfully use Hypnotic Pattern on a 15HD enemy (since it would have 10 effective HD), two 10 HD enemies (each would have 5 effective HD), five 7HD creatures (which would each have 2 effective HD), or 10 enemies with 6 HD or less.
I'm not really sure if a creature's effective HD can go to zero or if 1 is the minimum, though.
Subtract your CHA modifier from the total HD of every creature in the targeted area.
Then proceed as normal.
Still confusing. If I have 10 creatures with 2 HD and 5 creatures with 4 HD that's 15 creatures with 40 HD.
Now, do I subtract my CHA modifier from the 2's and the 4's individually, or from the total 40? The wording of Awesome Display specifically says 'each creature' which would seem to suggest the former... your response seems to suggest the former - or am I reading it wrong?
I'm not really sure if a creature's effective HD can go to zero or if 1 is the minimum, though.
I'd have to believe that 1 would be the minumum - or perhaps it steps down to 1/2 and then 1/4 as I can well imagine hypnotic pattern affecting an entire village of sprites or goblins...
Thanks for the clarifications.
Subtract your CHA modifier from the total HD of every creature in the targeted area.
Then proceed as normal.
Still confusing. If I have 10 creatures with 2 HD and 5 creatures with 4 HD that's 15 creatures with 40 HD.
Now, do I subtract my CHA modifier from the 2's and the 4's individually, or from the total 40? The wording of Awesome Display specifically says 'each creature' which would seem to suggest the former... your response seems to suggest the former - or am I reading it wrong?
You may have beat my edit where I broke it down along the lines of mplindustries, but yes, each individual creature has it's effective HD reduced.
Now, do I subtract my CHA modifier from the 2's and the 4's individually, or from the total 40? The wording of Awesome Display specifically says 'each creature' which would seem to suggest the former... your response seems to suggest the former - or am I reading it wrong?
It subtracts from every individual creature, so those 10 creatures would all be affected if you rolled 10 HD.