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Last night I GM'd my first game in over a year, and we hit a snag in one of the encounters. The party encountered a 'Scarecrow' in the following scenario:
We had a very bad time with the fascination effect. By RAW - which I think is a bit fuzzy here - this ability is AWFUL. I am very interested in hearing how others run it, and how they interpret the ability.
Two questions:
1.) I had the fascination effect go off the instant players saw the creature, having them all makes saves at once - was this correct? Or, should I have had them make their saves on their turn in initiative order instead?
2.) Can the scarecrow fascinate a target more than once? Meaning, if a player is fascinated, and then a friend shakes them out of it - can they be re-fascinated? The text on the creature does not say anything about 'Immune for 24 hours afterwords' or anything. If the scarecrow can re-fascinate - that's awful!
3.) The scenario itself includes this strategy for the scarecrow:
This text, with its 'one opponent at a time', heavily suggests that fascination is NOT broken when a fascinated victim's ally is attacked. This seems to say that once everyone is locked down, the Scarecrow can just wake them up (and kill them) one by one.
We were playing the lower tier, and this was an APL 2 party (this is a CR 4 monster). When I started the encounter, I played it to RAW. It quickly became obvious that a TPK was going to happen, and the players were not happy with the Scarecrow's OP-ness, especially in how different its fascinate ability works compared to other fascination effects.
Given the fuzziness of its writing, and the obviously imminent TPK, I ended up ruling it that the effect could not be repeated for 24 hours after fascinating a player once. I still made it so that when the scarecrow attacked, only the fascination in the target breaks - not their allies.
The party won the day with that small change of interpretation - but it was close.
How would you have run it?
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"The approach or animation of the scarecrow does not count as an obvious threat to the victim of this particular fascination effect (although the scarecrow’s attack does count as an obvious threat and ends the fascination immediately)."
Normally merely approaching a fascinated victim breaks the fascination, but this one does not. But attacking does break it. So if he fascinates all the PCs, he'd just attack one who could fight back until that PC was down and then move on to the next.
As for the attack itself, it is called Fascinating Gaze, so I would have it work like any other gaze attack. You can choose to avert your eyes at the start of your turn to avoid the gaze otherwise you have to save at the start of each of your turns. Also the scarecrow can try to actively gaze as an attack.
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Normally merely approaching a fascinated victim breaks the fascination, but this one does not. But attacking does break it. So if he fascinates all the PCs, he'd just attack one who could fight back until that PC was down and then move on to the next.
So - do you agree that, as written, attacking a fascinated victim only breaks the fascination for that victim - and not for their allies?
My problem with this is that it is exceptionally deadly. An APL 2 party versus this technique is going to get locked down and TPK'd. If they can only fight the scarecrow one at a time - it's going to kick their butts.
That IS the way I ran it though; the exception I added as that the fascination can only work once on a specific target within a 24 hour period. In my players case, they had one person trying to shake the others back awake; but the scarecrow was re-fascinating the party faster than they could be woken up. It just didn't seem correct - not to me nor to the players (who were not inexperienced players at all).
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So - do you agree that, as written, attacking a fascinated victim only breaks the fascination for that victim - and not for their allies.
Normally merely approaching a fascinated victim breaks the fascination, but this one does not. But attacking does break it. So if he fascinates all the PCs, he'd just attack one who could fight back until that PC was down and then move on to the next.
Correct. As I read it, an attack only breaks fascinate for the creature being attacked.
"Any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a ranged weapon at the fascinated creature, automatically breaks the effect."
This is probably a creature where you want to consider shutting your eyes and taking the 50% miss chance.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I ran it as written. It was brutal, but between people making their saves, people closing their eyes and blind fighting, people averting their sight for the bonus, and the fact that the scenario *gives* you a weapon to use against it, it was long, and a little bit scary at one point, but eminently doable, and in no way a TPK.
There was one guy who refused to close his eyes. That part of the fight was the funniest thing I have ever seen at a PFS table.
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I ran this low tier and the party ran for their lives. There were some new people at the time so I went pretty easy on them.
I played this in high tier as written. We beat the encounter with no issues.
I'm fairly sure at the start of season 6 this scenario caused a lot of backlash from how deadly it was and since then scenarios have been.. easier to say the least. There was also a lot of uproar about the technologist feat.
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Eh, the real killer is the first combat on tier 1-2. The scarecrow is pretty puny if the party just avoids eye contact. At least it's not a darn basilisk...
The group totally owned the first combat. The mook rolled a low initiative, and then a guy using the adamantine dagger crit'd it, and stunned it for a round.
They did have one out-of-tier level 4 - a kineticist with electricity bolts - she proceeded to crit it *again*, and killed it.
It never even got to act.
The scarecrow though was totally going to TPK them until I decided to make a ruling. It does appear I 'was wrong' in my ruling, and so I wouldn't rule it the same if I GM'd it again, but I don't regret it, either.
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I´ve run this, my group have no deaths due playing low tier, being 7 characters and 2 of them were level 3 melees.
Regarding the fascinated condition, the PRD says:
-The approach or animation of the scarecrow does not count as an obvious threat to the victim of this particular fascination effect (although the scarecrow's attack does count as an obvious threat and ends the fascination immediately).
Nothing there says if it´s only an obvious threat for the character attacked, or for the whole group
Also, the CRB says about fascinated (again, only part of the text) Any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a ranged weapon at the fascinated creature, automatically breaks the effect.
For me, if drawing a weapon is an obvious threat, swinging it against your mate is too and obvious threat. But I made a little research on this and read about two different interpretations on this question, so... table variation.