So I really dislike wording in the rules that creates ambiguity. While listening to the Glass Cannon Podcast some issues with Fascinated condition came up that really made me start thinking about how it's used. On two separate occasions The DM Troy used the fascinate ability of two creatures (Frost Worm and Yuki-onna) in ways that did make sense, but because of the wording of Fascinate pretty much everyone on the forums disagreed with how Troy used the ability.
Really digging into the wording of Fascinated most of the reasoning used as to why it is an ability that can't be used in combat comes from the line "drawing a weapon". Most arguments I've read basically boil down to "you can't know who you're drawing a weapon at so it must be to everyone who can see it", followed up by "that action is more threatening than drawing a weapon so it would also break Fascinated".
So to maintain the spirit of what I believe to be a fun way to use this ability in combat (since it seems to me that it's rarely if ever used outside of combat anyway), without it being abused I think I'll home brew the wording from this:
Fascinated: A fascinated creature is entranced by a supernatural or spell effect. The creature stands or sits quietly, taking no actions other than to pay attention to the fascinating effect, for as long as the effect lasts. It takes a –4 penalty on skill checks made as reactions, such as Perception checks.
Any potential threat, such as a hostile creature approaching, allows the fascinated creature a new saving throw against the fascinating effect. 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.
A fascinated creature’s ally may shake it free of the spell as a standard action.
To this:
Fascinated: A fascinated creature is entranced by a supernatural or spell effect. The creature stands or sits quietly, taking no actions other than to pay attention to the fascinating effect, for as long as the effect lasts. It takes a –4 penalty on skill checks made as reactions, such as Perception checks.
Any potential threat, such as a hostile creature approaching or someone drawing a weapon, allows the fascinated creature a new saving throw against the fascinating effect. Any obvious threat directed at the fascinated creature, such as someone raising a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a ranged weapon, automatically breaks the effect.
A fascinated creature’s ally may shake it free of the spell as a standard action.
So what does everyone think? Does this make Fascinated too powerful of a condition just waiting to be abused, or does it make it just somewhat more useful which makes classes and creatures with this ability a bit more interesting?
Sounds fair to me, though I've never encountered the problem. Someone will find a way to abuse it or complain about it no matter what you do.
I think this is a reasonable first pass, but it seems mostly focused on making the condition stronger. I think the core problem with fascinated is that its very unclear. There are a lot of problems in how the condition is worded that make it difficult to parse, and that results in a very high degree of variation across GMs. Since the variation in how good fascinate ends up being is so high, its difficult to make changes to the power level of the condition. For some groups, your suggested wording would make fascinate very powerful, while for other groups it would stay totally useless.
For example, one basic aspect I've seen tons of variation on:
How often does a fascinated creature get new saving throws? Once per approaching hostile creature? When anyone draws a weapon? Once per round when there's something hostile? What if there's a creature that's hostile but pretending not to be? Etc.