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The Angoyang can inflict fascinated with Slow Blink. If the Angoyang attacks the target, they can make another save at the start of their turn. Fascinated ends if a creature uses hostile actions against the target or its allies.
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One of the most useless and badly defined conditions in the game. I share your hate. Needs a rework Paizo doesn't seem to think important. As it is written it is about useless.
I think whoever wrote Slow Blink forgot that Fascinated is a very fragile condition that generally isn't usable in combat.
The way it is written makes it sound like it is:
a) somehow debilitating (you can still cast spells at the Angoyang while fascinated and can attack anything on the battlefield with things like Strike that don't involve actions with the Concentrate trait),
and b) supposed to be overriding the general rules for how the Fascinated condition ends but without ever actually saying that it overrides those rules. The rule about getting a new save if the Angoyang attacks the target doesn't really make any sense.
Oh hey, I wrote a thread about this on the subreddit a few days ago! The angoyang came up there too; and the bit about making the save again clearly wasn't made with a solid understanding of fascinated.
To summarize the criticism in the thread: fascinated sits in an awkward position where it applies hard crowd control (as in, it says you can't do something, instead of just applying a penalty to doing it) and is balanced as such, but isn't really seen in the same way as other hard crowd control effects, like paralyzed or stunned, due to how situational it is. Effectively, there are two extremes to consider:
So most of the time, fascinated is largely useless (it's not even good out of combat on effects like Fascinating Performance, which only last for one round), but in extremely specific circumstances, it can ruin the GM's day. It can't really be buffed or nerfed to address these problems so much as overhauled, and given how it's made it to the remaster I think that's unlikely to ever happen in 2e.
What frustrates me especially is that done differently, fascinated could've been the perfect taunt condition: if the condition imposed a penalty on checks and DCs that didn't relate to the subject of one's fascination, this would have worked just as well for out-of-combat effects designed to distract enemies by weakening their Perception checks and DCs as it would've worked for the Guardian's Taunt. Making the effect soft crowd control with stronger debuffs and scalability would've made the condition much more generally useful, and at that point it wouldn't need to end on hostile actions, certainly not against a creature's allies.
How do you run this or things like the enthrall spell?
The way slow blink is written for example it doesn't seem like the fascinated character can't do anything but pet the creature.
Enthrall seems like it completely shuts down all targets in 120 ft that fail the will save.
I get that the fascinated condition doesn't actually account for the shutting down it just means -2 to perception and skill checks but enthrall says they have to give their undivided attention. i take this to mean they are not doing anything but listen to the caster.
Did you all see this differently?
Yes. The way Enthrall is written is it keeps reimposing Fascinated. But being Fascinated doesn't stop you from attacking anything especially not the object of your fascination. Then fascination breaks for everyone, making it even more pointless.
So it is almost totally useless unless your goal was to gain aggro.
I agree it should be better that this. But it is not ambiguous. It is up to Paizo to fix it, or you to house rule it.
There's nothing in the fascinated condition that says creatures have to drop everything they're doing and do nothing except gawp at the source of the fascination. The only thing the fascinated condition explicitly restricts is the use of concentrate actions on things that don't relate to the subject of the fascination, which is situationally powerful but also very specific.
As the GM, I wouldn't have the creatures behave with explicitly antagonistic intent out of combat unless they have very good reason to, so I wouldn't have guards sound the alarm while fascinated by enthrall under most circumstances, for example, even if that is something they could still do while affected by the condition. In combat, my view of fascinated is that at that point it's a powerful distraction, rather than a mind-control effect that forces you to do focus all of your attention on one thing: fascinating an enemy as you're locked in combat with them means they'll have a hard time noticing your allies, but it doesn't mean they'll stop attacking you or your allies either. It's generally under these circumstances that I'll impose a circumstance penalty to checks a fascinated enemy makes if they try to act against something that's not the subject of their fascination, so your Battledancer Swashbuckler would get to feel better about applying a highly situational condition to try to make an enemy less effective against their allies.
Thats why i said its not the condition that shuts anything down, its the spell enthrall saying your targets have to give their undivided attention in the spell description. You can ask my wife, she wont consider my attention undivided unless I'm doing nothing but listening to her lol.
That is not ambiguous to me.
"Might give their undivided attention" in the description for enthrall is used as shorthand for the fascinated condition; the degrees of success explicitly state that failing the save gets you fascinated and that succeeding on the save means you don't have to pay attention to what's being said. Incidentally, the bit about the fascination ending if the target is subject to a hostile act is completely redundant, as that's already stated in the condition.
Reread fascinate, I take it back. The condition does compel a complete shut down of actions except focusing on what the spell says is the focus. Enthrall uses the casters words as the focus of their attention.
Example of how I would run enthrall used on a few Belkezen orcs the payers are fighting.
Caster casts Enthrall and start talking, "hey hey why are we fighting, we all just want the same things you know to eat and drink and Oh arnt axes great? I mean look at that one on that guy its got so many jagged edges, a real headsplitter." on and on extectera. basically the topics are what I would pay attention to in what the player tells me.
This is in the middle of a fight so they are unlikely to want to listen to this giving them that full +4 maybe the subjects of drinking and axes is appealing to these orcs so lets say its only a +3.
The ones that fail stop fighting and listen. The thing they are compelled to focus on are your words. if they do anything but that then they are dividing their attention between listening to the words and that other thing. So for me thats an easy full shutdown until a hostile action is taken against them or their allies or they later save or any of the other triggers for ending the effect.
I'd always though of Enthrall as an RPing/out-of-combat spell, like to sway crowds or neutralize combats before they begin. A spell for a politician or preacher. Same realm I suppose w/ Fascinated, though I've pretty much ignored it because of that, as I'd rather rely on Diplomacy than cast magic that might trigger hostile reactions or superstition.
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Fascinate is a powerful tactical option for isolation, tanking, or stealth actions but requires more work than others. You need your party to coordinate, and you need to combo it with a follow-up to get the most out of it, such as various stealthy actions. You run into similar issues with friendly fire effects where players just ignore the current situation and charge into the trap you just set down.
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Reread fascinate, I take it back. The condition does compel a complete shut down of actions except focusing on what the spell says is the focus. Enthrall uses the casters words as the focus of their attention.
This is doubly incorrect:
Fascinate is a powerful tactical option for isolation, tanking, or stealth actions but requires more work than others. You need your party to coordinate, and you need to combo it with a follow-up to get the most out of it, such as various stealthy actions. You run into similar issues with friendly fire effects where players just ignore the current situation and charge into the trap you just set down.
Is it powerful?
I mean there are other options that do it much more easily. Invisibility is more reliable and simpler. If you need a distraction I'd rather it was roleplayed with a skill check.
Fascinated lowers perception DC so I guess it helps with Flammable Fumes and some illusions. It only partially works with Maze/Quandary as that makes the target extraplanar. But it doesn't impact Will saves and that is what is important for the overwhelming majority of these effects.
Not being able to concentrate does shut down most spell casting. But they just throw a dagger at you then cast anyway. I'd rather have a Slow spell. Most monsters have non spell options anyway.
It should work. It is a good concept. It just doesn't as it stands. Paizo have consistently declined to fix it.
Calm Emotions is so much better.
Reread fascinate, I take it back. The condition does compel a complete shut down of actions except focusing on what the spell says is the focus. Enthrall uses the casters words as the focus of their attention.This is doubly incorrect:
Fascinated only limits the use of concentrate actions, not all actions.
Enthrall explicitly says "the target is fascinated with you". You, not your words, are the focus of the target.
Am I?
Your words fascinate your targets is the first line of enthrall.Your only reading the first line of the success description.
Do you ignore what the spell says in its description and only go by whats in the degrees of success?
I find its hard to know what the spell actually is doing if you dont look at the full text.
Like you wouldnt know what the effect of a success is on grim tendrils if you didnt read the description and only looked at the degrees of success. Youd know on failure the creature takes full damage but what full damage is is in the description.
Same thing for enthrall. You know they become fascinated by you in the fail description but you have to read the full description to see its actually your words and that that attention is undivided. Ofcourse the spell says might there so its very GM dependent.
Your only reading the first line of the success description.
Do you ignore what the spell says in its description and only go by whats in the degrees of success?
Defintely reading and including all of it and the condition details.
The specified effects do fit the description well. It is just so temporary and weak.
Your only reading the first line of the success description.
Do you ignore what the spell says in its description and only go by whats in the degrees of success?Defintely reading and including all of it and the condition details.
The specified effects do fit the description well. It is just so temporary and weak.
Certainly temporary. And in combat I would expect most situations would call for the creatures to get a high bonus against it. That makes it really unusable in combat. Its best combat use is as a prefight distraction stealthy members of your party can take advantage of to get into position. That -2 perception would help with that and make entering combat -2 initiative for foes.
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I see enthrall as a mostly out of combat ability, but fascinated is powerful out of combat because seek is a concentrate action, meaning if I am enthralling a guard, the rest of my party has to crit fail their stealth checks (against as penalized perception DC) to become less than hidden from the guard/any guard in the area. There really is nothing more they can do to investigate my allies because trying to look away/do something to figure out what is going on is going to require a concentration action.
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And let's don't forget about Confused for the conditions that really need a rework.
Fascinate is a powerful tactical option for isolation, tanking, or stealth actions but requires more work than others. You need your party to coordinate, and you need to combo it with a follow-up to get the most out of it, such as various stealthy actions. You run into similar issues with friendly fire effects where players just ignore the current situation and charge into the trap you just set down.Is it powerful?
I mean there are other options that do it much more easily. Invisibility is more reliable and simpler. If you need a distraction I'd rather it was roleplayed with a skill check.
Fascinated lowers perception DC so I guess it helps with Flammable Fumes and some illusions. It only partially works with Maze/Quandary as that makes the target extraplanar. But it doesn't impact Will saves and that is what is important for the overwhelming majority of these effects.
Not being able to concentrate does shut down most spell casting. But they just throw a dagger at you then cast anyway. I'd rather have a Slow spell. Most monsters have non spell options anyway.
It should work. It is a good concept. It just doesn't as it stands. Paizo have consistently declined to fix it.
Calm Emotions is so much better.
It is certainly more situational and harder to use than many other options, but difficult tactics can have a good payoff.
If you cause it before combat, it's an initiative debuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it penalties to skill checks also apply to skill DCs, so any skill-based action is easier against the target, including stealth and skill-based maneuver defenses and even Grab an Edge and noticing traps. Either way, they'll have a harder time using maneuvers, stealth, etc. themselves.
Making it harder for an opponent to climb, swim, balance, etc. can be handy for controlling position.
The ability to limit spell use is obviously very helpful when it is relevant, especially if you combine it with ways to make the fascination object hard to affect; you can be fascinating and invisible and behind a wall!
You can also really abuse the "hostile actions" limitation, given "opening a door and accidentally freeing a horrible monster" (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2251) wouldn't be a violation, and the target has a penalty to skills making it easier to trick them.
It's not a tool for every party, but it's still a good tool.
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And let's don't forget about Confused for the conditions that really need a rework.
I agree. It was pretty sad when my player crit failed a warp mind, then got hit and ended the confusion on the first try.
We read the description and though, "Dang, you are screwed. Permanent confusion."
Then read the confused condition, conditions ends on a DC 11 flat check if hit. Just sad.
Fascinate is a powerful tactical option for isolation, tanking, or stealth actions but requires more work than others. You need your party to coordinate, and you need to combo it with a follow-up to get the most out of it, such as various stealthy actions. You run into similar issues with friendly fire effects where players just ignore the current situation and charge into the trap you just set down.Is it powerful?
I mean there are other options that do it much more easily. Invisibility is more reliable and simpler. If you need a distraction I'd rather it was roleplayed with a skill check.
Fascinated lowers perception DC so I guess it helps with Flammable Fumes and some illusions. It only partially works with Maze/Quandary as that makes the target extraplanar. But it doesn't impact Will saves and that is what is important for the overwhelming majority of these effects.
Not being able to concentrate does shut down most spell casting. But they just throw a dagger at you then cast anyway. I'd rather have a Slow spell. Most monsters have non spell options anyway.
It should work. It is a good concept. It just doesn't as it stands. Paizo have consistently declined to fix it.
Calm Emotions is so much better.
It is certainly more situational and harder to use than many other options, but difficult tactics can have a good payoff.
If you cause it before combat, it's an initiative debuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it penalties to skill checks also apply to skill DCs, so any skill-based action is easier against the target, including stealth and skill-based maneuver defenses and even Grab an Edge and noticing traps. Either way, they'll have a harder time using maneuvers, stealth, etc. themselves.
Making it harder for an opponent to climb, swim, balance, etc. can be handy for controlling position.
The ability to limit spell use is obviously very helpful when it is relevant, especially if you combine it with ways to...
I don't consider fascinate a good tool. It's best use is out of combat maybe, so long as you aren't doing anything hostile.
There are plenty of better tools than fascinate. Then again it wasn't very good in PF1 either.
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We are all free to feel as we feel, but I hope I have at least made it clear that there are many ways it can impact combat.
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The bigger problem isn't whether fascinate is good or bad as is, it's that it seems like some people at Paizo are referencing a different version of the condition entirely.
Am I?
Your words fascinate your targets is the first line of enthrall.
Your only reading the first line of the success description.
Do you ignore what the spell says in its description and only go by whats in the degrees of success?
I find its hard to know what the spell actually is doing if you dont look at the full text.
Oh, for Thoth's sake.
Let's just start with the basics, because clearly there's some confusion at hand. Here is the description for fascinated:
You're compelled to focus your attention on something, distracting you from whatever else is going on around you. You take a –2 status penalty to Perception and skill checks, and you can't use concentrate actions unless they (or their intended consequences) are related to the subject of your fascination, as determined by the GM. For instance, you might be able to Seek and Recall Knowledge about the subject, but you likely couldn't cast a spell targeting a different creature. This condition ends if a creature uses hostile actions against you or any of your allies.
Emphasis added in bold. Fascinated only limits concentrate actions, not all actions. I do not understand how you could have read this description multiple times and still gotten this wrong.
Next, here is the description for enthrall:
Your words fascinate your targets. You speak or sing without interruption throughout the casting and duration. Targets who notice your speech or song might give their undivided attention; each target must attempt a Will save. The GM might grant a circumstance bonus (to a maximum of +4) if the target is of an opposing religion, ancestry, or political leaning, or is otherwise unlikely to agree with what you're saying.
Each creature that comes within range has to attempt a save when you Sustain the spell. If you're speaking, enthrall gains the linguistic trait.
Critical Success The target is unaffected and notices that you tried to use magic.
Success The target needn't pay attention but doesn't notice you tried to use magic (it might notice others are enthralled).
Failure The target is fascinated with you. It can attempt another Will save if it witnesses actions or speech with which it disagrees. If it succeeds, it's no longer fascinated and is temporarily immune for 1 hour. If the target is subject to a hostile act, or if another creature succeeds at a Diplomacy or Intimidation check against it, the fascination ends immediately.
Critical Failure As failure, but the target can't attempt a save to end the fascination if it disagrees with you.
Emphasis added in bold and italics, just so that it sticks to mind. Once again, it baffles me how you could have gone over this spell multiple times and still gotten it wrong. Even if you'd just stopped at the flavor text midway through the main description, I still fail to see how you could have interpreted this condition as total suspension of actions, much less refused to exercise elementary common sense by asking yourself how a 3rd-rank spell could easily stop an entire crowd in their tracks mid-combat on top of its other effects (and why everyone wasn't talking about it more).
Like you wouldnt know what the effect of a success is on grim tendrils if you didnt read the description and only looked at the degrees of success. Youd know on failure the creature takes full damage but what full damage is is in the description.
Same thing for enthrall. You know they become fascinated by you in the fail description but you have to read the full description to see its actually your words and that that attention is undivided. Ofcourse the spell says might there so its very GM dependent.
You seem to be confusing "the spell description prior to the degrees of success gives important information on how the spell works", which I agree with completely, with "this spell has flavor text that, if you close both eyes and squint really hard, could be interpreted differently from the entire mechanical description, so I'm just going to ignore the mechanics described in the spell in favor of this extremely wonky interpretation of the flavor text", which I question. "Might give you their undivided attention" is not only not codified under any rules, but is itself made fairly irrelevant with "might". The only mechanic describing what this "undivided attention" might look like is the fascinated condition, which works as described above and doesn't stop combat entirely. If you do want to call for a ceasefire in the middle of combat, that's what the calm spell and Legendary Negotiation feat are for.
To be clear, this isn't to say that you can't rule enthrall and other fascinated effects differently as the GM. I personally try to add circumstance penalties to the condition so that the condition is more broadly useful, for instance. That is different, however, from claiming that the RAW condition prevents all actions and just stops enemies mid-combat from doing anything. It doesn't, and its applications are in fact a lot more limited, hence why it gets so much criticism.
I don't get the argument that it shuts down a solo boss if you Delay and play your cards right. Even if we rule that the boss slapping itself doesn't count as a hostile action (the basis being that hostile actions are those that can harm another creature), the boss can still target the fascinating creature just as easily as before. Maybe its actions are impaired, but I wouldn't call it a shutdown.
And a lot of these fascinating abilities are area effects. If they are used as such, the enemies are always going to be able to ruin the condition by just slapping each other or firing an arrow.
Worm Trill [one-action] (auditory, concentrate, enchantment, mental, primal) The frost worm emits a hypnotic trill. Each non–frost worm creature within 100 feet must attempt a DC 32 Will save. The effects of Worm Trill last for 1 round, but if the frost worm uses this ability again on subsequent rounds, it extends this duration by 1 round for any creature already affected.
Success The creature is unaffected and is immune to Worm Trill for 24 hours.
Failure The creature is fascinated by the frost worm.
Critical Failure As failure, but the fascinated condition doesn't end if the frost worm uses hostile actions against the creature.
Even if everyone in the party crit fails against this, all it takes is one hostile action from one party member to another to end the effect on everyone. The author definitely didn't know how fascinated works. But I can't name a single fascinating ability where I can confidently say the author knew how fascinated works.
Now that I think about it, if anyone succeeds the save, that party member can use Demoralize to end the fascinated condition on everyone with a single "yo mamma" joke.
A big loophole/use of fascinated comes from situations in which intended targets will not have allies (or cannot perceive them).
A Paranoia spell will put all failed savers into treating no one as allies. This is already a great effect on its own, which is the main reason why one might consider following up with a Fascinate effect. This enables one-by-one focus fire of targets. It's another plus that the party will feel psychologically compelled to go along with the focus-fire strategy and avoid hitting the paranoid-fascinated foe(s).
Despite that, the idea of comboing 2 effects/spells like that is all but unheard of in the system, so ideas that require any amount of effort to get real mileage out of fascinated is likely moot. Kind a large part of why I found Dawnsbury Days and the ability to command a party of 4 to be a rather fresh experience.
A big bugbear of fascinate is that it requires PC-PC coordination, which is... surprisingly small in pf2. Most players will each play their PC in isolation and let the rest of the party do their thing without ever talking through expected combats. I consider myself lucky I can make a quick in-character ask for the Monk to Delay so I can feed them a Combine Elixir turn 1. Most others I play with I wouldn't even consider asking.
If a caster suddenly throws down a spell that can be disrupted by this normal autopilot play... that is a big ask by itself. "Don't attack yet, just buff and move in!" as the 1/4 foes that passed the save is fighting like normal is *not* going to go over well.
.
.
A big source of edge case jank is that Fascinated does *not* end by witnessing allies in peril and dying, but only because "a creature uses hostile actions..."
Does an ongoing Wall of Fire or other per-turn damage spell end fresh fascination when allies walk into it? Does putting out a wall spell into empty terrain count as a hostile action?
Is the condition meant to be omniscient/magical, or does the fascinated target explicitly need to witness the hostile actor take the action? It's kind of hard to avoid the "unknown attacker" loophole... which means Subtle Spell and other perception blockers like Darkness can wreck havoc on a GM who wants to keep things smooth and honest.
Kinda results in a "This is fine" meme situation where allies can be screaming in pain one by one, but those fascinated inside a Darkness cannot even take Seek actions to figure out what's going on and spot the Pathfinders.
.
Another headache: try to determine what happens when multiple Fascinated sources are active at the same time.
Am I?
Your words fascinate your targets is the first line of enthrall.
Your only reading the first line of the success description.
Do you ignore what the spell says in its description and only go by whats in the degrees of success?
I find its hard to know what the spell actually is doing if you dont look at the full text.Oh, for Thoth's sake.
Let's just start with the basics, because clearly there's some confusion at hand. Here is the description for fascinated:
You're compelled to focus your attention on something, distracting you from whatever else is going on around you. You take a –2 status penalty to Perception and skill checks, and you can't use concentrate actions unless they (or their intended consequences) are related to the subject of your fascination, as determined by the GM. For instance, you might be able to Seek and Recall Knowledge about the subject, but you likely couldn't cast a spell targeting a different creature. This condition ends if a creature uses hostile actions against you or any of your allies.Emphasis added in bold. Fascinated only limits concentrate actions, not all actions. I do not understand how you could have read this description multiple times and still gotten this wrong.
Next, here is the description for enthrall:
...Your words fascinate your targets. You speak or sing without interruption throughout the casting and duration. Targets who notice your speech or song might give their undivided attention; each target must attempt a Will save. The GM might grant a circumstance bonus (to a maximum of +4) if the target is of an opposing religion, ancestry, or political leaning, or is otherwise unlikely to agree with what you're saying.
Each creature that comes within range has to attempt a save when you Sustain the spell. If you're speaking, enthrall gains the linguistic trait.
Ok i see the difference in thought here. I dont think this game has flavor text at all.
It absolutely does.
Another complication. Is fascinating creatures a hostile action? It's not damage, but could it count as harming the target with penalties and action restrictions?
It absolutely does.
Designers fought back on calling it flavor text.
Someone here probably knows where they said it.
A big bugbear of fascinate is that it requires PC-PC coordination, which is... surprisingly small in pf2. Most players will each play their PC in isolation and let the rest of the party do their thing without ever talking through expected combats. I consider myself lucky I can make a quick in-character ask for the Monk to Delay so I can feed them a Combine Elixir turn 1. Most others I play with I wouldn't even consider asking.
I am sorry you find yourself in this play experience, but it is far from ubiquitous. All the tables I have played with, even PFS ones have been able to coordinate actions around spell casting. Spell casting as a whole drops off a cliff if you cannot coordinate with your party.
And let's don't forget about Confused for the conditions that really need a rework.I agree. It was pretty sad when my player crit failed a warp mind, then got hit and ended the confusion on the first try.
We read the description and though, "Dang, you are screwed. Permanent confusion."
Then read the confused condition, conditions ends on a DC 11 flat check if hit. Just sad.
Wait, what? You can simply slap your friend out of it!?
I had a player complaining about being stuck with it for a week while the party scrambled back to far off Absalom to find someone to powerful enoughto remove the effect.
Yeah, from strict RAW, taking damage and succeeding at a DC 11 check removes Confusion. That's stupid and no one understands it (even the designers as they have released tons of "Confused for minutes/days/forever").
Fascinated is worse though. The effects using it have such a poor and inconsistent understanding of how it works that it's impossible to tell how it's supposed to work. With warp mind, we can at least guess that the flat check is meant to be overridden.
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It absolutely does.Designers fought back on calling it flavor text.
Someone here probably knows where they said it.
They disapprove of calling the flavor text 'fluff'.
Flavor Text is the dev approved term to use.
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Confusion itself is fine. The damage to end it is basically "slap them until they regain their senses". They can always add a secondary effect that overrides the save method.
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I don't get the argument that it shuts down a solo boss if you Delay and play your cards right. Even if we rule that the boss slapping itself doesn't count as a hostile action (the basis being that hostile actions are those that can harm another creature), the boss can still target the fascinating creature just as easily as before. Maybe its actions are impaired, but I wouldn't call it a shutdown.
Unlike enthrall, hypnotize has a creature become fascinated with the cloud created by the spell, not the caster.
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Most players will each play their PC in isolation and let the rest of the party do their thing without ever talking through expected combats.
"Don't tell me how to play my/their character!" is usually the response I get, and is probably why people avoid communicating tactics to one another.
I don't get the argument that it shuts down a solo boss if you Delay and play your cards right. Even if we rule that the boss slapping itself doesn't count as a hostile action (the basis being that hostile actions are those that can harm another creature), the boss can still target the fascinating creature just as easily as before. Maybe its actions are impaired, but I wouldn't call it a shutdown.Unlike enthrall, hypnotize has a creature become fascinated with the cloud created by the spell, not the caster.
Alright, good point. But hypnotize is an area effect. The devs want us to use it on multiple enemies, so for the best use of hypnotize to work best against a lone enemy is bizarre.
It absolutely does.Designers fought back on calling it flavor text.
Someone here probably knows where they said it.They disapprove of calling the flavor text 'fluff'.
Flavor Text is the dev approved term to use.
Ah right thank you Finoan.
That was the discussion. If I remember right flavor text and rules text are intentionally intertwined to give meaning and understanding of what rules actually mean. There is no meaningless text in the descriptions.
If I remember right flavor text and rules text are intentionally intertwined to give meaning and understanding of what rules actually mean. There is no meaningless text in the descriptions.
Yes. And that generally works fine. It gives both indication of RAI and a built-in guide for how to describe the action in-game.
The problem is in cases like this where the flavor text and the mechanics rules are contradictory. Which one do we use?
The description of Enthrall seems like it would end combat - at least for the targets that fail their save. Things like "Targets who notice your speech or song might give their undivided attention" and "The target is fascinated with you. It can attempt another Will save if it witnesses actions or speech with which it disagrees." make it sound like the targets who fail will waste all of their actions doing nothing other than watching the caster - effectively ignoring the combat going on around them.
But the mechanics of the Fascinated condition don't support that. A creature that has the Fascinated condition with the target being a person, can still do plenty of combat-effective things. They have no restrictions on actions against the target of their Fascination. And they can do anything they want to other characters in the area as long as the action doesn't have the Concentrate trait.
The mechanics and the flavor don't match. That is why I agree with Squiggit that it feels like whoever wrote these abilities like Enthrall and Slow Blink is using some different version or understanding of what the Fascinated condition actually does.
Alright, good point. But hypnotize is an area effect. The devs want us to use it on multiple enemies, so for the best use of hypnotize to work best against a lone enemy is bizarre.
Bizarre is certainly how I would describe the entire implementation of the fascinated condition, and unfortunately the way it works means that the more enemies you have, the less functional it becomes. You could still have your team Delay in such a way that all of the enemies’ turns take place in one uninterrupted block after yours, but all that point it just becomes very unreliable on top of super-stilted (you generally don’t want a group of enemies acting all at once before your party gets to act).
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...There is no meaningless text in the descriptions.
Uhm. Wanna bet?
Kopesh would like to have a conversation about meaningless text.
1. This curved sickle sword has a pointed tip, allowing it to be swung like a handaxe or thrust like a short sword.
Kopesh deals slashing damage. It does not have the Versatile P trait, so it cannot be "thrust like a short sword."
2. The tip of a khopesh is usually hooked so it can be used to disarm an opponent's shield or weapon.
Kopesh has the Trip trait and not the Disarm trait, so it cannot "be used to disarm an opponent's shield or weapon."
If I remember right flavor text and rules text are intentionally intertwined to give meaning and understanding of what rules actually mean. There is no meaningless text in the descriptions.Yes. And that generally works fine. It gives both indication of RAI and a built-in guide for how to describe the action in-game.
The problem is in cases like this where the flavor text and the mechanics rules are contradictory. Which one do we use?
The description of Enthrall seems like it would end combat - at least for the targets that fail their save. Things like "Targets who notice your speech or song might give their undivided attention" and "The target is fascinated with you. It can attempt another Will save if it witnesses actions or speech with which it disagrees." make it sound like the targets who fail will waste all of their actions doing nothing other than watching the caster - effectively ignoring the combat going on around them.
But the mechanics of the Fascinated condition don't support that. A creature that has the Fascinated condition with the target being a person, can still do plenty of combat-effective things. They have no restrictions on actions against the target of their Fascination. And they can do anything they want to other characters in the area as long as the action doesn't have the Concentrate trait.
The mechanics and the flavor don't match. That is why I agree with Squiggit that it feels like whoever wrote these abilities like Enthrall and Slow Blink is using some different version or understanding of what the Fascinated condition actually does.
I take from it this.
The up to +4 bonus and the myriad ways it can instantly end are a strong balance to the powerful effect it can have in stopping creatures in their tracks as they focus only on your words.Something as simple as noticing on of the casters allies attempt to circle around for a flank is enough to shut the effect down. The -2 perception helps stealth attempts to do this though and so theres a good balance there.
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Bizarre is certainly how I would describe the entire implementation of the fascinated condition, and unfortunately the way it works means that the more enemies you have, the less functional it becomes.
Which is bad news for any enemy relying on fascinated, since they'll usually be facing parties of 3 or more.
...There is no meaningless text in the descriptions.Uhm. Wanna bet?
Kopesh would like to have a conversation about meaningless text.
Traits: Uncommon and Trip
Damage: 1d8 S
Description: "This curved sickle sword has a pointed tip, allowing it to be swung like a handaxe or thrust like a short sword. The tip of a khopesh is usually hooked so it can be used to disarm an opponent's shield or weapon." 1. This curved sickle sword has a pointed tip, allowing it to be swung like a handaxe or thrust like a short sword.
Kopesh deals slashing damage. It does not have the Versatile P trait, so it cannot be "thrust like a short sword."
2. The tip of a khopesh is usually hooked so it can be used to disarm an opponent's shield or weapon.
Kopesh has the Trip trait and not the Disarm trait, so it cannot "be used to disarm an opponent's shield or weapon."
Thats a great example of lack of same pageness between the mechanics and the description.
And your right that we wouldnt use the description there to allow the Kopesh to do piercing damage or disarmStill will enforce enthrall though as enemies focusing on the caster's words.
Am I being inconsistent, sure and for good reason, I do recognize a difference in the examples. Spells often dont give all of what they do in the degrees of success, they do have text in the description that absolutely define the outcomes of the spell. Sometimes even the damage is only found in the description. There is a lot less of a consistent reliance on the degrees of success to say what the spell actually does. Weapons are fully hardcoded into traits damage dice ect..
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You know I really appreciate discussions like this.
I didn't come in with an idea of what I would do with fascinate effects. It was pretty nebulous and I hadn't read to much on them, none of my players showed interest in using them.
But I do have an encounter with creatures that have spells that do this already set and was probably going to ignore the spell in favor of others they can cast. Now I have a better idea of what they can do with them and I can make some cool moments for my players with it being used on them.