I'm preparing to run a PFS scenario that includes harpies, and I'm told I have to use the legacy harpy stat block, which has this ability.
[one-action] (auditory, concentrate, enchantment, incapacitation, mental, primal) The harpy cries out an eerie, compelling melody. Each non-harpy creature within a 300-foot aura must attempt a DC 21 Will save to avoid becoming captivated by the harpy’s song. The effect lasts for 1 round, but if the harpy uses this ability again on subsequent rounds, it extends the duration by 1 round for all affected creatures. Once a creature succeeds at any save against Captivating Song, that creature is temporarily immune to Captivating Songs for 24 hours.
Success The creature is unaffected.
Failure The creature is fascinated, and it must spend each of its actions to move closer to the harpy as expediently as possible, while avoiding obvious dangers. If a captivated creature is adjacent to the harpy, it stays still and doesn’t act. If attacked by the harpy, the creature is freed from captivation at the end of the harpy’s turn.
Critical Failure As failure, but if attacked by the harpy, the creature can attempt a new save at the start of its next turn, rather than being freed at the end of the harpy’s turn.
Since the effect lasts for 1 round, it ends at the start of the harpy's next turn, so there is no effect to extend. I guess I can treat this as an exception and let the expired effect be extended anyway?
But more importantly, when the harpy does extend the effect, are the affected creatures still able to attempt a saving throw to become unaffected and get temporary immunity?
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Since the effect lasts for 1 round, it ends at the start of the harpy's next turn, so there is no effect to extend. I guess I can treat this as an exception and let the expired effect be extended anyway?
It's clear that this is the intention of the ability.
But more importantly, when the harpy does extend the effect, are the affected creatures still able to attempt a saving throw to become unaffected and get temporary immunity?
No. If the effect is extending the duration so it doesn't ended so no additional checks are required unless explicitly stated that it needs.
Basically it is a old way to write a Sustained effect in legacy when the Sustain was exclusive to spells. Remaster rewritten the Sustain a Spell to just Sustain to allow it to be used in such cases.
Oh yikes. So anyone who fails the save is out of the fight until the singing harpy attacks them or goes one turn without singing?
Yes but not anyone only if everyone fails what's very unlikely. Only If everyone fails they will move up to the where the harpy wants (as long they move to its direction) so the effect only end when the harpy uses another hostile action (usually an attack). That said fascinated condition is so easily to be removed that you just need that only one ally to success its save because even a small try use any hostile action could end it, you don't even needs to hit or cause damage to an ally just the mere usage of an action considered hostile by the creature is enough, so a simple shove can be used, many GMs houserules to just allows to Slap or Thrown a small object like a rock, shouting a curse, make an offensive gesture to the ally with a an action adding the corresponding trait to the hostile action that you are making to remove a fascinated condition (like attack for Slap or Thrown a rock, auditory and concentration to curse it or manipulate and visual to make an offensive gesture to not need to deal with a success effect with damage of an unarmed/ranged attack or consequences of an skill action).
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Oh yikes. So anyone who fails the save is out of the fight until the singing harpy attacks them or goes one turn without singing?
What YuriP said, but yes, yikes in certain situations...which notoriously do occur, or are even set up to occur by writers. If a large number of PCs fail, that's a major setback to start the battle, and hopefully the players/PCs know to snap their buddies out of it. Worse is if the writer gives the harpies terrain advantage so that you might have PCs splitting up, entering dangerous areas, or whatever devious trap involves moving a PC on the ground toward a flying enemy. Worst is if the harpies also have ranged or even reach attacks, maybe even special resources to exploit a split party.
One notorious PFS1 scenario had a flock of harpy archers. They had modest, perhaps weak, builds for their CR, nothing exploitive. Their leader was a bard who pumped out buffs, and carried a Wall of Stone scroll to seal PCs off. Again, a modest build, but the cumulative effect was devastating, especially with focused fire on those not trapped by the wall, and safe places to perch so they didn't have to spend time flying. Frontline PCs couldn't protect the fragile casters that the harpies recognized as the main threat given AoEs & ranged damage. Whoever took focused fire had to hide while others burnt through potions trying to fly. (Full disclosure, I feel partly at fault since I DMed the writer in his formative years as a player. By "at fault" I also mean "proud". Tee hee.)
So look for exacerbating factors because a generic harpy encounter seems unlikely. Writers will often spice it up. Luckily, a save gives immunity to all the harpies, though with multiple harpies this encourages adding more tricks to make up for it.
Yes but not anyone only if everyone fails what's very unlikely. Only If everyone fails they will move up to the where the harpy wants (as long they move to its direction) so the effect only end when the harpy uses another hostile action (usually an attack). That said fascinated condition is so easily to be removed that you just need that only one ally to success its save because even a small try use any hostile action could end it, you don't even needs to hit or cause damage to an ally just the mere usage of an action considered hostile by the creature is enough, so a simple shove can be used, many GMs houserules to just allows to Slap or Thrown a small object like a rock, shouting a curse, make an offensive gesture to the ally with a an action adding the corresponding trait to the hostile action that you are making to remove a fascinated condition (like attack for Slap or Thrown a rock, auditory and concentration to curse it or manipulate and visual to make an offensive gesture to not need to deal with a success effect with damage of an unarmed/ranged attack or consequences of an skill action).
Hold up. Your saying that the captivation ends if the fascinated condition ends, but the way it's written, the fascinated condition is separate from being captivated.
Failure The creature is fascinated, and it must spend each of its actions to move closer to the harpy as expediently as possible, while avoiding obvious dangers.
It doesn't say "The creature is fascinated. While fascinated, it must spend..." Besides, if the target was only intended to be captivated while fascinated, why add these conditions to end being captivated?
Failure ... If a captivated creature is adjacent to the harpy, it stays still and doesn’t act. If attacked by the harpy, the creature is freed from captivation at the end of the harpy’s turn.
Critical Failure As failure, but if attacked by the harpy, the creature can attempt a new save at the start of its next turn, rather than being freed at the end of the harpy’s turn.
These would be pointless if any hostile action against an affected PC or any of their allies ended captivation for all of them.
Hmm. Interesting point, but what exactly is the condition of somebody not Fascinated, but is captivated? Can they shout for help while their feet keep shuffling toward doom? Could they use a Reaction to grab a pole?
Seems the two conditions are intrinsically linked despite the loose wording, and I'm having a hard time imagining what the just-captivated version represents.
Yes but not anyone only if everyone fails what's very unlikely. Only If everyone fails they will move up to the where the harpy wants (as long they move to its direction) so the effect only end when the harpy uses another hostile action (usually an attack). That said fascinated condition is so easily to be removed that you just need that only one ally to success its save because even a small try use any hostile action could end it, you don't even needs to hit or cause damage to an ally just the mere usage of an action considered hostile by the creature is enough, so a simple shove can be used, many GMs houserules to just allows to Slap or Thrown a small object like a rock, shouting a curse, make an offensive gesture to the ally with a an action adding the corresponding trait to the hostile action that you are making to remove a fascinated condition (like attack for Slap or Thrown a rock, auditory and concentration to curse it or manipulate and visual to make an offensive gesture to not need to deal with a success effect with damage of an unarmed/ranged attack or consequences of an skill action).Hold up. Your saying that the captivation ends if the fascinated condition ends, but the way it's written, the fascinated condition is separate from being captivated.
Failure The creature is fascinated, and it must spend each of its actions to move closer to the harpy as expediently as possible, while avoiding obvious dangers.It doesn't say "The creature is fascinated. While fascinated, it must spend..." Besides, if the target was only intended to be captivated while fascinated, why add these conditions to end being captivated?
...Failure ... If a captivated creature is adjacent to the harpy, it stays still and doesn’t act. If attacked by the harpy, the creature is freed from captivation at the end of the harpy’s turn.
Critical Failure As failure, but if attacked by the harpy, the creature can attempt a new save at the start
Good point yet it's strange that the fascinated condition could be broken but the other effects still running. Probably is poorly written and now that we get a remaster this will no more have a chance of an official answer once that remastered harpy lost this ability. Now they no more sing they pull the target in a forced movement using winds.
Hmm. Interesting point, but what exactly is the condition of somebody not Fascinated, but is captivated? Can they shout for help while their feet keep shuffling toward doom? Could they use a Reaction to grab a pole?
Seems the two conditions are intrinsically linked despite the loose wording, and I'm having a hard time imagining what the just-captivated version represents.
Maybe this will help, then.
They use captivating songs to lure creatures in, then murder them while they stand transfixed. They enjoy causing confusion and fear in their prey before they strike, believing it creates a savory flavor in the flesh.
So killing the victim while they are transfixed and letting them remain somewhat aware of what's happening seems to be the whole point.
Good point yet it's strange that the fascinated condition could be broken but the other effects still running. Probably is poorly written and now that we get a remaster this will no more have a chance of an official answer once that remastered harpy lost this ability. Now they no more sing they pull the target in a forced movement using winds.
I would love nothing more than to use the remastered stat block and not bother with Captivating Song. The singing doesn't even have anything to do with the scenario. But in PFS, we are apparently not allowed to deviate from the monsters' written mechanics, not even to use the remaster stat blocks.
The same encounter uses variant harpies created from the legacy stat block, and I was planning to use the remaster stat block.
I was asking whether I should run the variant stat blocks as written (with Captivating Song) or make the same variations to the remaster stat blocks instead. Everyone told me I was prohibited from altering the monster's mechanics, so I shouldn't be using the remastered harpy at all unless the scenario actually demands the remastered harpy.
But this topic isn't really relevant to this thread, so I'll open a new one here.
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If they were generic from the book, then you'd use the newest book. But they were created for the scenario, so you have to use those stats. It's a different creature despite the same base, as in they are no longer "Harpy", and there's more to the new harpy than swapping out their song for wind blasts. Unless we're also talking about generic changes, like the weak/elite template.
And if it had been book harpies, I'd verify their new versions can adopt the tactics recommended and don't gain some unforeseen (dis-)advantage. For example with harpies, luring & pushing w/ wind open up different possibilities that may impact the danger level. Or there might be a story element where PCs get advice to put wax in their ears (so as to ease a difficult battle), and it turns into misleading advice that makes it harder (and might cause enmity with the advice giver!).
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Old-style harpies always had me suspicious if all the people involved in writing them were on the same page about the rules involved.
An effect that's broken as easily as Fascinate doesn't make sense to also grant immunity to it for the rest of the fight.
But the other reading flips over all the way in the other direction - if you have a fight with two harpies, one of them could captivate PCs and they wouldn't be able to snap out of them if the other harpy attacked them. That's too rough to be true (in a normally quite carefully balanced game like PF2).
I suspect we're not gonna get an official rules answer now on "how to fix stuff we removed from the game". If anything, the mechanic being removed is the answer.
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For PFS, it's a bit tricky. There's some guidance that when for example you run into a fiend with evil damage, you could replace that with unholy spirit damage, and swap out evil and unholy traits/weaknesses. However, most fiends in the Monster Core don't actually do separate spirit damage anymore.
PFS doesn't have the editorial budget to go back and revise dozens of scenarios. And it also wants to keep experiences of existing scenarios fairly consistent - someone playing a scenario now shouldn't experience a radically different scenario than someone playing it three years ago.
As a GM you kinda have to make do with the situation. Sometimes that means doing some remaster adaptation on monsters, and sometimes not so much. It's really hard to write a simple rule that gives perfect results for every scenario ever made. You have to rely a bit on GM good sense for this. And of course as a GM you can always ask your local VO for advice on how to handle specific cases.
Ironically, fascinating the harpy might be an effective counter to Captivating Song. It's a concentrate action.
Organized Play Coordinator has clarified in the Remaster Clarification Thread that GMs are strongly encouraged to use the stat blocks in the adventure rather than the remastered ones.
Hold up. I just learned that Howl of the Wild added a new monster called the crying cicada, which has this effect:
Sob [one-action] (auditory, emotion, mental) The crying cicada mimics the noise of a wounded animal or crying child. Non-cicada creatures within a 150-foot emanation must attempt a DC 19 Will save or be distressed by the pleas for help. The effect lasts for 1 round, but if the cicada uses this ability again on subsequent rounds, it extends the duration by 1 round for all affected creatures. Once a creature succeeds at any save against Sob, that creature is temporarily immune to Sob for 24 hours.
Success The creature is unaffected.
Failure The creature believes an animal or child needs help somewhere nearby. The creature is fascinated, and it must spend each of its actions to Seek or move closer to the cicada as expediently as possible, while avoiding obvious dangers. If the creature is adjacent to the cicada, it stays still and doesn't act.
It's better than Captivating Song in just about every way. There's no incapacitation trait, and there's no clause for ending it with hostility.
And the wording for extending the duration is identical. This was written after the remaster, so it doesn't make sense for this to be "Sustain but for nonspells". Are we sure the extending just automatically works?
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Yeah I ran into them while running a PFS scenario. It gave me the vibe of the sort of monster you sometimes find in an AP, that hasn't had quite the same amount of rigorous QA that a core monster has.
I wonder if it's a case of an author being stuck in 1E thinking, where breaking the fascinate would break all of the effect? There were a lot of those "fascinate completely steals your turn, but it's easy for someone else to spend an action to bring you back into the game" effects in 1E. It became almost like an IQ test for gamers. Do you attack the monster, or do you spend an action bringing your teammate back into the game?
Yeah I ran into them while running a PFS scenario. It gave me the vibe of the sort of monster you sometimes find in an AP, that hasn't had quite the same amount of rigorous QA that a core monster has.
I wonder if it's a case of an author being stuck in 1E thinking, where breaking the fascinate would break all of the effect? There were a lot of those "fascinate completely steals your turn, but it's easy for someone else to spend an action to bring you back into the game" effects in 1E. It became almost like an IQ test for gamers. Do you attack the monster, or do you spend an action bringing your teammate back into the game?
There are effects like that in PF2e. They say "for as long as you are fascinated" or "while fascinated." Maybe the cicada author forgot to include that phrasing.
On second thought, it looks like there are plenty of "fascinated and" effects that only make sense if everything after "and" is tied to the fascination.
Perhaps this means rather than the harpy having a hostility clause to end the effect early, it actually has a hostility clause to postpone the effect ending. So if the harpy captivates all party members then attacks one, the target is freed at the end of the harpy's turn, but the target's allies are freed immediately?