Harpy's Captivating Song

[bertman4]

I'm running my players through a module last night. They are on a recovery mission and the final monster they fight is a Harpy. The Harpy is a CR4 creature. My players are a Wizard 3, Cleric 3, Fighter 2, Ranger 3, and Monte Bard 2. They were built with 32 point buy so have pretty good primary stats. Here's my problem. They knew something was up but when the singing started, all of them failed their Will save against the Harpy's Captivating Song. It's something like 1 in 2000 chance that all of them would blow the saving throw. So I go back and carefully read what Captivating Song does. If I'm reading the description correctly, they are completely screwed. The party members get no further saving throws, and one by one they will be bludgeoned to death by the Harpy when they get within 5 ft of her. Am I reading the rules right or is there something else I'm missing that would allow them to break free of the song? Help me please, or it's a TPK!

Bertman

 

[Senior Bobo]

I'm running my players through a module last night. They are on a recovery mission and the final monster they fight is a Harpy. The Harpy is a CR4 creature. My players are a Wizard 3, Cleric 3, Fighter 2, Ranger 3, and Monte Bard 2. They were built with 32 point buy so have pretty good primary stats. Here's my problem. They knew something was up but when the singing started, all of them failed their Will save against the Harpy's Captivating Song. It's something like 1 in 2000 chance that all of them would blow the saving throw. So I go back and carefully read what Captivating Song does. If I'm reading the description correctly, they are completely screwed. The party members get no further saving throws, and one by one they will be bludgeoned to death by the Harpy when they get within 5 ft of her. Am I reading the rules right or is there something else I'm missing that would allow them to break free of the song? Help me please, or it's a TPK!

Bertman

I've come close to having this happen (all pc's failed but one) and I thought of a couple ways you can be merciful that are somewhat along the rules.

1) The harpy can really practically only spend so much time singing. While singing I usually only let a harpy take 1 attack a round. With a club at +7 to hit, there's no guarentee the harpy will hit the pc's every time (especially the cleric or warrior who may be in heavy armor) and the pc's get no penalties to their defense according to the rules. Plus considering she only does 1d6 with her club it's very possible it could take her 10, 15, even 20 rounds to kill the pc's all the while exerting herself trying to bash them to death. After every 10 rounds you could have her make some sort of exertion roll (Fort Save DC 10 maybe) and if she fails everyone still alive gets a new save.

2) The exact wording of captivating song mentions "If the path (to the harpy) leads into a dangerous area..that creature gets a second saving throw". That implies to me that the PC's are still at least somewhat aware of dangers around them. Personally, I'd rule that walking towards a slavering, club wielding beast who just killed one of your commrades constitues "A dangerous area". So everytime she kills another pc (or knocks them unconciuos) I'd allow everyone else a second save. That's small comfort to the pc who's unconcious or dead but if I were looking for rationale to avoid a tpk I'd go with it.

Hope that helps.

 

[bertman4]

1) The harpy can really practically only spend so much time singing. While singing I usually only let a harpy take 1 attack a round. With a club at +7 to hit, there's no guarentee the harpy will hit the pc's every time (especially the cleric or warrior who may be in heavy armor) and the pc's get no penalties to their defense according to the rules. Plus considering she only does 1d6 with her club it's very possible it could take her 10, 15, even 20 rounds to kill the pc's all the while exerting herself trying to bash them to death. After every 10 rounds you could have her make some sort of exertion roll (Fort Save DC 10 maybe) and if she fails everyone still alive gets a new save.

Actually, this is a good suggestion. After all, the Bard can only countersong for 10 rounds. I'll give it a try. Thanks!

Bertman

 

[bertman4]

With a club at +7 to hit, there's no guarentee the harpy will hit the pc's every time (especially the cleric or warrior who may be in heavy armor) and the pc's get no penalties to their defense according to the rules.

Wait. Actually, I think they are defenseless when within 5 feet of the harpy. The MM says "A victim within 5 feet of the harpy stands there and offers no resistance to the monster's attacks." Does that mean they are "helpless"? That would mean effective Dex of 0 (-5 to AC). Oh wait. I think it's worse than that. If they are helpless, then the harpy can try a coup de grace? This is uglier than I thought.

Bertman

 

[The Spectrum Rider]

Instead of messing about with the harpy's abilities (deciding that the harpy attacking represents a "dangerous area" seems to me to go against the obvious intent of the ability, and restricting it to 10 rounds seems pretty arbitrary), I'd deal with this through a story element.

Suppose a lillend, lammasu, or powerful dragon happened by - or, in fact, was watching, for reasons of its own - and did something to break the harpy's spell? After the battle, the party (assuming they survived) would owe the creature a rather big favor - which may be what it had in mind. This could become a whole new story hook, and might obligate the characters to something they're not comfortable with.

You don't want to do this kind of deus ex machina rescue too often, but now and again - especially if the recuer has an interesting motive - it can work out.

The Spectrum Rider

 

[Senior Bobo]

Wait. Actually, I think they are defenseless when within 5 feet of the harpy. The MM says "A victim within 5 feet of the harpy stands there and offers no resistance to the monster's attacks." Does that mean they are "helpless"? That would mean effective Dex of 0 (-5 to AC). Oh wait. I think it's worse than that. If they are helpless, then the harpy can try a coup de grace? This is uglier than I thought.

Bertman

The full quote from the SRD

Captivated creatures can take no actions other than to defend themselves. (Thus, a fighter cannot run away or attack but takes no defensive penalties.) A victim within 5 feet of the harpy stands there and offers no resistance to the monster’s attacks

So it does say they offer no resistance to the harpies attacks, but also that they take no penalties and that they can defend themselves.

I take 'no resistance' to mean that the victim doesn't try to take cover behind his tower shield, cast protective spells, activate a magic item to whisk them away, call for help etc. I suppose you can rule this to mean that a captivated creature is helpless in regards to the harpy, but defends itself againts anyone else who might attack it, but that does turn this effect into a pretty simple 'save or die' ability if you let her coup de grace her victims.

Considering the reduction in power to hold person to reduce it's 'save or die' potential duration (which is the type of spell a CR4 party would have at the time they are fighting harpies) and that the song has such a wide AoE I'd say if it rendered targets completely helpless it would be way too powerful for it's CR.

So if you say they're helpess I'd agree with the previous poster and send in the plot device.

Actually, now that I think of it. Can you perform a full round action (a cdg in this case) and continue to sing? I know the effect lasts for one round after the song stops, so she could cdg one PC, but the others would be free after that.

 

[Aeolius]

Perhaps the harpy isn't going to bludgeon them. Perhaps she is interested in a mate.

 

[MadScientist]

My ruling would probably be that captivated characters are not helpless and therefore cannot be CDGed nor would they get a dex penalty as SB said. I would also allow everyone a new save everytime a character gets knocked unconcious.