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Old 09-03-2016, 03:26 PM   #1
Bicorn
 
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Default Captivate skill's duration

Enthrallment:Captivate says the effect lasts until either the subject or the user "becomes unconscious or falls asleep".
However, by default Enthrallment is not any sort of supernatural ability (the original sourcebook it appeared in, Bunnies & Burrows, suggested it's hypnotic in nature) so it shouldn't be able to mysteriously know if the user falls asleep on the other side of the world. So should this be taken to imply the user needs to be present for the captivation to continue?
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Old 09-03-2016, 04:29 PM   #2
starslayer
 
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Default Re: Captivate skill's duration

I have two, related, answers for you:

1.
Captivate is part of the bardic enthrallment set.

It only works (at all) while you are telling a story- once you stop talking the effect ends.

2.
Just because an effect ends does not mean that the user of that effect KNOWS that it ends. Even with a supernatural power like mind control- if Aera the dark elf psi uses mind control on a guard and says 'go inside the building and kill your boss' he will happily head into the building and attempt to kill his boss, but outside of things she can hear she won't get any special feedback to know if her enthralled guard is still under her sway, knocked out, or something else.
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Old 09-03-2016, 04:56 PM   #3
Bicorn
 
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Default Re: Captivate skill's duration

That first point is actually another thing I was wondering about. The description of Enthrallment is kind of ambiguous about whether you have to continue telling the story to keep the effect going. On one hand it would make sense; on another the wording of some parts of the skills' description kind of implies it'd continue after the story itself ends. E.g. Suggest - duration is given as "10 minutes, or longer if you continue to talk to the audience" - the latter would seem to imply that it will continue for the base 10 minutes even if you stop talking.

As for the second point, that wasn't what I meant. If the effect ends when the user (not the target) falls asleep, it implies there's some kind of ongoing connection between the user and target (similarly to a maintained spell) and that simply doesn't make any sense if Enthrallment isn't a magical or psionic ability.

Last edited by Bicorn; 09-03-2016 at 07:20 PM.
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