Bardic music question

[hoverfrog]

A bard uses bardic music to fascinate a person. They fail their save and stand there like an idiot drooling and swaying along.

Meanwhile the bard's pals are surrounding the poor fool. He gets another save but fails it too. Things aren't looking good for our music lover.

Under Fascinated (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#fascinated) any obvious hostile action like drawing a weapon automatically breaks the effect but what happens if they just grapple him? Does he get an attack of opportunity against the first attacker to shrug off the grapple? At what point is the fascination broken? When the bard's pals are 5 feet away? When they're 10 feet away?

Now instead of the person being fascinated change it to a wild animal, a giant rat. The situation is the same but the grapple is an effort to grab the animal and shove it in a cage. I ruled that the attempt to pick it up broke the fascinate effect and allowed it to make an attack of opportunity against its attacker.

Is this favouring the rat too much? How would you have ruled this situation and why?

[Barsoom]

Now instead of the person being fascinated change it to a wild animal, a giant rat. The situation is the same but the grapple is an effort to grab the animal and shove it in a cage. I ruled that the attempt to pick it up broke the fascinate effect and allowed it to make an attack of opportunity against its attacker.Seems fair to me. If attempting to grab the rat doesn't count as an "obvious threat", then I don't know what does.

[prufock]

Under Fascinated (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#fascinated) any obvious hostile action like drawing a weapon automatically breaks the effect but what happens if they just grapple him?

Grappling requires an attack, so grappling is a hostile action. Attacks of Opportunity interrupt the order of events, so the defender should get one.

[RogueDM]

I agree, grabbing the rat (from the rat's perspective) is a life threatening and obviously hostile act. Especially as it does not want to be touched, held, caged, or eaten.

As for people, so long as they don't have their weapons drawn and aren't charging or doing anything else that would alarm me if we were all just walking down the street I wouldn't break the effect. Example: Someone approaches me on the street with a knife drawn I'm going to be alerted. However, a dozen people may pass within five feet of me without me batting an eye.

The grapple, however, I would definitely take as hostile unless I know the person very well and routinely rough-house with them... or other activities that would require grappling in a non-hostile fashion. Beyond that, if a stranger made to grab me I would be alarmed and perceive the action as hostile.

[kulosle]

I would make the rate flat footed if the grappler was coming from behind the target. The action is what breaks the spell, and if he's busy paying attention to the music then he isn't really looking behind him.

[Barsoom]

"coming from behind the target" actually has no effect in the D&D rules, unless optional facing rules are used. If the would-be-attacker attempts to approach hidden, the rat still gets a Spot check, albeit at -4.