Stunning Fist & the Delay action

A few sessions ago I was running my monk in a fight verses the BBEG of the week in my buddy's campaign. I made a stunning attack verses the BBEG and nailed him, and he failed his save. When the BBEG's action came up in the initiative order, the DM said "Well, he's stunned, so he'll simply delay until he's no longer stunned."

Huh? we said in unison. That's not the way it works. Stunned is stunned, meaning you can't do anything until just before the monk's next action.

Ah, but he's not doing anything, countered our DM, he's delaying.

He can't choose to delay, we said, he's stunned.

Show me in the rules where it says you can't do this, said our DM.

We couldn't find any text to support our opinion. Strictly speaking, delaying is not an action. However, we argued that choosing to delay is impossible while stunned. The point of the feat, we continued, is that the stunned foe loses a round's worth of actions. Otherwise the feat is pretty much useless. He relented then, since nobody agreed with him, on the condition that I post the problem here for discussion.

MY POSITION: Choosing to delay, while not an action, requires critical thought that a stunned character lacks. You can't choose to delay while stunned, then insert just before the monk's next action. It's counter-intuitive to the purpose of Stunning Fist.

THE DM'S POSITION: I think you can. As written, there is nothing in the rules that say you can't delay while stunned.

What's your opinion?

Well, when you are stunned you have no action since you can't act, so there is nothing to delay.

Also, the chapter detailing delay reads...

SPECIAL INITIATIVE ACTIONS

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That's got to mean something, I guess.

Bye
Thanee

I'm with Thanee on this; being stunned means you don't get to take any actions, and that definitely includes delaying an action and refocusing your initiative.

If your GM is peeved about that, feel free to gently remind him that this cuts both ways, and the next time he stuns a PC, no one's going to have any right to complain that they weren't allowed to take the cheese-weasel route of saying "I delay until I'm not stunned" to get around it.

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this is why no one wants to be stunned
ryan

A friend of mine loves playing monks. We have not allowed stunned creatures to delay. They must wait until their next initiative turn.

But 3.5 changed the way delay works, in this way. Under 3.0 you cannot delay into the next round, but in 3.5 you can delay into the next round. But you still cannot interupt someone's action. So if the stunned opponent can delay into the next round until he is no longer stunned, he still cannot interupt the monk's action. He must delay until the next free "initiative count." Further, this new initiative count is his new initiative. He cannot go again that round on his old initiative count. He still has effectively lost a round because he had to delay until after the monk attacked again. And if the monk stuns him again, he has to delay again.

Anyone else have an opinion on this?

Come on. Your DM knows this is cheese. The whole point of stun is that it causes the target to lose a round's worth of actions.

Would you let someone delay for 5 rounds worth of color spray stunning?

First off, is this a 3.0 game?

If so, that tactic obviously won't work. Delay can only set you to a negative initiative count on the current turn, he's stunned till you next turn.

If it's 3.5, I'm not too familiar with the new delay action and the circular initiative.

However, how does this 'dm' usually call initiative? if it's something like: "It's your turn, what are you doing?" then if you're stunned, you can't do anything, you're skipped until the next turn, because, when you're stunned, you can't even think about what you're doing. Even defending is possible only because you're reacting.

To delay in the situation, means you have enough clear thinking faculties to say to yourself "Self, the situation looks pretty meager for me at the moment.. Perhaps later it'll be better", and then delay your action. When you're stunned, that just doesn't happen. Such isn't implied by the rules or by the stunned condition.

Bottom line, the DM is a weenie, and is playing like one. Contrary to the what Rule 0 states, the DM is not always right.

MichaelH said:

A friend of mine loves playing monks. We have not allowed stunned creatures to delay. They must wait until their next initiative turn.

But 3.5 changed the way delay works, in this way. Under 3.0 you cannot delay into the next round, but in 3.5 you can delay into the next round. But you still cannot interupt someone's action. So if the stunned opponent can delay into the next round until he is no longer stunned, he still cannot interupt the monk's action. He must delay until the next free "initiative count." Further, this new initiative count is his new initiative. He cannot go again that round on his old initiative count. He still has effectively lost a round because he had to delay until after the monk attacked again. And if the monk stuns him again, he has to delay again.

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That's a very good point about not being able to interrupt someone's action.

Let him delay, but just have the Monk stun him again until he gets the point.

Thanee said:

That's got to mean something, I guess.

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In the combat chapter, Delay is said to be "not an action". However it doesn't make much sense that also a 5ft-step is under "not an action" in the SRD table :\

I think the intended point of being stunned is that the character can not do anything for a round (attack, cast, move) including mental actions. However what comes out from the RAW is not that simple... I am not 100% sure for example if you can make AoO (if you can make unarmed AoO).

The condition of being stunned starts when the opponent stuns you and end at her next turn (if duration is 1 round). Again I think the intention is to make it work so that it exactly make the target idle for 1 round of initiative, after which she is no longer stunned but has to wait her own initiative before doing anything else (that is, no delay is possible).

However, even your DM's ruling makes sense, that when the target is no longer stunned she could immediately react and act at that new initiative (more or less equivalent to say that she delayed the whole time). I don't think this ruling makes a problem.

So, uhh, could a monk delay permanently after striking with his stunning fist (using some bonus partial action or suchlike) in order to prevent the stunee ever getting another action. Seems like the same level of cheesiness in my books.

From the SRD:
A defender who fails this saving throw is stunned for 1 round (until just before your next action).