Fun with Stun

[Will Doyle]

For some reason I recently set myself the challenge of designing a fun encounter that made heavy use of the stun condition. This is what I came up with.

In brief, the PCs come across a grimlock champion who wields a sentient artifact. This magic shield is displeased with its owner, but it's too proud to fail him entirely. So it decides to test the PCs - instead of just stunning them with its magic, it sends their minds back through time to experience one of its previous battles. If they can beat it in the past, they'll earn a combat bonus in the present.

So, whilst their characters are stunned, the PCs take turns as normal using quick, one-shot characters on a separate battle map.

I think it turned out pretty well, so you never know - maybe you can find some use for it in your own games?

I also wrote some stuff on my blog about a similar thing I did in 3E.

 

[Mentat55]

This is a ten-kinds-of-awesome idea.

I wonder if similar things could be done with a monster that dominates a lot, where you have the PCs fighting a battle within their own minds, and having successes can mitigate some of the effects of dominate or otherwise influence the whole battle. This could be a cool idea for battling some powerful psionic foe, like a mind flayer elder brain.

 

[Will Doyle]

This is a ten-kinds-of-awesome idea.

I wonder if similar things could be done with a monster that dominates a lot, where you have the PCs fighting a battle within their own minds, and having successes can mitigate some of the effects of dominate or otherwise influence the whole battle. This could be a cool idea for battling some powerful psionic foe, like a mind flayer elder brain.

That's definitely one for an elder brain!

I recently ran a single-player skill challenge for a psionic battle, staged in our battlemind's mind. It was pretty cool, in that she could come up with stuff like "Can I use Endurance to blow all the sand in this desert into a massive sandstorm?".

Now you say it, that could have worked really well as a skill challenge played by dominated enemies.

 

[Stalker0]

Seems like a very cool idea.

I don't know what the items stunning power is....but will it be stunning them enough to actually carry out another battle?

 

[Will Doyle]

Seems like a very cool idea.

I don't know what the items stunning power is....but will it be stunning them enough to actually carry out another battle?

His powers only stun for a round, but he's got more than one of them (including one that's an at-will, immediate interrupt blast). When I played it with my group there was always at least one PC stunned per round, usually more as his attacks are mostly blasts and bursts (he's modelled on the MM1 Dracolich).

PCs are guaranteed to have at least one action on the battlefield of the mind, sometimes more (as I gave their ancient warriors a spread of immediate reaction/interrupt powers).