D&D General Stun: The Fun-Killer

[Fanaelialae]

Something I've considered (but never actually implemented) was adding a mechanic to allow creatures to "power through" and ignore the effects of conditions on their turn.

I was thinking along the lines of expending 25% of the creature's max HP to ignore all status effects on their turn. I expect the high cost would likely prevent it from being used in most circumstances, except the worst conditions like paralyzed and stun. Even if a monster still gets to act, a monk would likely still feel good about it given that it cost the creature a quarter of it's HP to do so.

 

[Staffan]

A thing to consider: is the problem really the stun mechanic itself, or is it that the mind flayer stuns you for up to ten freaking rounds? And is that a problem with stun in particular, or other crowd control mechanics as well (e.g. sleep, fear, hypnotic pattern, hold person)?

 

[DEFCON 1]

One other way to do it would be that you can Move take an Action (but not both), and if you use an Action it cannot be to Attack or Cast A Spell against an enemy creature. So you can use your Action to heal yourself, aid a friend, cast a buff spell etc., but you just can't do anything against your enemies.

After all... the real purpose in the Stun effect existing (in my opinion) is to stop a PC from acting in Combat for one or more rounds. Normally the way the game accomplishes that is you just lose your turn completely. But if the purpose of the change to Stun is to not make a player have sit out... then let them act, but just not in the way the game used Stun to accomplish it-- no attacking the enemies.

 

[MarkB]

Stun should still make you lose concentration, and it should be made clearer that it does so. Currently, the fact that being incapacitated drops concentration isn't shown in the Incapacitated condition, only in the description of concentration.

 

[ezo]

I've never had any issue with Stun, personally, and I don't equate the "losing your turn" means you don't get to have fun. IME, when a PC gets stunned, it creates tension and the other PCs need to step up to protect the stunend PC if possible.

But, since I love house-rules, I hope any insights might help.

Over all, I think it is pretty solid. A little rewording to clarify losing concentration, maybe, and separate the third line into multiple lines so it doesn't run on as much.

Another consideration: should creatures only be able to move OR action/bonus action? Is that too debilitating? It seems that anything is an improvement over the current "nothing."

No, I think it is fine. Half speed, disadvantage on ability checks, attacks, and certain saves is almost like given three temporary levels of exhaustion--fairly impactful.

Finally, I know others have commented "don't impose this on PC features like monks", but IMO any house-rule that can affect one side, has to affect the others. Monk's stunning is too powerful IME because stun is too powerful. Your house-rule still makes it very strong, while not rendering the DM's creatures useless--which ruins the fun for the DM, right?

 

[aco175]

I do not have a problem with conditions from spells and monster attacks as long as they have a "repeat the save each turn" clause. I recall an old convention game in 2e where a player was sitting out for an hour during the boss fight and it seemed to suck for them.

Stunned​

• A stunned creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move, and can speak only falteringly.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.

Unconscious​

• An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings
• The creature drops whatever it’s holding and falls prone.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Paralyzed​

• A paralyzed creature is incapacitated (see the condition) and can’t move or speak.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Petrified​

• A petrified creature is transformed, along with any nonmagical object it is wearing or carrying, into a solid inanimate substance (usually stone). Its weight increases by a factor of ten, and it ceases aging.
• The creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• The creature has resistance to all damage.
• The creature is immune to poison and disease, although a poison or disease already in its system is suspended, not neutralized.

Stunned does not seem to be the worse of all the conditions.

 

[Teemu]

I’ve routinely changed monster and NPC abilities that stun into dazed, right around when Tasha’s came out. Tasha’s has the Tasha’s mind whip spell that inflicts a condition very similar to the 2024 playtest dazed condition (adapted from the 4e dazed of course). It’s been working out great. Sometimes I up the damage of the enemy attack a little bit to compensate for the slight reduction in offensive punch, but regardless of any other adjustments, the dazed condition is just so much more fun for the players.

I still keep all player-inflicted stuns as they are. The DM doesn’t have to skip turns and not play so the harsh action denial doesn’t matter in that direction.

 

[Distracted DM]

Something I've considered (but never actually implemented) was adding a mechanic to allow creatures to "power through" and ignore the effects of conditions on their turn.

I was thinking along the lines of expending 25% of the creature's max HP to ignore all status effects on their turn. I expect the high cost would likely prevent it from being used in most circumstances, except the worst conditions like paralyzed and stun. Even if a monster still gets to act, a monk would likely still feel good about it given that it cost the creature a quarter of it's HP to do so.

This is another great idea I've seen tossed around and possibly used in other systems- I think I recall MCDM talking about it too.

My first thought was "it's not so good of a choice if the creature is going to drop unconscious/dead from the action," but the stipulation could be added that it couldn't reduce a creature below 1hp.

the question then, is what is the cost of doing so? HP is the easy target because it's the universal resource.

If anyone recalls what systems might implement it I'd be curious to see what they do.

 

[Distracted DM]

I do not have a problem with conditions from spells and monster attacks as long as they have a "repeat the save each turn" clause. I recall an old convention game in 2e where a player was sitting out for an hour during the boss fight and it seemed to suck for them.

Stunned​

• A stunned creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move, and can speak only falteringly.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.

Unconscious​

• An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings
• The creature drops whatever it’s holding and falls prone.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Paralyzed​

• A paralyzed creature is incapacitated (see the condition) and can’t move or speak.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Petrified​

• A petrified creature is transformed, along with any nonmagical object it is wearing or carrying, into a solid inanimate substance (usually stone). Its weight increases by a factor of ten, and it ceases aging.
• The creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• The creature has resistance to all damage.
• The creature is immune to poison and disease, although a poison or disease already in its system is suspended, not neutralized.

Stunned does not seem to be the worse of all the conditions.

As I said in my original post, there's still Paralyzed- and like some of the other conditions you listed, there are ways of removing them, unlike Stunned. I'm not saying it's "the worst," I'm not trying to change how Unconscious works etc. (although I've seen interesting & dangerous house rules on players fighting on at zero, but that's another discussion)

 

[Quickleaf]

I do not have a problem with conditions from spells and monster attacks as long as they have a "repeat the save each turn" clause. I recall an old convention game in 2e where a player was sitting out for an hour during the boss fight and it seemed to suck for them.

Back when we played AD&D with henchmen/hirelings, a player getting paralyzed by a ghoul or carrion crawler.... well, we never had a conversation about "this is disruptive to our enjoyment of the game." Probably because combat was significantly faster. And because there were fallback NPCs the player could hop into the role of until their PC was back on their feet. Aaand because we were kids/teens without a mature understanding of game design. Whereas with modern D&D (3e/4e/5e) combat has a longer handling time, so the player feels that "being out of the action" more.

Anyhow, while I agree with the premise of modifying the Stunned condition, I think it's even more important to remember the big picture intent = maintaining player engagement. IOW there are other levers we can manipulate (e.g. making combat extremely fast, or having fallback NPCs/companions, or flashbacks when stunned/taken out of play, or giving every monster with stunned a specific weakness/workaround unique to its manner of stunning), which would get us to the same end goal.

Stunned​

• A stunned creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move, and can speak only falteringly.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.

Unconscious​

• An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings
• The creature drops whatever it’s holding and falls prone.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Paralyzed​

• A paralyzed creature is incapacitated (see the condition) and can’t move or speak.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Petrified​

• A petrified creature is transformed, along with any nonmagical object it is wearing or carrying, into a solid inanimate substance (usually stone). Its weight increases by a factor of ten, and it ceases aging.
• The creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings.
• Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
• The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws.
• The creature has resistance to all damage.
• The creature is immune to poison and disease, although a poison or disease already in its system is suspended, not neutralized.

Stunned does not seem to be the worse of all the conditions.

Effect wise, that's true, stunned is rough, but it isn't the most terribly impactful of all the conditions. But you also need to look at how easy they are to remove. For example, compare it to Paralyzed.

Ending Unconscious just needs some magical healing - it's the easiest to remove. It also goes away on its own in 1d4 hours iirc.

Ending Paralyzed requires Lesser Restoration (2nd). It usually lasts until "save ends."

Ending Petrified requires Greater Restoration (5th). It lasts the longest, being permanent until intervention.

Ending Stunned requires Power Word Heal (9th). It lasts either "until end of next turn" or "save ends."

Edit: In case the question of "but are monsters more commonly immune to stunned or paralyzed?" or some variation of that question comes up, I'm pinning this spreadsheet from FontanaPink on Reddit. I don't have time to do numbers break down now, but quick visual scroll-through confirms that in the MM, at least, immunity to paralyzed is definitely more prevalent than immunity to stunned.