Taking Unfun out of Dazed and Stunned Conditions

[Mengu]

I haven't made any change to Dazed, and changed Stun to: Dazed and -5 to attack rolls. It's pretty straight forward, easy to remember, and leaves both players and monsters with plenty of options still. Second Wind, aid another, or just taking an at-will attack with -5 is plenty better than doing nothing.

And for the occasional (rare) solo or elite, I'll tack on immunity to daze or stun especially if the creature has high reliance on immediate or minor actions to function. I also use all sorts of funky mechanics like creatures with multiple standard actions, more than 2 action points, multiple initiatives, free interactions with environment, spawning/summoning powers, etc, whatever it takes to make a challenging and interesting encounter, and to keep players guessing.

 

[jamesmanhattan]

In the Essentials books they include a lot of stun and dominate powers for the wizard, but.. they almost all come with the trigger: if the target takes damage, the stun immediately ends.

That could be a very nice mechanic to add to all stuns. It would stop the beat-down effect, while still maintaining the control and strategy element for the controller.

I wouldn't mind it applying to players either.

So far, my group has gone with the houserule: stunned for elites and solos, becomes dazed+immobilized. This caused the entire group to ditch 90% of their stun powers. It seems none of them want to bother stunning anything other than elites and solos. It has made our games 10X more tactical and interesting.