When status effects annoy the players


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Morrus, here's a quick fix that Mike Shea once applied to solo monsters. I see no reason why you couldn't make it a houserule so that any creature automatically qualifies for "Heroic Will" in your game. Let me know what you think. It's short of an outright removal of the stunned condition but basically makes them 1-round effects.

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Prevent Lock-Down
There’s little more frustrating to a DM than to watch a powerful boss creature become locked-down with a series of stuns and dazes. While a stun is well balanced against a single creature, a stunned dragon is the equivalent of stunning five creatures at once. At the higher tiers of play, it is very possible to stun and daze a dragon every round until it is dead. To prevent this, consider the following power:

Heroic Will
When stunned or dazed, the dragon instead loses its next standard action and grants combat advantage.
 

Yes, well, swapping my friends for new friends is not even vaguely an option. Nor would I want to to be. They're my friends.

Obviously your not serious about your DnD then :D:D:D:D:D (how many smilies do I need to denote a joke, 5?)

Here is what I've heard from the initial post (and what I'll try to give a more serious answer to since you seem to like your friends)
"My players don't like status conditions because they aren't fun. How can we fix this issue"

1. Allow Saves at the Beginning of the Round: A simple solution to the save or suck conditions that seems to be hurting the players' enjoyment. I'd attach some sort of penalty to it (as the rules are designed for saves at the end of turn). Perhaps taking 3/5/8 damage (per tier) to gain a save against one effect at the start of the round instead of the end of the round. This is a nice risk reward system as they may get a turn back or they may just take extra damage.

2. Overhaul the power system: A good number of powers are of the "deal X damage and inflict condition Y." Removing condition Y seriously weakens all attacks, so you'll have to compensate in some manner if you want to maintain the game's current difficulty (more damage per attack, more monsters, etc).

3. Switch Systems: The players aren't having fun RAW with 4E DnD because of crippling status effects. Why not switch games to something more cinematic (I always trot out 7th Sea here). The is the nuke the problem from orbit solution, but sometimes a break from a game reminds the players of what they loved instead of being focused upon what they hate about it. I'd rather switch games then switch the friends I play with.
 

In closing, Andy Collins is on record for saying that 4E's design was heavily inspired by Eurogames. So I strongly recommend you to play one of those if you've never done so - Dominion may easily provide such a benchmark experience - and then return to 4E with a greater comprehension of its intended design.

I hope Dominion really wouldn't be a benchmark experience. I've heard it described as playing parallel solitaire, which more or less fits my experience with it.

Sure, a key to winning is expanding your number of actions but that's in direct competition with other players and not particularly cooperative unlike D&D. Loss of an action or two isn't as critical to "winning". Plus, it seems more to me that 4e runs away from expanding the economy of actions that we saw in 3e with summoned creatures, full attack actions, and the like in favor of a more equalized approach between character classes.
 



Baseball is silly. If I get the status effect "strike out" or "popped up" I have to wait and do nothing while 8 other players take their turn. Hell, even if I get a hit, Johnny can inadverdantly apply the status "double play" on me and I have to sit and wait through no fault of my own. This game will never catch on.
 

I liked the idea outlined in an earlier post, similar to the Dreadnaught PP ability.

Shrug off a condition: Minor Action, 2/encounter. Spend a healing surge and shrug off one status effect.

Maybe make it 1/encounter, who knows. I wonder how this will play out in-game? I can try it in our next session on Sunday and let you know.
 


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