Brainstorming Daze

[jbear]

Yep, fair enough. Continue the discussion by all means.

But with the footnote that it causes 'unfun' at some people's tables.

Maybe one of the mods will shift this over to the house rules forums, where it belongs. There have been several similar discussions about this there if I recall rightly.

 

[Badwe]

I have to echo the sentiments expressed by other posters: if dazed and stunned are two powerful to use on players, start replacing them with less debilitating effects. For example, being dazed usually means either attacking or moving, so you're losing half your major actions. Since most standard actions are an attack, weakend is like losing half of your standard action, and slowed is just slightly worse than half a move action. therefore, if instead of dazed a player was slowed or weakened, they would essentially only lose one quarter of their major actions. likewise, if you both slowed AND weakened, that's like half the effect of stunned.

Also, one of my favorite effects are the carrion crawler "stage" effects, where a save ends effect gets worse as you fail saves. stunned, while devastating, is a bit more acceptable when it's at the end of 2 turns of failed saving throws. If a player starts of slowed, fails a save to become dazed, then fails another saving throw to become stunned, if they even gett that far they at least understand they needed to do something about it.

You can also use multi-stage effects as part of follow-up attacks. The ghoul notoriously deals extra damage to stunned targets which is greatly hated by players, but a reverse effect can inflict terror into a PC without actually stunning them: a creature that can stun someone taking a certain type of ongoing damage. If you choose not to utilize the "new dominate" of "slide 5 and attack an ally", old dominate can feel more avoidable if only those who have had their minds weakened by taking ongoing psychic damage are susceptible to the attack.

 

[OnlineDM]

I actually think that Dazed and Stunned are fine from a power-level perspective. I do think that Stunned is no fun, though, just because the Stunned character doesn't get to do anything. For me, personally, it's not a question of dialing back the power (I've run encounters where monsters have stunned the PCs and the PCs have never even been slightly worried about losing the fight). It's a question of making the condition still powerful but more interesting for the character affected by the condition.

 

[Dausuul]

I have to echo the sentiments expressed by other posters: if dazed and stunned are too powerful to use on players...

They're not, though. The problem is they're too boring to use on players (well, stunned is; dazed is fine IMO). My ideal approach would keep the power level of stun about where it is, while giving the player more options. Hence my suggestion that you could trade a big whack of hit points for a save at the start of your turn; is it worth it to you to give up a quarter of your hit points for a chance at breaking out of stun?

A quarter is probably too much, now I think about it. The goal should be to have losing the turn, versus eating the damage with a 45% chance of losing the turn, be about equally painful, so it's a challenging decision. How many hit points is a turn worth?

Edited to add: After thinking up some laughably simplistic ideas on how to calculate the hit point value of a turn, and crunching the math using standard monster damage expressions, I'm coming up with numbers that suggest the proper amount of damage (keeping in mind the possibility of failing the save) is roughly 6 at Heroic, 10 at Paragon, and 14 at Epic. This seems rather low... would have to test it out in play, though.

Edited further to add: If the same mechanic can be applied to break free of dominate, however, it's worth considerably more. At that point, a healing surge is just about right. So maybe the rule should be this: Any time you take a surge worth of damage in a single hit, you can make a save to break free of a daze, stun, or dominate effect. And at the start of your turn, you can choose to deal yourself a surge worth of damage as a free action in order to trigger this rule.

 

[WalterKovacs]

As an easy/minor solution suggestion: Even if the stun/dominate is until EoNT, it can still be ended via a saving throw. It still requires your allies giving you a saving throw (or a no action/start of turn saving throw you can give yourself), but it does at least allow for a way around it. Another thing that could be done is that, when saving Vs. stun [at the end of your turn only], if you roll a 20, you can immediately take a standard action, to give it that little bit of juice like death saving throws.

 

[andy3k]

I think it might break things or be unfair to completely remove a condition by spending hit points rather than using the proper saving throws. Defenders have a great advantage while controllers suffer. It seems better to allow characters to spend hit points to decrease the effect to a daze.

1 hp per tier downgrades a stun to a daze for 1 turn. At the end of your turn, if you do not save, you are stunned until the start of your next turn when you may buy your way out again. This allows for the save rolls AND gives you an option to downgrade so you can get your one action in. If the DM wants his pound of flesh, he can charge 2 hp per tier, or even 3. Defenders still have an advantage over controllers but at least the controllers can afford it. Whatcha think?

 

[Mad Hamish]

I think it might break things or be unfair to completely remove a condition by spending hit points rather than using the proper saving throws. Defenders have a great advantage while controllers suffer. It seems better to allow characters to spend hit points to decrease the effect to a daze.

1 hp per tier downgrades a stun to a daze for 1 turn. At the end of your turn, if you do not save, you are stunned until the start of your next turn when you may buy your way out again. This allows for the save rolls AND gives you an option to downgrade so you can get your one action in. If the DM wants his pound of flesh, he can charge 2 hp per tier, or even 3. Defenders still have an advantage over controllers but at least the controllers can afford it. Whatcha think?

It'd be an absolute no brainer to do it every turn. It effectively turns stunned into daze + minor damage.

 

[andy3k]

D'oh, you are correct. Who WOULDN'T pay the hit points to unstun for a turn. To remove stun completely with a surge worth of HP would also be a no-brainer unless you were lacking in HP, surges, and heals. Similar, just more expensive. If it became so expensive that you couldn't do it over half the time, we go back to stun being boring again.

Spending hp to downgrade immobilized to slowed would certainly be more interesting, but that is a topic for another post.

I agree, then, that spending HP to handle stun is not really a good option. Stun should simply be dazed + some other condition or damage loss.

 

[Dausuul]

D'oh, you are correct. Who WOULDN'T pay the hit points to unstun for a turn. To remove stun completely with a surge worth of HP would also be a no-brainer unless you were lacking in HP, surges, and heals.

Really? You'd always spend a surge worth of hit points to buy a saving throw (NOT a guaranteed escape) against a stun effect? I might do it depending on circumstances, but I wouldn't call it a no-brainer by any means. Keep in mind that spending a surge worth of hit points is much more painful than giving up a surge--the latter just shortens your adventuring day, while the former has a direct impact on the combat you're in right now.

Similar, just more expensive. If it became so expensive that you couldn't do it over half the time, we go back to stun being boring again.

Obviously, if it costs too few hit points to buy a saving throw versus stun, everyone will always do it. And if it costs too many, no one will ever do it. So what? That just means it needs to cost the right amount.

From a pure game balance point of view, a fixed number of hit points based on level makes more sense than something surge-based. If the game is properly balanced, then a PC with more hit points is weaker elsewhere to compensate. The squishy wizard's turns are more valuable than the tough fighter's, since the fighter is sacrificing some offensive capacity for that high hit point pool; so it makes sense that the wizard must give up a larger fraction of her hit points to "buy" an extra turn.

However, healing surges are pre-calculated, which makes them a lot easier to use at the table. I'm willing to sacrifice a little balance for ease of use, so I lean toward using surges if it's roughly the right amount of hit points.

 

[Aenghus]

Stun can be annoying if overused, especially if one PC is the obvious target (poor will score), or there are too many creatures in the encounter with stun powers (which occurs in some printed encounters).

Daze is normally fine as a condition, but it can be uneven on its effect on different classes. Some classes are very dependent on minor and out-of-turn actions for their class functions e.g. rangers, paladins, warlocks while others only need one standard action and are barely affected.

Stun and daze effects often target weak defenses for some PCs which can lead to them becoming stun or daze locked. This is a bad idea from a player enjoyment point of view, even if it is tactically effective.