Are you tired of conditions?

[Infiniti2000]

This falls heavily into the DM's area of control when choosing monsters to make up an encounter.

I agree with this statement. It's all about encounter design and is in the DM's purview. It's possible that an individual monster could be considered "broken" in this respect (meaning too much infliction of a particular condition), but I think for the great majority, the DM should be cognizant of the encounter and design it so that a plethora of bad conditions won't frequently pile up on the PCs; especially not on a particular PC.

Fwiw, our Warden really likes his extra saving throw. It's a very useful ability.

 

[Klaus]

I third the "DM's job" statement. The reason this is a human-controlled game, as opposed to a computer one, is that the referee can take measures to adjust/prepare the game to be the most fun. If the party has characters that can grant saves frequently, then conditions can play a heavier role.

 

[Crothian]

We haven't had this problem but we don't see a lot of conditions in the games we play. I agree if over used it could be a problem though.

 

[Regicide]

it was a flesh golem, I just reskinned it as a iron golem

Um, *groan*

Getting stunned every round so staying stunned for a whole fight has long been a problem and one of the main complaints about the game for Mutants and Masterminds and a few other games. So the fact that they decided to make a design decision for 4E that is one of the main problems of other games is a bit confusing. I can only imagine it's intentional and you should tell your players to suck it up buttercup.

This was brought up in a previous thread as a problem for monsters as it's pretty easy for players to stun lock a boss mob and trivialize the encounter.

I think the solution for players is a bit different than monsters in 4E. Allowing a reduced action on stun is the common solution in M&M, although there are a lot of others like not allowing the same condition (stun) on two rounds in a row.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

How about this:

For certain conditions, if a character fails a save against them but only misses by 4 or less, the condition is reduced by one "step". Making the save of course still ends the condition completely. A roll of 6 would be needed by most characters, but humans would only need a 5. Other modifiers would be added in, but a roll of 1 would never reduce the condition.

Unconscious -> Stunned -> Dazed -> Slowed
Immobilized -> Slowed

I'm not sure about other conditions -- I don't think they fall into this "step" arrangement so neatly. But as these were the conditions that are being discussed here, maybe it would help.

The net effect would be that bad conditions wouldn't be quite so bad for quite so long.

If one is squeamish about adding a house rule, it could be made into a Feat instead.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would also advise players to get defensive utility powers or feats or stats or items...

This is the same problem as in 3.5 or any other edition: if you unbalance your character by optimizing him to slay a monster in one turn (if you act first) but don´t have any defenses, it is your own fault, not that of game designers or the DM...

 

[Stalker0]

Since the common notion on this thread is for the DM to pick less debilitating monsters, I thought for fun I would just take a look at options. My party is level 12, so I went through the MM for level 12 monsters. Lets see what monsters are available and how frequent debilitating effects are.

Guardian Naga - At will immobilize (save ends), 5/6 recharge area daze. Very debilitating.

Redspawn Fireblecher - No debilitating effects.

Fen Hydra - No debilitating effects.

Fire Archon Emberguard - No debilitating effects.

Flesh Golem - Two daze (save ends) attacks every round, plus extra attacks when bloodied. Extremely debilitating.

Foulspawn Hulk - No debilitating effects.

Stirge Swarm - No debilitating effects.

Adult Green Dragon - Encounter Stun, 5,6 recharge slowing breath - Moderately debilitating.

Dusk Unicorn - No debilitating effects.

Ettin - No debilitating effects.

Lamia - At will daze, 5,6 recharge area stun - Extremely debilitating.

Viscera Devourer - Minor action at will grab - Moderately debilitating.

Wailing Ghost - Recharge 5,6 area push and immobilize - Moderately debilitating.

Feygrove Choker - At will grab, recharge 6 restrain - Moderately debilitating.

Snaketongue Zealot - No debilitating effects.

Troglodyte Warrior - No debilitating effects.

Banshrae Warrior - Recharge 4,5,6 Stun - Very debilitating.

Kuo-toa Marauder - At will removal of weapon (when you attack) - Moderately debilitating (assuming at least one fighter).

Battle Wight Commander - At will immobilized and weakened - Very debilitating.

Githyanki Warrior - Encounter immobilize (save ends) - Minorly debilitating.

Stone Eye Basilik - Aura slow, at will slow (potential immobilize or petrify effect) - Very debilitating.

Umber Hulk - At will minor action area daze - Extremely debilitating.



So based on this limited sample, the DMs choice is more off an "On/Off" switch when it comes to debilitating effects. There are plenty of monsters with no debilitating effects (many of them have ongoing damage effects but those aren't usually annoying to the player). However, once you choose a monster that has debilitating effects, they tend to be frequently cast able (with the exception of the githyanki warrrior, who has a once a fight effect).

Further, we have several monsters in the bunch that you can expect to cripple your party with debilitating effects for much of the fight.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Yeah...the design team really didn't stick to their guns on this. At all. Of course, they NEVER do, in any edition, so why am I surprised? =) "Not having control of your character isn't fun, so we're not going to put in effects that cause a continued loss of control". Right.

There's some level 5 skirmisher from Open Grave, the Accipitridae or some other nonsense word. I had a level 4 party fighting 4 of these things, as a "moderately difficult" encounter. I didn't read them. Holy CRAP. At-will blind until the end of the turn, a minor action free damage on bloodied characters, and a minor action AOE death zone that I believe deals half damage on a miss.

These things were putting out MASSIVE damage, while keeping all 4 characters blind for what amounted to the entire fight. The Warden (who repeatedly pointed out how lame it was that these effects didn't end with a save) was blind for the entire fight, as was the human with the +1 saves feat. Both of them began dying at some point during the fight. Barbarian was blind all but 2 of the 12 rounds of combat, and the Bard only came out of blindness once.

And it's not that I was rolling exceptionally well or anything...when you're blind you grant CA, so it's like everyone was flanked for the entire fight. I'm noticing more and more monsters like this...at-will blind, AOE stun recharge, AOE daze recharge, at-will daze...it's getting ridiculous.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I think one way to help ameliorate the game-slowing effects of these conditions is to be a bit more loose with the rules and let players attempt stunts to grant extra saves and the like. For example, in our game last night three PCs got hit with a restraining AoE power (basically, a bunch of roots grew up around them). A player of the trapped character asked if the untrapped, fire-breathing dragonborn warlord could breath fire on them to burn off the roots. I said it could grant a free save (because restrained sucks), so the warlord came over and breathed fire. All three restrained characters made their save, ending the condition. And I thought it was pretty cool.

This kind of thinking doesn't come naturally for our group, but I think with time we'll get better at it. It also may not solve the "problem" completely, but I think allowing stunts to grant extra saves is a useful tool to have in the DM's tool box.

 

[MortalPlague]

So based on this limited sample, the DMs choice is more off an "On/Off" switch when it comes to debilitating effects. There are plenty of monsters with no debilitating effects (many of them have ongoing damage effects but those aren't usually annoying to the player). However, once you choose a monster that has debilitating effects, they tend to be frequently cast able (with the exception of the githyanki warrrior, who has a once a fight effect).

My thought would be to use a bunch of the non or minorly debilitating monsters with one, maybe two with significant powers as significant threats. If it's just one monster, the party can choose to focus fire on it to bring it down quickly, ending the threat of the effects. The problem comes in when a DM runs a group with all debilitating effects, or with a majority of them anyway.