Are you tired of conditions?

[Hereticus]

Are you tired of conditions?

Not at all... as a Wizard I stay out of range.

 

[chaotix42]

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.

Neat stuff - I'll try to encourage such behavior in my next game! Previously the most my PCs ever did was use aid another to grant their allies extra saves.

Did the dragonborn end up burning his friends, by chance? I could really see ruling it either way. It's way more badass if all the fire does is burn the roots off, IMO.

 

[Blastin]

We played a one off scenario from Open Grave a few weeks ago. 19th level. The opening encounter was a bunch of wights that weakened (save ends) and some gargoyles that had an auto weaken aura. And all of them healed themselves on hits. That encounter sucked. The entire party was weakened the entire fight and the bad guys were healing on every hit. It took FOREVER and we used ALL of our resources on the one encounter just to survive. If I had not been playing a Cleric we would have been wiped early.
So, I agree that a little bit of conditions is cool but when the monsters have synergistic effects it can make an encounter way harder than it should be.
As for the stunts to grant saves, we had that one come up as well. One character was dominated and beating on another character. A third used a successful intimidate on the dominated guy, so I granted him an immediate extra save and he made it. Was a cool moment.

 

[Victim]

We played a one off scenario from Open Grave a few weeks ago. 19th level. The opening encounter was a bunch of wights that weakened (save ends) and some gargoyles that had an auto weaken aura. And all of them healed themselves on hits. That encounter sucked. The entire party was weakened the entire fight and the bad guys were healing on every hit. It took FOREVER and we used ALL of our resources on the one encounter just to survive. If I had not been playing a Cleric we would have been wiped early.
So, I agree that a little bit of conditions is cool but when the monsters have synergistic effects it can make an encounter way harder than it should be.

Wraiths, with their Weakening attacks, Insubstancial form, and regeneration, present similar problems.

 

[Blastin]

actually...now that you mention it...it believe they were wraiths.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It looks like it's pretty much a purely monster design issue. There's too many monsters with the higher condition tiers (daze, non-melee immobilize, stun) and not enough with the lower tiers. Furthermore too many monsters impose their conditions on the entire party at once.

Put simply: the monsters don't follow the same rules that were placed on the PCs. PCs get crippling effects sparingly, and can rarely apply the same debilitating condition round after round (or even every combat sometimes), because it's produced by an encounter or daily. Furthermore anything which breaks that restriction (demigod, orbizard) is highly problematic for the game.

So why should it be ok for monsters to apply these conditions at-will or every other round? And if the power is bad enough that a player would only have it as a daily (aoe stuns for instance), we shouldn't even see it happen in every encounter with the foe.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Also 6 miscellaneous game day kills.

That is just cruel and heartless, not even naming those guys.... Imagine if your tombstone said 'RIP miscellaneous bloke'!

 

[Akaiku]

Just the other day I got hit with an elite something that had a vs fort attack at will that was a blast 3 or so that did damage+ongoing 10+slow save at -5 to end, first failed save, immobilized, second, stunned.

There was also a person with an at will dominate vs will at +21 when we were level 16.
The barbarian got 2 rounds of attacks in the whole fight that weren't at other players.

Another horrible condition was a group of monsters that had aura 2 10 damage and you can't spend healing surges. They also did damage+2 healing surges in a blast when they died (if they missed, it's only half damage and one surge...)

Heck, the other day I had a character die for the first time cause a monster did an essentially permanent cloud of magical darkness in a closed in room, so it was invisible to us.

 

[Tarrl]

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...

I agree U lich. I have been very bad at ignoring utility powers that help with saves/defenses and going for damage stuff or powers that put me in position to do more damage. It is up to us a players to be better about that.

 

[Juris]

Defensive Powers

Agree that defensive/utility powers granting saving throws are underused. The problem is there are few powers that grant saves to multiple allies, and as a result it is all but impossible for defensive/utility powers to keep up with multiple monsters using 'grind' powers.

However, next time your front-line fighter is stunned the entire combat, the important thing is that your group survived the encounter - so obviously some of the players were unaffected. The role of a fighter is a defender, and players that don't want to 'take one for the team' should probably play a striker.