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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9339314" data-attributes="member: 71699">You are right that there are a very limited number of ways to remove stunned. TCoE monks can do it, for example. But I feel the real elephant in the room is putting a player out of an entire combat. I imagine that is what led the game designers to make the choices they have.There are many approaches to play that I believe wouldn't benefit from the Stunned rule. Off the top of my head, introductory play, pick-up play, casual play, one-offs, groups who want to feel like a***-kicking heroes.On the other hand, I wouldn't equate the stunned rule to "gritty" or "old school" play. It was first motivated by the unattractiveness of whack-a-mole. Hero goes down. They get up. Goes down again. Up again. And so on. For us, it's just unappealing. We considered just removing the going down part altogether! We tried making healing word a 2nd-level spell, which then cast the "efficiency of dying" problem that I describe above in bright light.There are then other consequences worth considering. In baseline play, we don't see defensive buffs getting used. The best play is almost always attack, or attack better. When combats are driven by the simple - we fight until you all are down, or we all are down - only attacks can settle the matter. Making down mean down enhances this calculation: defensive actions gain revelance.That's all well and good, but - for me - such wargamer-ish considerations are not really about improving the wargame. Combat is just one recourse for resolving conflicts on all kinds of matters. It's those conflicts that matter, not the combat (conflicting desires, conflict across moral lines, conflicting needs) so it is fantastic to be able to end combat without being forced to make everyone on the other side fail all their death saves. (Choosing not to deal lethal only works for player characters, it makes no difference to whack-a-mole: a heal is still a heal.) It is fantastic for combat to feel more like a last recourse, and less like our primary means of expression.So my answer to the "elephant in the room" is - groups can have different goals in mind for the combat-minigame. The best solution (for them) will speak to those goals. My goals require combat to be tightened up and consequential because winning combat resolves some conflict that the combat is about. And for that to feel like it matters to the players, the solution has to be forceful, tight and not arbitrary. In a sense, Stunned: 5 makes most sense when combat-as-wargame isn't your focus of play.I see that A5E SRD has it that[SPOILER="A5E dying"]Dropping to 0 Hit Points Damage that reduces you to 0 hit points without killing you knocks you unconscious (see Conditions). Regaining any hit points ends this unconsciousness. Falling unconscious as a result of taking damage during an encounter is traumatic and inflicts a level of fatigue.If you gain seven levels of fatigue, you are doomed...A doomed creature dies at a time determined by the Narrator, or within 13 (2d12) hours.[/SPOILER]Is that what you are using? Is there any other relevant text?</blockquote>

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