Brainstorming Daze

Herschel

Adventurer
One of the most common complaints I hear/have are for status effects like dazed. Just windering if there's a way to do the mechanic in a more "fun" way without throwing things out of whack. My first thought with dazed is to simply cause a character or monster to delay for 5 or 10 spots in the initiative order since it is cyclical. There's a lot of holes in it but does anyone have an alternate way of handling the condition?
 

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Being dazed isn't usually that bad as far as status effects can be. Are you worried that your players will be dazed and unable to work together as a team? Does it seem that the encounters are too easy because players are utilizing control effectively?

Making daze weaker will naturally cause your players to gravitate away from abilities that cause that status effect. For a monster being dazed it really isn't that bad in a well balanced encounter. The problem you may run into with status effects from your players is when you have too few monsters on the field of battle. This can cause one, or all monsters to be effectively locked up doing nothing for the fight.

In encounter building some times I place a creature (leader) that has the ability to remove certain status effects (daze, stun, combat advantage) as an at-will minor. In paragon tier my players run with a considerable amount of heavy control, so throwing in a wild card like that now and then can add some dynamic tactics without slowing down combat.

The other way to challenge party with lots of control is to utilize more monsters with control of their own , but I have found this tends to make for long combats.
 

Well, with charge being a single action in 4E, I have never had much trouble with daze. They either nail the guy next to them, or charge someone else. A caster or artillary type usually ends up taking an OA if dazed, though.

If I had to change daze, I would probably just disallow any triggered or minor actions that round. For most solos or elites, that puts a bit of a crimp in their style.

What I would like to change is stun, actually, but that is another thread.
 


Gotta throw in with agreement on prior threads. Stun is tough, but daze (in our game) has sit a little more comfortably. The few occasions when it was entered battle its effect has been about right. Denial of action, but not too much denial of action. That statement goes both ways as well, both for the situations where it has worked in the parties favor and when it has worked against them.

To try and so radically change it has alot of flow on effects. Alot of powers that use daze have niggly damage or effects otherwise, said powers will be made a far less attractive option. What about when daze is the consequence on a power (i.e. when you use this power you daze yourself), all of a sudden said power becomes hyper-good.

Focusing purely on your suggestion, there is an ocean on difference in efficacy between it an vanilla Daze. Im not going to tell you that my game experience is yours, but with Daze feeling so "right" to me, the impact of your change is, to me, too much.

If you find daze too much, might I suggest (and this is something I have been thinking for a while
* Daze = One standard action on turn
* Stun = One standard action on turn and grant CA
 

I'd consider saying that:

Dazed = You cannot take opportunity or immediate actions, and you grant combat advantage.

Stunned = The way dazed is now.
 

i would maybe try changing to:
dazed=cannot use other actions but standard
stunned=cannot use other actions but move and minor
(along with cant flank and grant CA)
so that stunned is still a more powerful effect than dazed, but doesnt lock up the target compleatly.

[edit] that way, using both effects = stunned as is now
 
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Stun is a particular problem for me because it is on so many damn powers miss effects. A power should never ever ever ever stun on a miss, yet some of them actually do. A good example (and one that is quite abusable) is the blood mages destructive salutation. An area burst 3 stun (save ends) and stun (EoNT on miss). That's just absurd.

Personally I wish that stun was more along the lines of daze and daze prevented flanking, no OAs, no immediate actions and you granted CA. I'd also like something done about dominate.

And a cookie.

And possibly a puppy.
 

Personally I wish that stun was more along the lines of daze and daze prevented flanking, no OAs, no immediate actions and you granted CA. I'd also like something done about dominate.

I think the "fix" for dominate is already in. It's being replaced by powers that, at the time the power is used, move and/or cause the enemy to attack. Are there any monsters in Monster Vault that dominate? Are there any powers in HotF* or HoS that do so? There may be a few, but I believe they are significantly rarer. (Someone wanna check me on that?)

I'd toyed with the idea of daze = you lose your move action (instead of move and minor) and, stun = you lose your standard action (instead of standard, move, and minor) as well. My campaign(s) are currently at low-heroic though, so it hasn't really come up much since I started thinking that way.
 

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