Fewer conditions?

[fba827]

For me, personally, it is not so much the number of available conditions... it is the condition tracking (ie target A is dazed until the end of As turn, while B is dazed until save ends, while C is immobilized until the end of D's turn ... and so on).

Having said that, if you did want to reduce conditions in themselves...
marked never struck me so much as a condition as rather a penalty
stunned is way too boring (for the player) i say it should go and be dazed with maybe a penalty to save against it
immobilize and restrained are so similar they may as well be one

 

[Stalker0]

I would get rid of the marked condition myself, though of course it would require retolling of the defender classes its the least severe of all the conditions..but in the case of defenders the one most often applied.

 

[keterys]

I was putting together a bunch of stuff for a 'simplified' D&D ruleset, for fast play and introducing people, and I think I got it down to

Blind, Immobilized, Dazed, Unconscious

With a smaller number of bonuses and penalties. You lose out on a lot of possible differentiation, and I suspect the gains in comparison will vary a lot from person to person.

But, things that prone now can be immobilized or dazed without too much harm. Slowed doesn't actually matter more often than not, and you could just give a penalty to speed.

Stunned and weakened slow the game down and aren't particularly fun. Sure, you can't model lesser paralysis as well. So don't paralyze as much.

Etc.

A lot of people wouldn't necessarily buy that concept, but if you _want_ to remove conditions, it works.

And, yeah, what Stalker0 said - I actually like marked just fine for my games, but I'd toss it to the curb in a second for any such "Basic" D&D.

 

[boar]

To answer the OP...

The only condition I would get rid of is restrained. It is more complicated and more annoying than immobilized, in that it forces you to remember extra penalties and robs players of the potential to force-move each other. The rest are fine, though some (as others have said) should be used sparingly.

 

[Mentat55]

I would get rid of the marked condition myself, though of course it would require retolling of the defender classes its the least severe of all the conditions..but in the case of defenders the one most often applied.

I feel similarly about marking. Actually, when I make soldier monsters, I almost never give them marking attacks -- instead I rely on things like threatening reach, basic or opportunity attacks that slow/knock prone/push/immobilize, and immediate actions to mitigate ally damage.

 

[jbear]

Right?


I, for one, like all of the conditions. And special bonuses and penalties. And I like daze and stun and weaken, too.

I don't find any of it to be a problem at the table, neither as a player nor as a DM.

Then again, I hear all sorts of tales of players who have to use calculators to add up their 2d6+11 damage, and that's not the kind of guys I play with. So I can imagine that the bookkeeping is more onerous for certain groups.

I'm with you. The DM Battle Screen Program makes tracking pretty darn easy.

Dungeon Master's Battle Screen - Home

You can even add in temporary resistences/bonuses to attack or damage/anything you-need-to-keep-track-of as a ''condition'' to help you keep track of the fiddly bits.

Stun is a harsh condition. Sure. And not very fun for the player who misses a turn. Sure. But surely fighting terrible, life-threatening monsters is not always going to be ''fun''. Don't overcoming those annoying, debilitating, frustrating moments and surging through victorious make victory all the sweeter?

Admittedly i'm someone who enjoys all the fiddly bits. So each to their own.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I feel similarly about marking. Actually, when I make soldier monsters, I almost never give them marking attacks -- instead I rely on things like threatening reach, basic or opportunity attacks that slow/knock prone/push/immobilize, and immediate actions to mitigate ally damage.

I'm with you there Mentat, as a DM I practically never use Marked as i find it the hardest condition to track. It is just to messy to be worth the hassle in my opinion.

As a player power its fine, because I don't have to track it.

 

[Badapple]

I can't really think of any of the named conditions I would want to see removed. I like the complexity and the interaction. I think monsters that do stuff "until the end of your next turn" should be "save ends" instead, in order to make it easier to track, and to give players a chance to give each other saving throws, but eh I'm mostly ambivalent on that as well. And I certainly don't want to see stuff like Stun removed.

Warning - side tangent about stun...

I played in a game earlier today that saw our group of 5 (warlord, fighter, cleric, rogue, ranger) take on 4 grells. I don't know what kind of sadist designed that encounter - each grell could grab as a standard action, bite a grabbed character as a minor at will - and the bite delivered stun (save ends.). All of them were elite so they all had action points. 3 of the grells were soldier grells and one was a grell philosopher. The philosopher was overlevelled and the others were soldiers, so high defenses. The grell philosopher could blind characters at will in addition to all the other insanity. So we were regularly blinded, stunned, and immobilized. It's the kind of textbook "frustrating" combat I read about all the time that people hate.

We had 2+ characters stunned on any given round and often 1 or two blinded. Still, I found it to be an exciting combat, even when it was me that was stunned. And I was blinded for 3 rounds in a row at one point, then stunned for 2 more.

I like the feeling of unease when fighting a monster group that can deliver a dread condition. A couple rounds into the fight, we were in some trouble, we had done damage to the monsters but they were elites and tons of hit points and very high defenses. Since we were so often blinded or stunned, flanking opportunities were rare (blinded or stunned allies don't provide a flanker) and in the quest for combat advantage and lack of mobility we were unable to easily focus fire so all the monsters were still up and we were taking heavy damage. On the monsters' turn the DM decided ALL the grells would use their action points and unload on us. The philosopher blinded my warlord and the ranger. A soldier grell grabbed the and stunned the cleric. The other two soldier grells attacked the fighter, action pointed and attacked him again. The fighter got stunned AND dropped unconscious. A lot of groaning at the table.

I was really pumped up when my warlord who was blinded (save ends) was able to use "stand tough" to heal the entire party with non surge healing, "shake it off" to unstun the fighter, and inspiring word to bring the fighter back to nearly full health, all while blinded. Next round, still blind, I used "stand the fallen" simply for the effect to give the whole party a heal surge and didn't expect to hit but instead I rolled a 20 and crit on my 3W daily (with a high crit greataxe) for massive damage.

It was my moment when the players were low hp, 2 were blinded, 1 was stunned, 1 was dropped, and all the monsters were still up that I get to be the guy that really comes through. Now the whole party is practically unwounded and the grell I crit is about to die, and the rogue and ranger could make quick work of him. After my shining moment of course I spent the rest of the fight either blind or stunned (or both). But I didn't care it was worth it.

I'm of the opinion that you have to have the bad to appreciate the good. If dazed is the worst I get and I'm always guaranteed a standard action on my turn and I only miss 20% of the time then the game turns even more into a hit point grindfest and a lot of the uncertainty and swings of battle gets lost. You have to suffer through the stuns and weakens and tough monster defenses to appreciate how kick ass it is when you are the only one NOT suffering the condition and the party is depending on you to kick butt while they are helpless and you come through. Anyhow I'll remember the fight for a long time... though doubtless one or two of the other players will remember the fight as "crap that annoying fight, I hate stuns".

 

[babinro]

All the named conditions deserve to stay. They add good tactics to the game. As has been mentioned, conditions simply should be used less frequently especially from a PC perspective.

I think PC powers should focus more on self bonus modifiers <You gain +x to defense/attack roll/damage roll/speed>. They use the powers frequently, keeping track of such bonuses until end of next turn for one character isn't difficult. Giving yourself a +2 to attacks is often easier to track than giving a monster a -2 to defense since the monster is likely having 3+ other conditions in addition. Leaders can still be made unique in that they could offer party wide bonuses or lend bonuses to allies that stack.

I would also like to see a lot more single target conditions against monsters. This would mean that any given round, a party of 5 would hopefully not inflict more than 5 conditions total among all monsters. The exceptions would be daily attack powers, and controllers who have access to multi-target conditions in their encounters as well.
You could still have non-controller classes with multi-target attacks, but limit a condition on said attacks to the primary target only.

Both the above changes would theoretically keep much of the tactics alive in 4e that make it a great game, but ease the bonus structure to make the game run a little smoother.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think the easier way to make tracking simpler would be for ALL effects to have durations keyed to the turn of the creature they affect. Its a lot easier to track that way because at the end of your turn you drop all UEONT effects and save against everything else. When an effect has a duration tied to the creator of the effect you have an extra item of information to track which is hard to deal with, who created it. This is especially true for monster effects. The DM has lots of monsters, they are often identical to other monsters, so it can be hard to remember exactly WHICH ghoul immobilized the fighter. If that isn't important then you can just toss a "you're immobilized" card on that character's sheet and the player has all the info they need to deal with it.

This isn't such a big deal with PC's effects because the player can be expected to know which effects he's created and thus responsible for, but even so I'd do the same thing for them.

SONT really just doesn't need to exist at all. I also agree with the idea that effects should be MORE standardized. Conditions are great because everyone knows what they do and there are only a few of them. Its the various obscure complex effects that get annoying. Unfortunately they seem to be getting ever more common as the game's designers stretch to find ways to create yet another power and give it something unique. Its just not really adding to the play at the table. Maybe in theory its great from the standpoint of giving the players a lot of options when they are picking powers and feats, but I think the 4e devs spend too much time writing books and not enough time playing. A lot more time is spent at the table than it is on CB and THAT is where the game needs to shine. Besides, there are enough character options now for all but a couple classes to choke a horse.