Fewer conditions?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think that nerfs Stunned too much. What if you changed Stunned to "you may only take a move action"? That way you don't completely lose your turn, but it's definitely a nasty condition.

See, I don't really think stunned should be nerfed at all. Remember, conditions aren't just a mechanical contrivance, they are also a narrative tool. Take away the condition that makes someone unable to act and I have no longer a mechanical basis as a DM to have someone unable to act! Sure I can make them unconscious but that isn't necessarily what I want.

As it stands the restrained/helpless conditions already cannot properly describe a character that is bound thoroughly and I have to add arbitrary restrictions on top to do that. This is a major part of what conditions should be for.

Its fine to say monsters shouldn't stun (though I disagree) but just making all the conditions milquetoast is not the answer.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

See, I don't really think stunned should be nerfed at all. Remember, conditions aren't just a mechanical contrivance, they are also a narrative tool. Take away the condition that makes someone unable to act and I have no longer a mechanical basis as a DM to have someone unable to act! Sure I can make them unconscious but that isn't necessarily what I want.

You could keep stunned as is, use it sparingly, and add a new condition that allows only a move action -- call it "stupefied" or something like that. Then use it instead of stunned whenever the encounter seems to demand it.

I know, that's one more type of condition, but if you read my other, earlier comment you will see that I don't actually have a problem with that.

 

[OchreJelly]

My take on this:

THE GOOD:
I think the conditions are an excellent evolution in the game mechanics. In the past everything was codified individually in a given spell or ability which lead to redundancies. Moreover conditional effects are short-lived which does away with a lot of the pre-combat bookkeeping. Everyone remembers the old buff spreadsheets, but this is largely gone. The short-lived nature does, however, present new bookkeeping challenges (see below). But overall, to use programmer-speak: normalizing your data is a good thing.

THE LESS GOOD:
Most of the problems I see with conditions is in the tracking and timing. Short-lived conditions mean you either have to remember to do a save-ends or end-of-turn type of effect. For me, this is mostly a problem that resides in the DM's chair. It's hard enough to run a bunch of monsters all with cool abilities, and to remember what conditions are imposed on them, AND to remember when / how those conditions end.

IN ACTUAL PLAY:
Long ago I created my own condition 3x5 cards that I hand out to players when they are hit with a condition. Now in late-paragon play, I can't imagine how we'd play without them. Some have suggested using less condition-monsters, but the reality is by paragon level almost every type of monster is throwing out a condition or two -- at least this is my experience with published encounters. We use tokens to track things like quarry, mark, curse and bloodied. Again, I don't know how we would function without these tools. For our group, if a conditional can't be handled by one of those two methods above, it's often forgotten. I'm speaking of things like monster-marking, auras, etc. Lastly there are quasi-conditions which are fire-and-forget. I'm speaking of forced movement and prone. For prone, we just put the mini on its side which is pretty easy to track.

SOLUTIONS?
I really only have problems with the timing. All this beginning-of-turn, end-of-turn, save-ends etc. I just wish it was as normalized a system as the conditions themselves, but I don't really have anything to offer. I would only recommend DMs to use cards and tokens. They help us a ton.

 

[KarinsDad]

Its fine to say monsters shouldn't stun (though I disagree) but just making all the conditions milquetoast is not the answer.

I agree, although I think Weakened should go the way of the dinosaur. A modifier to hit can take the place of a modifier to damage and we would have one fewer unnecessarily condition.

But the real issue is not what the conditions do per se, it's that they are flung around right and left in encounters like monkeys flinging poo.

Conditions and even during an encounter buffs/debuffs should be more rare. For example, major conditions like Stun should only occur with Daily powers, not with Encounter powers. And there should be more options to do longer duration buffs with rituals so that buffs are done out of combat and at a cost instead of in combat with excessive bookkeeping. The problem with high level 3.5 buffing wasn't how much could be done, it was how cheap it was to do it (i.e. a few spell slots). IMO.

 

[Markn]

Personally, I like Weakened, both as a player and a DM. In our group, it seems to elevate the importance of some other actions that don't get used very often. Plus, flavor wise, doing half damage feels very different than getting a penalty to hit which is far too common already with buffs/debuffs flying around.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Personally, I like Weakened, both as a player and a DM. In our group, it seems to elevate the importance of some other actions that don't get used very often. Plus, flavor wise, doing half damage feels very different than getting a penalty to hit which is far too common already with buffs/debuffs flying around.

True. The problem with Weakened is just that its effect is rather massive - I wonder if that could be solved by making it "do minimum damage and cannot crit" instead. As static bonuses are a big part of the damage, it's not as severe as half damage in many cases, but still has some effect. Also, it's a nice opposite to critical hits (which are very much the opposite of that), mechanically and flavour/feel-wise.

Cheers, LT.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree, although I think Weakened should go the way of the dinosaur. A modifier to hit can take the place of a modifier to damage and we would have one fewer unnecessarily condition.

But the real issue is not what the conditions do per se, it's that they are flung around right and left in encounters like monkeys flinging poo.

Conditions and even during an encounter buffs/debuffs should be more rare. For example, major conditions like Stun should only occur with Daily powers, not with Encounter powers. And there should be more options to do longer duration buffs with rituals so that buffs are done out of combat and at a cost instead of in combat with excessive bookkeeping. The problem with high level 3.5 buffing wasn't how much could be done, it was how cheap it was to do it (i.e. a few spell slots). IMO.

I think it would be OK if there were fewer of them. Mostly what should happen is they should be standardized on a couple of ending conditions and regularized. Oddball effects should generally be confined to things that are instant or restricted to dailies. Its the way there are so many almost identical effects that get tossed out constantly by different powers. There is just no real reason to have a bazillion different versions of a -2 debuff.

 

[Tuft]

There is just no real reason to have a bazillion different versions of a -2 debuff.

Well, the main thing about the various -2 debuffs compared with regular conditions like dazed, stunned etc, is that they do stack - they are both untyped and from different named sources.

Giving the BBEM -8 to hit is quite noticeable...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, the main thing about the various -2 debuffs compared with regular conditions like dazed, stunned etc, is that they do stack - they are both untyped and from different named sources.

Giving the BBEM -8 to hit is quite noticeable...

Fine, but the problem is (I think someone gave a pretty good example of it above) you can EASILY have something stupid like:

a -2 that lasts until the enemy makes an attack
a -2 that lasts until the end of the enemy's next turn
a -2 that lasts until the start of the player's next turn
a -2 that only kicks in if the enemy moves
a -2 that only applies against a certain target

etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc.

All we need is a single 'condition' that says "enemy gets a -2 to-hit". All penalties stack unless they come from the same power, which means you can STILL get your -8, its not an issue. The issue is that when you are playing all these pointless minor variations of the same thing can drive players INSANE.

 

[Zaran]

Last weekend, my group had a case of stacking AC modifiers. We are running the Spellguard module (TOO LONG!) and one of the monsters is an Ogre Mage that was 4 levels higher than us and Elite. We knocked it prone, hit it with a dread weapon and the bard did something to it as well. It basically had a -4 to AC along with Combat Advantage for a turn. I know for a fact that the GM forgot some of that. I think I'm going to do the 3x5 card thing this weekend. It's a good idea.

I do not think the game needs fewer conditions though. I have a player that complains about the stuff that controller monsters can do but I think fights would quickly get boring. If it was turned into a football game where the players find a way to blitz the quarterback every time fights would become the same. In fact, I think the monsters having nifty abilities makes the PC abilies shine greater.