House Rule - Changing Dazed and Stunned

[hailstop]

One of the problems with higher level play is the prevalence of powers and monster abilities that result in Dazed or Stunned conditions.

PC's hate it. DM's hate it. They're annoying and result in combats getting longer.

Critical Hits mentioned this in their blog entry today:

Critical Hits » 2009 Retrospective on 4e: The Reality of the Relationship

Now, the comments seem to suggest that we can't 'change' this in 4e. I'm not sure they're right, and a possible solution is also in the comments.

Change Dazed and Stunned to:

Dazed - Lose a minor action
- Grants combat advantage
- -2 to attack rolls/skill checks
- no immediate actions

Stunned - Only get one action.
- Grants combat advantage
- -2 to attack rolls/skill checks
- Weakened
- no immediate actions
- let go of Grabbed enemies.

Another option for Dazed is to lose a move action or a standard action.

Comments?

 

[keterys]

Sounds good... though you should consider interactions of OAs, immediates, and grabs a little I suspect.

You can also make stunned -5 instead of weakened.

 

[hailstop]

Thats a good point about grabs and immediates.

 

[Mengu]

I do:

Dazed - no change
Stunned - You are dazed and suffer -4 penalty to attack rolls. You cannot use an action point while stunned.

I also have reasonably few monsters who can daze or stun. I go easy on weakened, blinded, dominated. I use a decent amount of immobilized, restrained, grabbed, slowed, marked. I have lots of push, pull, slide, knock prone.

 

[davethegame]

I'm considering just:

-Dazed is lose 1 action, grants CA
-Stunned is lose 2 actions, grants CA

Everything else just seems too easy to forget. Considering that blog post was from one of my players, I'm more inclined to take action to change it now

 

[keterys]

Let us know how it goes!

 

[unan oranis]

hmm... I don't get it.

I find daze and stunned speeds things up; I mean what could be faster?


dm: It's daves turn, he's stunned, next.

I think the logic is that being stunned creates a mini-mission for your pals right on the battlefield; get to dave and give him a save before his iniative comes up or suffer a turn loss.

One more agent discouraging focus-fire from being the supreme option at all times?


Not that I'm claiming that the OP is actually in love with being stunned, but it might be a glass half-empty thing.

 

[insideru]

Yea i have the same opinion. Dazed PCs act way faster. My players spend 50-60% of their turn thinking how to move to a certain square Kasparov style. If they are Dazed they just usually attack something using an at-will power.

Not to mention that IMHO letting players move while dazed will make the game much easier for them.

 

[Mengu]

I find daze and stunned speeds things up; I mean what could be faster?


dm: It's daves turn, he's stunned, next.

Killing PC's can also speed things up. "You three, meteors fall on you and you left home without your umbrella so you're dead. You two were wearing helmets so roll initiative, this should be fast."

I don't think it's so much the speed people are objecting to, as it is the fun factor. Not doing anything during your turn is not fun. I don't really have a problem with daze as is, but stun is just too harsh of a condition that just makes a player bored.

From a time perspective, stun doesn't really speed up anything either. One player not taking a turn means someone else is going to need another turn to take down the enemies. And it does slow things down because it's a turn where you are not synergizing with anyone. You don't get to use the bonus the leader just handed out, you don't get to move in position to flank with your rogue, you don't get to mark anything or make opportunity attacks. Without synergy, your party is just going to do less damage, taking longer to clear out the encounter.

 

[Appleseeth]

I personally have no problem with stun. It generally gets handed out fairly and equally from both sides of the table. It seems pretty often at my table where the PCs will dump some effect on one of my chumps (I'm the DM) where they effectively cannot do anything. So the turn goes by quicker, but the combats on average do not take any longer or shorter because stun and stun-like effects exist.

Daze is the king jerk effect though. It is more common and I think it makes combat take longer, especially when certain players are dazed. They will just take way too long trying to maximize their one action. And no immediate or opportunity actions especially hurt elites and solos who often have a lot of those that are powerful, though that speaks more to action denial in general hurting them more.

Anyway, to the topic at hand. The more fiddly bits you add to a common status effect, the longer it will take to resolve. My players are constantly forgetting what restrained does, and I use that a lot. You mess with dazed or stunned (which in a way is a simpler effect) and you may waste game time than what you gain in return.

Just thought I'd get that off my chest.