Monsters, Dazing, and Charge

[webrunner]

I was playing in a session recently where we managed to daze a bunch of the monsters.. unfortunately it had very little effect in that the monster's most useful attack was a basic at will melee attack, so they could just charge every turn except if you were exactly one square away.. the daze did very little despite it it being a ridiculously debilitating status for players unless they are charge-built.

I'm not saying there's a problem here, I'm just seeing what everyone else thinks.. if there is a problem here it's because monsters generally have a lot of very good 'basic attacks', sometimes it's their only at will and has a status effect rider.. so they are better off charging every round they are able.

 

[Lauberfen]

Yup, daze is less obviously a problem for monsters. I think this makes sense, as DMs can't spend the same time per monster avoiding the consequences.

Daze is most effective against elites and solos. Against most monsters, however, you have to work to get the benefits.

One obvious bonus is combat advantage- no need to position or flank.
Another point is that dazed monsters can't flank, or make opportunity attacks. This means characters can move around as they like.

To avoid the charging problem, you have to do sneaky stuff like shift away from the monsters, leaving them 1 square away.

 

[Victim]

Daze is most useful when you can exploit it via positioning (as mentioned, shifting to be 1 square away helps) or other conditions (like prone).

 

[DracoSuave]

Need moar difficult terrain.

 

[robsenworldaccount]

High wisdom, Wiz thunderwave + Readied action + Daze Effect = screwed monstar!