D&D 5E No Monsters Immune to Stun?

[jgsugden]

There are certain things about Ki stunning that do not make as much sense for certain targets because ki is the energy that flows through living targets, and you're disrupting the ki ... and those targets may not be alive, per se. Think of it as you putting some of your ki into their shell and disrupting the function of those unliving bodies.

 

[CapnZapp]

I understand that is the supposed intent of the Multiple Heads trait, but why then make her immune to stuns? It is rather odd to say, hey if your hit with studs 5 times in a round you loose a LA, but that 6th time has no effect at all. To me, one or the other is a mistake. They don't make sense together.

You have said so over and over again. What more is there to say?

 

[dave2008]

You have said so over and over again. What more is there to say?

I agree! But people keep commenting and I feel compelled to reply. Clearly failed my Will save.

 

[auburn2]

I think maybe we're envisaging different things here. I don't make whole heaps of monsters immune to being stunned, just more than the Monster Manual does. Constructs, basically. Unless your campaign is filled with constructs that's not a major problem. You just occasionally come across things your superpower doesn't work on. The whole party finds themselves in similar situations at some point.

I don't get the logic on why constructs should not be stunned.

It seems to me this is nothing but a purposeful attempt to nerf the monk, whether it is a little bit or a lot it is simply changing the rules for no real purpose that I can see.

That said, 5E encourages changing the rules, so if there is some reason in your campaign that this is necessary or would make the game better go for it.

 

[Flamestrike]

I don't get the logic on why constructs should not be stunned.

Stunning is something as simple as a forceful blow that knocks them off balance and disorientates them briefly. An attack that staggers them.

I see no reason why pretty much anything should be immune.

 

[Gadget]

Personally, I think the devs wanted to back off the condition overload of 3.x & 4.x, and went a little overboard in some instances. In 3.x, undead where immune to criticals, thus sneak attack was useless against them and rogues rendered much less effective. So now that restriction is gone, and you can now sneak ghosts. I could see arguments for this not being the case though.

In 5e, it seems the devs have decided that the Stunned condition should be almost the soul province of the Monk, Wizards have to wait until the 8th level Power Word Stun to gain the effect, and that spell isn't all that for its level (I guess one of the effects of Divine Word as well, but that is even more rare). I believe that is the only ability available to PCs outside Monks that bestows the stunned condition, barring some magic item I'm overlooking. I'm not sure how many Monsters inflict the condition, but I don't recall many doing so. So, its almost as if the condition was put in the game specifically for Monks, given the rarity of it outside the Monk class.

So I suppose putting immunity to Stun would be a direct setback to the Monk, as so few other classes and creatures would be affected by such a change. To me, that speaks of an over reliance on the condition by the Monk class, as I'm not sure why there cannot be other effects that impose the condition. I don't think it would be too bad if there were some rare creatures that had immunity to the Stunned condition, such as Constructs, but then again I don't see why the condition should be almost the soul province of the Monk class anyway.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Stunning is something as simple as a forceful blow that knocks them off balance and disorientates them briefly. An attack that staggers them.

I see no reason why pretty much anything should be immune.

Indeed. Add to this the fundamental point: Monks are magic. Their strikes essentially ignore inertia and deal damage that is irrespective of the force behind them.
The difficulty to resist being stunned isn't based on how hard the monk hits, but how spiritually enlightened they are: Its magic. (Or at least supernatural.)

Animated suits of armour cannot be dazed, staggered, shocked, startled or overwhelmed, in my opinion.

Do they have a magical animating force that a magical disruptive force could interfere with for a short while?

 

[pogre]

I ran into this issue a couple of campaigns ago with the monk short-circuiting a lot of encounters. I noticed there were very few monsters with stun immunity and thought about creating some custom monsters. I did not do it because it was the Monk's thing. It was super powerful in that campaign in particular because I was running 8 players. If I had four players I would worry about it a lot less.

To somewhat limit the overwhelming power of it I pushed for longer adventuring days and avoided using a lot of solo monsters.

But, in the end, I was usually OK with the Monk being the Hero of the encounter.

 

[Flamestrike]

To somewhat limit the overwhelming power of it I pushed for longer adventuring days and avoided using a lot of solo monsters.

That's the way to do it.

Solo monsters, when used, should be legendries. Due to action economy issues, DnD doesnt do Solo encounters well, if the monster isnt a legendary.

 

[brubie]

Sorry for thread necro, kinda fishing for ideas from people on how to resolve. My campaign has gotten pretty high level and I find myself as DM to be spending far more time trying to balance boss fights around specifically monk stunning strike than anything in the game (and much more consistently fudging rolls for dramatic moments to not get stunned than anything else).

Due to a combination of the power of stun condition and the ease with which the monk applies it (a monk at 12th level has 12 charges and can attempt to stun 12 times per short rest (which is effectively as many as she wants in a boss fight unless I do something significant to stop short resting). This makes it hard to balance big boss battles.

Basically the only RAW solution is to have whatever they are fighting have legendary resistance or a bunch of threatening minions or healers. Otherwise it's is not unlikely that you have a major fight with an archmage or beholder or lich or dragon and have the cool boss battle be monk high rolls initiative and stuns the boss for 5 turns until they die. (and the stun would probably block most legendary and lair actions too).

I find it's a terrible balance design for so much power to be in stunning as it's a giant all or nothing, but I don't want to change how the monk works (she has been playing it for 7 levels now). Just trying to find creative and cool solutions that keep the monk feeling powerful but not trivializing boss fights which should be an epic moment.