D&D 4E Please post your houserules/opinions on Conditions and Saves in 4e

[eriktheguy]

Wizards has recieved a lot of fire on this forum for their poorly designed system of conditions and saving throws and how they work in various encounters (my opinion). The basis of the system is fine, saving throws are always against the same DC, do not change with level, and have very few bonuses. Conditions are saved for at the end of your turn, so you always suffer from them at least once. The problems arouse fairly quickly though.

Some conditions such as stunned or blinded do not sit well with many of the ENworld posters. Stunned pretty much erases your entire turn, and can get ridiculous if you make a few bad saves. I played a fighter once that got stunned by a same level monster, and remained so for 5 turns even despite my allies' 2 heal attempts. This is an extreme example, but I still agree that these conditions can be a little game breaking and aren't really necessary.

The problem worsens with solo monsters. Obviously, solo monsters are the prime target for conditions. A stunned solo basically means 5 additional attacks for the party, and a blinded one basically means a +5 bonus to all defenses for the party. You will notice that this is well in excess of the bonuses that even the best powers offer.
Solo monsters do gain +5 to saving throws, but this just screws over all the more balanced attacks with 'save ends' effects (combat advantage, ongoing damage, dazed) while not dealing with the issue that a stunned solo always loses an entire turn. Moreover, the solo will still lose at least two turns 20% of the time. That is essentially 10 extra attacks for the party. Combat over.

Another problem with the saving throw issue is the wizard's orb of imposition. Oh boy, a potential -4 to saves for a solo monster from level 1. It also gets better with level while enemies saving throw bonuses are static. Any DM will be pissed when the level 30 wizard who stuns Orcus manages to make his chance to save about 30% (with the help of his +8 wis mod and spell focus).

One final minor bug is certain attacks which cause 'condition A, save ends' on a hit and 'condition A until the end of your next turn' on a miss. The rogue's 'Easy Target' is a classic example of this. If the rogue hits he is 45% likely to get combat advantage next turn (20% for a solo) and if he misses he is 100% likely to get the combat advantage.

I would love to hear the opinions and house rules of the members of this forum, preferably rules that have had some decent play testing. I'm looking for simplicity in house rules, ease of use and book keeping. I've seen some ideas out there that look like a nightmare to implement. I have a few of my own below.

Orb of imposition: Once per encounter, immediate interrupt, target within 10 squares succeeds saving throw. Apply a penalty to the save equal to your wisdom mod. The target uses the new result.

Stunned:
Rather than being unable to take actions, you lose one standard action each round. You may not make opportunity actions.
(Now the stunned monster can still move, use minors, and blow action points. This makes a big difference for solos.)

Blinded:
If a solo monster becomes blinded, it is partially blinded instead. It gets -5 to perception and all enemies gain only regular concealment. If a partially blinded solo is blinded by an attack, or if it fails a save against partial blindness, it becomes blinded.

Unconscious:
If a solo monster becomes unconscious it is immobilized instead. If it fails a save against this immobilization, or if an effect would make it unconscious during this immobilization, it becomes unconscious.

Consecutive saves:
Each consecutive save against the same effect after the first gets a cumulative +1 bonus.

Weaker save ends effects: ongoing damage, grants combat advantage, and slowed to not grant saves on the first turn.
(This is especially important for effects that work for one turn on a miss. Slowed, ongoing and combat advantage are not game breaking, and when they end immediately 50% of the time it is boring. Ongoing 5 only does about 9 damage on average. This fixes the rogue's 'easy target' being better on a miss and gives conditions that aren't stun, daze or blind a decent buff.)

 

[Van der Hoorn]

"Rather than being unable to take actions, you lose one standard action each round. You may not make opportunity actions.
Now the stunned monster can still move, use minors, and blow action points. This makes a big difference for solos."

If you would do something like this, I would think you cannot do any standard actions. Thus you can spend an action point, but only for a move or minor action. Otherwise you really run into weird situations.

 

[Mesh Hong]

Actually that might be a good idea on Stunned, and would seem to fit as an extension to the dazed effect.

Dazed:
You can only perform 1 action, you grant combat advantage and cannot take opportunity actions or reactions

Stunned:
You can only perform one action but cannot perform standard actions, you grant combat advantage and cannot take opportunity actions or reactions.

This makes Stunned a logical progression from Dazed but would still allow some basic action. It would also gel well with extra status effects like immobilised or slowed instead of the case at the moment where stunned outshines everything as it in essence stops all actions.

 

[Stalker0]

Here's one I posted a while back:

Stunned

- A stunned creature is dazed. In addition, the crit range of any attack roll against the creature is increased by 2.

So less action removal, but greater potential debilitation.

 

[FireLance]

Some thoughts:

1. Orb of Imposition
One pretty good house rule that I heard of was to only apply the penalty to the first save (alternatively, the penalty to saves only applies until the start of the wizard's next turn, in case the monster has extra saves or its allies can grant them).

2. Stunned
I'm for giving the stunned creature the option to do nothing (which is the same as current), or to pay a price to do something. The simplest approach may be for the creature to just take damage if it chooses to act. Something like: A stunned creature is dazed. In addition, if it takes any action, it takes damage equal to 10 + twice its level. This approach also makes it less painful for solos and elites to act while stunned because they have proportionately more hit points.

3. Unconscious
There's a 9th-level rogue daily that inflicts unconscious, but the target is no longer unconscious once it takes damage. I think this should be the general rule for unconscious.

4. The minor bug
For all powers that have "[Condition] until end of next turn" on a miss, the hit effect becomes "[Condition] until the end of next turn. Aftereffect: [Condition] (save ends)."

 

[eriktheguy]

Some thoughts:

1. Orb of Imposition
One pretty good house rule that I heard of was to only apply the penalty to the first save (alternatively, the penalty to saves only applies until the start of the wizard's next turn, in case the monster has extra saves or its allies can grant them).

I like this, I like it a lot. Nerfs the ability without trashing the need for a wisdom score, and still makes the orb very effective against solos without being game breaking.

2. Stunned
I'm for giving the stunned creature the option to do nothing (which is the same as current), or to pay a price to do something. The simplest approach may be for the creature to just take damage if it chooses to act. Something like: A stunned creature is dazed. In addition, if it takes any action, it takes damage equal to 10 + twice its level. This approach also makes it less painful for solos and elites to act while stunned because they have proportionately more hit points.

This works, but I think mine accomplishes the same thing.

3. Unconscious
There's a 9th-level rogue daily that inflicts unconscious, but the target is no longer unconscious once it takes damage. I think this should be the general rule for unconscious.

Sleep is built around making the target unconscious even while being attacked. It's basically a save or die. Other save or die abilities monster's have require two saving throws. I am going to edit unconscious for Solo's only to try to balance it.

4. The minor bug
For all powers that have "[Condition] until end of next turn" on a miss, the hit effect becomes "[Condition] until the end of next turn. Aftereffect: [Condition] (save ends)."

Well our house rules do the same thing to these abilities, I just like mine more because I like the idea of slowed, ongoing and combat advantage lasting longer.


thanks for these great ideas, I think I will yoink a few.

 

[eriktheguy]

"Rather than being unable to take actions, you lose one standard action each round. You may not make opportunity actions.
Now the stunned monster can still move, use minors, and blow action points. This makes a big difference for solos."

If you would do something like this, I would think you cannot do any standard actions. Thus you can spend an action point, but only for a move or minor action. Otherwise you really run into weird situations.

Actually that might be a good idea on Stunned, and would seem to fit as an extension to the dazed effect.

Dazed:
You can only perform 1 action, you grant combat advantage and cannot take opportunity actions or reactions

Stunned:
You can only perform one action but cannot perform standard actions, you grant combat advantage and cannot take opportunity actions or reactions.

This makes Stunned a logical progression from Dazed but would still allow some basic action. It would also gel well with extra status effects like immobilised or slowed instead of the case at the moment where stunned outshines everything as it in essence stops all actions.

The reason I made stun simply lose a standard action was intentionally so that solo monsters or players could spend action points to still get actions. It makes sense that even when you are knocked senseless you can use a surge of adrenaline to act anyways. The problem is that there is no real need for a condition that basically makes you lose a turn. This essentially grants your allies 5 more actions against Solos. With this alteration, stunned reduces the number of attacks the solo makes by 1. Stunning is still effective but less game-breaking.

 

[Stalker0]

Some thoughts:

1. Orb of Imposition
One pretty good house rule that I heard of was to only apply the penalty to the first save (alternatively, the penalty to saves only applies until the start of the wizard's next turn, in case the monster has extra saves or its allies can grant them).

Something you could to put the power of the orb between this version and the old version is to say: After a creature's successful save, you can apply a penalty to the save roll equal to your wisdom modifier.

I also do the same thing with the wand. You get the same "one save" mechanic, but the ability isn't necessarily wasted if the person would have failed the save anyway.

 

[eriktheguy]

Something you could to put the power of the orb between this version and the old version is to say: After a creature's successful save, you can apply a penalty to the save roll equal to your wisdom modifier.

I also do the same thing with the wand. You get the same "one save" mechanic, but the ability isn't necessarily wasted if the person would have failed the save anyway.

You know what? Yes. And thanks!