Ref saves while blinded and stunned

[moritheil]

Blinded: The character cannot see. He takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class, loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), moves at half speed, and takes a –4 penalty on Search checks and on most Strength- and Dexterity-based skill checks. All checks and activities that rely on vision (such as reading and Spot checks) automatically fail. All opponents are considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) to the blinded character. Characters who remain blinded for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them.

Stunned: A stunned creature drops everything held, can’t take actions, takes a –2 penalty to AC, and loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any).


Apparently there is no penalty to ref saves while one is blinded and stunned. I say this because a villain hit my party with a Color Spray and followed it up with a Burning Hands, and none of us could find any indication that our Ref saves were penalized (despite nearly everyone being blind, clutching at their eyes, dropping their weapons, etc.)

I'm pretty sure this is right, but can I get a verification?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Yup. No penalty to the Reflex save for being Blinded or Stunned.

 

[Crothian]

saves are remarkable resistant to being lost

 

[sukael]

It seems more like a metagame balance factor than in-game reasoninig--it keeps players from mass stunning and mass blinding enemies and then frying them completely with Reflex-save spells.

 

[Sejs]

As far as I understand it there's not even a penalty to your reflex saves for being asleep.

 

[Crothian]

Hey, rogues can take no damage from being inside a fireball...lots of the game really doesn't make sense when analyzed

 

[sukael]

It does, but only indirectly.

A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent’s mercy. A helpless target is treated as having a Dexterity of 0 (-5 modifier). Melee attacks against a helpless target get a +4 bonus (equivalent to attacking a prone target). Ranged attacks gets no special bonus against helpless targets. Rogues can sneak attack helpless targets.

 

[Mouseferatu]

This is one of those areas where I'm a strong believer in the DM trumping the RAW.

If someone's blind in my campaign, and they have to make a Reflex save, you better believe they're getting a penalty (though they can certainly still try to make the save). Likewise being stunned.

I don't believe the DM can ever take personal judgment out of the equation, no matter how thorough the rules might be.

But you're right, regarding the RAW.

 

[dungeon blaster]

If their dex bonus is 0 for being stunned, wouldn't they possibly suffer a penalty to their reflex save (assuming that they have a dex mod of +1 or more)?

There's contradictory information on this. The rulebooks state that there must be a way for you to move out of the way for there to be a reflex save, yet it also says that you can make a ref save regardless of the situation. The FAQ agrees with the latter statement. Personally, I would give the character a huge penalty but allow the save. I don't see a problem with blinding and stunning to lower ref saves as a valid tactic....it makes complete sense.

Sometimes you gotta put common sense ahead of rules.

 

[Celebrim]

If their dex bonus is 0 for being stunned, wouldn't they possibly suffer a penalty to
their reflex save

Your DEX is 0 if you are helpless. A stunned character is not helpless.

A DEX bonus is not the same as a DEX score. If you have a 0 dexterity score, your dex bonus is -5.

Saves are just too important to the game, and stunned is just a too common condition for it to affect your Reflex saves. It's a balance issue.