Reflex Save when stunned

[dshai527]

I don't know how this has never come up before in my games, but just running through a few scenarios I realize that I don't know if a stunned character is allowed a reflex saving throw or not.

From the SRD

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).

I see no specific mention after my grueling 2 second search so I thought I woudl be lazy and just ask.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Sadly, an answer is never given. By the RAW, it's just as easy for a Stunned character to dodge a dragon's breath weapon than a normal person, even if the character can do very little to get out of the way of a giant's boulder being hurled at them. (Unless the boulder is part of a trap, in which case it would be a Reflex save, thus allowing them to easily bypass it despite their stunned state.)

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Realism and common sense would suggest that there should be a penalty. But the D&D genre is about creating tales of fantastic victories ans survival against the odds, so that kind of realism has no place in D&D IMHO.

From a balance POV, Stun is one of the nastier things that can happen to a character short of actual death, petrification, paralysis, etc. No need to make the character trivially killed by Fireballs, too.

 

[diaglo]

perhaps the designers took the reflex part literally.

autonomic nerve response.

you don't even have to be awake for your knee to kick out when struck by a mallet.

 

[dshai527]

Thanks guys.

It just seems wierd that a cleric could cast sound burst on a rogue to stun him, but it would be better for the cleric to go up and twack him than cast flamestrike from a distance. The rogue can't act, but can still evade.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

It just seems wierd that a cleric could cast sound burst on a rogue to stun him, but it would be better for the cleric to go up and twack him than cast flamestrike from a distance. The rogue can't act, but can still evade.

Yup. As a practical matter this choice never comes up for the Cleric himself because the Rogue is no longer stunned when the Cleric gets his next action. If Rogues were to lose their Evasion, they would fall like wheat against a Cleric + Wiz/Sor team.

 

[dshai527]

Thanks for the catch about not being stunned for the next cleric action...it was more for multiple clerics or wizards like you point out.