Stun is Fun

[unan oranis]

A lot of people seem to be bothered about the stun effect.

From what I can tell, the logic goes something like this:

"Being stunned = skipping a turn, which = not very fun, ergo stun is not very fun.
The whole point of playing is to have fun, so stun needs to be adjusted"

If you agree with that statement, please consider the following...

Death is a lot more penalizing than stun, should it be adjusted because it's not very fun to get killed? There can't be enjoyable rewards for success if there aren't painful concessions for failure.

It is true that stun gets handed out a lot more often than death, but think of the benefits...

#1. A fun and interesting turn for you.

It is *critical* to un-stun your ally, because he will have an empty, crappy turn if you don't.

The most basic process of saving your ally requires a move (possibly through dangerous territory), a standard action (heal check), and a significant risk (saving throw may fail). This is not a crappy, empty turn. This is a turn the stunned character would love to have instead of being skipped. This is a potentially dangerous and exciting turn.


#2. The focused fire tactic poses a significant threat of reducing the strategic element to a paint-by-numbers amount of thought process. With a stunned ally nearby, it may very well be worth breaking from focus fire to help your pal.

Movement and chaos in the battlefield also serves to bust up the focus fire - and every time someone gets stunned, a mini-objective is essentially thrown into the fray that encourages movement.

#3. Saving your ally is almost always a 100% effective use of your time and energy regardless of what round it is. Having your at-will, encounter and daily cards "dialed in" also poses a threat of becoming dull. Your routine/style can effectively be bumped a round, without a loss in effectiveness, by rescuing an ally. A stunned character provides an option to the other pc's, to go ahead with what they would normally do or to stall their technique for a benefit that is rarely sub-optimal.

#4. Instant death is largely muted in 4e. The cons are generally accepted to outweigh the pros (in 4e anyway), but there were a few good points about instant death; extreme danger can cause extreme tension and thrills. Stun can fulfill that roll while having decidedly less extreme consequences. My argument is that those consequences are not only palatable, but beneficial.

#5. Dishing out damage is fun for many players. There are classes that are better at it than others, and some players better at it than others. Some classes have a lot more powers that grant saving throws or shake effects, and some players get a bigger thrill out of helping/boosting their allies. Reducing stuns effectiveness reduces these classes and play styles ability to contribute as essentially as the ones that are stoked on damage. Stun is the power play, killing the power play can be just as fun as killing the monsters.


So if your group is finding stun to be a problem, I'd recommend running an encounter with a bunch of good-guy minions hanging back, holding their actions until they can run in and grant an ally a saving throw (a nice surprise, some ewok popping out of the bushes and racing over to help Blimblam the wizard).

There exists an opportunity to steal the fun back from stun, is what I'm saying.

If your players style routinely ignores the plight of their allies then perhaps it's time to use stun less often or swap in daze, but I think it would do your game no service to adjust this effect.

 

[Ryujin]

Being stunned too much = death = not fun

 

[Prestidigitalis]

It is, however, especially disappointing to bypass a big attack -- you know, the AoE encounter power with 4 enemies in the burst, for which you get CA this turn only -- in order to grant a stunned ally a save.

Which they fail.

 

[unan oranis]

Being stunned too much = death = not fun

Being hit too much = death = not fun?

 

[keterys]

A monster makes a single attack against you, doesn't crit, and you drop from full hp to dying. You're immune to heals until after you've lost a turn.

Okay, now I've actually done the equivalent of what a stun until end of next turn attack does to taking damage. Doesn't matter how hurt you are. No one can get you active again. Etc. That's why people get frustrated.

Okay, make it save ends instead - that's usually better - if you've got abilities that provide saves, you've got a decent 55% or so chance to turn things around. Yay Sacred Flame, Majestic Rescue, etc. If you're talking heal checks, then no, 'stunning' yourself by using your turn to Heal to give someone a 55% chance is totally inefficient.

Of course, if things end up such that the person is stunned for 2+ rounds due to failing saves, they might as well be watching TV.

As a player or DM, I _love_ to see high damage thrown around. Gets the healers excited, gets the players on the edge, gets everything going. But stun? Boring and annoying. Stun sucks. I don't even like stun when it's a PC stunning a monster.

Bring on the damage.

 

[unan oranis]

It is, however, especially disappointing to bypass a big attack -- you know, the AoE encounter power with 4 enemies in the burst, for which you get CA this turn only -- in order to grant a stunned ally a save.

Which they fail.

When you miss with a daily or encounter you end up further behind the ball then if you had helped your ally, even if he ends up missing his save.


Consider this; you go and have a turn rescuing your pal, he makes it, he goes. You end up with 1 turn for you, 1 turn for your buddy.

If you fail, you only get the one turn for you.

So the average of the rescue option would be higher than one turn for you. 1-2 turns on average is 1.5 turns.

The situation would have to be fairly advantageous to a power to pass on that option (which it often is).

You would have to decide for yourself, in the moment - one more layer of strategy added, not taken away.

 

[unan oranis]

-snip-
If you're talking heal checks, then no, 'stunning' yourself by using your turn to Heal to give someone a 55% chance is totally inefficient.
-snap-

This is the difference maker between our perspectives; you believe moving to an ally, making a heal check, and then letting them make a pretty serious saving throw is the equivalent of skipping your own turn.

When you miss an attack is that the same as being stunned? At least when "missing" a saving throw (a pretty easy hit compared to an attack roll) - you don't use up any of your powers.

 

[babinro]

The problem with stun is that it is simply overshadowed by Dominated. Dominated in effect, completely ruins the PC's turn while not taking away from their fun.

I would like to see stun far less frequently from both the PC and monster standpoints. Only appearing in rare cases such as an ancient dragons breath. Even then, limit it to until end of next turn. Have these creatures known for their abilities...much like how very few creatures can petrify.

Stun is pretty boring for players but also a DM. Depending on party mixture, bosses can be made quite dull as a result of enough of these debilitating attacks. Changing the nature of stun would probably be the best idea.

As an example: Stun: A creature who is stunned is both afflicted by the Dazed Condition and the Weakened condition.

Despite the above comments, I would not say that stun truly hurts the game. It is far from a 'save or die' like condition and there are often complete adventures in which high level PC's never even see it come up.

 

[Mengu]

The worst problem with stunned save ends is that getting extra saves doesn't eliminate the chance that you might fail your save. And when 2-3 people in the party get stunned, one of which is the leader, you are looking at a few skipped turns.

Dazed, immobilized, knocked prone, etc. already do a pretty good job of debilitating PC's. A dazed shaman, rogue, or fighter is usually in dire need of a save to be able to function again. So the usefulness of a bonus save is not diminished by taking away stun.

Sorry, stun is not fun as a player, and not fun as a DM.

 

[unan oranis]

The problem with stun is that it is simply overshadowed by Dominated. Dominated in effect, completely ruins the PC's turn while not taking away from their fun.

Interesting point, there is a little too much glee when my players are "forced" to attack one-another.

I would like to see stun far less frequently from both the PC and monster standpoints.
Only appearing in rare cases such as an ancient dragons breath. Even then, limit it to until end of next turn. Have these creatures known for their abilities...much like how very few creatures can petrify.

Many effects should be measured carefully before being dropped into the soup of a given campaign, dominate among them.

Though I would agree stun is the one to keep an eye on as it is among the most dangerous.

Stun is pretty boring for players but also a DM. Depending on party mixture, bosses can be made quite dull as a result of enough of these debilitating attacks. Changing the nature of stun would probably be the best idea.

I disagree, for all the reasons in my OP.

As an example: Stun: A creature who is stunned is both afflicted by the Dazed Condition and the Weakened condition.

A fair rule, for anyone not happy with stun as is... though will you also alter powers like knockout? I can't think of any monsters who can apply the unconscious effect in one hit, but petrification could for all intents and purposes "stun" a character for very many rounds, will you adjust it too?

Despite the above comments, I would not say that stun truly hurts the game. It is far from a 'save or die' like condition and there are often complete adventures in which high level PC's never even see it come up.

I think it is a dangerous condition, one of the areas where the "fool-proofing" is thinnest, but an rpg of this scope needs some tools of that caliber, IMO.