Stun/Paralysis effects

[Deset Gled]

I am also slightly disapointed about how the "do something every turn" philosophy is being flushed out (based on what we know so far). Even if we assume that every character must be able to do something each turn, I think there is a lot of gray area between fully-functioning and out-of-combat that isn't being fully used. For example, a stunned character could:

- Get a new roll each round to recover, possibly getting easier each round.
- Still be allowed to take AoOs and provide flanking bonuses (so they are still tactically important).
- Be stunned for 1 round only, minimizing down time.
- Be allowed a move action or standard action only, similar to 3.x's Slow.
- Be able to spend an action point (or whatever similar mechanic is used) to overcome the stunned condition.

Maybe some of these things will end up being used, but we really haven't heard much yet to let us know. I am also curious about how conditions like stunned and dazed will interact with being bloodied.

 

[Plane Sailing]

And beyond that, they need to try to beat the mindflayer while saving the stunned character. And that player is generally very engaged in watching and advising as his character hangs in the balance.

I'm interested that the player is able to advise while his character hangs in the balance - we would normally expect that if you were stunned or unconcious you can't give any advice because your character can't.

You're not being secretly gamist, are you? (Joke!)

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

You're not being secretly gamist, are you? (Joke!)

Now I'm imagining inquisitions to find all the people who are secretly gamist.

"What would you do if your character was able to defeat the monster and continue the campaign by using a fire attack against a creature who takes extra damage from fire but you haven't made the knowledge check? If you don't use it, it will likely be a TPK and everyone will have to make up new characters and start a new campaign. What do you do?"

 

[Intrope]

Now I'm imagining inquisitions to find all the people who are secretly gamist.

"What would you do if your character was able to defeat the monster and continue the campaign by using a fire attack against a creature who takes extra damage from fire but you haven't made the knowledge check? If you don't use it, it will likely be a TPK and everyone will have to make up new characters and start a new campaign. What do you do?"

Quote Belkar: "When in doubt, set something on fire!" and let it burn!

(Oddly, I had a Lawful Neutral Mage once that had roughly the same philosophy. Viva la difference! )

 

[I'm A Banana]

My favorite points:

#1: Bad things should happen to characters, not players. It's bad for a player if he can't play.

#2: Having bad things happening to characters is good. Having BORING things happening to characters is bad.

Oddly, this convo mirrors the "should PC's die?" debate pretty strongly. Death is like Paralysis Times A Million.

And the same reasoning is used: there are more interesting things for PC's to do than NOTHING.

Still, I am of the opinion that "dazed" is kind of weak sauce for the mind flayer. The idea should be not to penalize the PC, but to make them (and, to a lesser extent, the player) feel helpless. The idea is that you can't stop the twisting tentacles and the deadly embrace that leads to your horrific death. That's a potent little piece of drama, there, and 4e doesn't have it quite right. They give you the feeling of mental anguish, but not the feeling of helplessness that, IMO, makes the Mind Flayer truly frightening.

What might be good, taking into account the "Go To Jail" comparison in Monopoly, is if it paralyzes. Maybe even gradually in a kind of "Wisdom Damage" way, where it happens gradually.

BUT, because the character is still aware, they can try to "throw off" the paralyzation. They can still save against it while paralyzed (or, following the 4e model of Defenses, they can choose to roll their Defense instead of assuming Base 10). They might take a little bit of 'psychic' damage each round they try this. They might also spend an action point or a 'second wind' to automatically succeed on their save. They can choose to take a lot of damage (buckets o' hp lost) in exchange for throwing off the effect (very heroic!). They might elect to 'shut off' their mind, entering a rage-like state that ends with them being Dominated.

The idea is to keep the feeling of helplessness that total inaction gives the character (You can't run. You can't hide. You are totally exposed. Death is coming for you and you can't close your eyes) while still giving them some options, even at a cost. And that way, characters who are running low on hp, who don't have a second wind or an action point, who can't risk flying into a rage or being dominated after the fact....the risk of being totally helpless is still quite dramatically there.

Heck, I'd even be happy with the Mind Blast doing damage, with the special rule that if this damage 'drops' the character, they remain completely aware of their surroundings, but cannot act (they're paralyzed, not bleeding). That way, you're not any worse off for it, but it's a bit more horrific.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Panic sucks

It's a good thing Wizards is trying to avoid situations where the player can do nothing for a number of turns. In the game I ran a few days ago, I saw this first hand: one player was panicked by a ghost for 7 rounds, and another was hit with hold person for 6 rounds. The panicked player had absolutely no recourse, so she grabbed her knitting and stepped away from the table for a while. The player who was hit by hold person stayed and was very engaged with the way the battle went, just because he was rolling (and failing) a will save every round.

The first time the panic mechanic came up in my game, I immediately saw just how nasty it is, and how poorly thought out it is as a game mechanic.

For the flavor, it is great. "You are scared, run the hell away" is pretty simple to convey.

However, it basically makes the target a non factor because they have to spend X rounds running away, and X round running back. If the guy running away is an archer, and out in the open, it is not such a big deal. But if the guy running away is a melee type, or if you are in a building, he is gone for twice the duration of the effect. On top of that, most effects that can inflict it just do not allow a Save per Round to end it.

When you consider that D&D combat has never been especially fast to begin with, 14 or more rounds of not doing anything is a pretty long time to be doing nothing.

I do not have a whole lot of house rules in my campaign, but Panic is now an effect that grants a save each round.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Celebrim]

Why do we even have hit points?

Surely the argument that 'Bad things shouldn't happen to my character because it precludes me having fun' can be applied universally to any bad thing that can happen to a character? For example, you could attack and miss 10 times in a row too, and surely that wouldn't be fun either? You could die, and that's not fun either. Heck, you could fail a search check and miss out on cool treasure, and that's not fun either - especially if you learn about what you could have had later.

This whole definition of 'fun' is a rather subjective one. I'm rather skeptical of a social contract that requires 100% success, which is essentially what is being demanded at the end of the slope when you ask that your character never be useless. I can't help but think that there is a little bit of self-deception going on here, in so much as this level of expectation about what should be fun seems to me to be one created by the designers and the line about where we should stop bad things from hurting the character is set at some arbitrary level set by those designers and then vigorously defended by the community. Actually, that's probably true of both sides of the debate.

Why stop here? If its true that a player should always have the oppurtunity to contribute at all times, doesn't this logically preclude character death? Doesn't this logically preclude unconsciousness when you reach 0 hit points?

I'm inclined to think that what really bothers the opponent's of stunning, unconsciousness, paralyzation and the like is not in fact state of not being able to act itself, because they are fully willing (well, most of them) to accept some other effect (like losing hit points) that would put them below hit points. I don't really think many people here are really saying, "The potential to have my character to do nothing in a round is an absolutely bad thing", and if they are they better think carefully through the implications of that. Rather, I think this whole movement against 'stuns', 'panic', 'paralyzation', 'domination' and anything else that effectively takes away the player's choice for some period of time is actually motivated by how easily these effects occur and how few choices exist to actively defend against them.

But, just to jump on the bandwagon, me, I'm against drowning. Nothing is worse than drowning. Water is scarier than fire, because fire only consumes hit points. Water doesn't even give a saving throw.

 

[FireLance]

Surely the argument that 'Bad things shouldn't happen to my character because it precludes me having fun' can be applied universally to any bad thing that can happen to a character?

I thought the distinction between bad things happening to the character and bad (or boring) things happening to the player has already been made.

For example, you could attack and miss 10 times in a row too, and surely that wouldn't be fun either?

But at least the player got to make the attack rolls. In addition, even though he missed, he might have been able to contribute to the fight in other ways - by providing flanking (or combat advantage) to the rogue player, for example. I would also distinguish between missing ten times in a row because the player never rolled higher than an 8, and missing ten times in a row because the player needs to roll an 18 to hit. One seems like a extraordinary run of bad luck, while the other seems to be an extraordinarily tough challenge. Most people I know would not get upset at the former - it could happen to anyone, after all. How people react to the latter can be rather complex and dependent on playstyle assumptions, so I won't go into it here.

You could die, and that's not fun either. Heck, you could fail a search check and miss out on cool treasure, and that's not fun either - especially if you learn about what you could have had later.

The more I think about it, the more I think the issue is one of participation. Bad consequences are acceptable, no participation is not. PC death at the end of a ten-round combat in which the player (not necessarily the character) did something every round is fine. Relegating the player to being an observer with no input into the resolution (successful or otherwise) of a game scenario is not.

This whole definition of 'fun' is a rather subjective one. I'm rather skeptical of a social contract that requires 100% success, which is essentially what is being demanded at the end of the slope when you ask that your character never be useless.

However, if you frame "fun" as 100% participation instead of 100% success, you never get on that slope, any more than being able to participate in every round of a game of chess, or Hearts, or Monopoly guarantees success.

Why stop here? If its true that a player should always have the oppurtunity to contribute at all times, doesn't this logically preclude character death? Doesn't this logically preclude unconsciousness when you reach 0 hit points?

Not necessarily. If death or unconsciousness occurs at or near the end of an encounter, you still reach your objective if the player was an active participant for most of it. And even the player of an unconscious character may have something to do each round, such as stabilization or recover rolls.

I'm inclined to think that what really bothers the opponent's of stunning, unconsciousness, paralyzation and the like is not in fact state of not being able to act itself, because they are fully willing (well, most of them) to accept some other effect (like losing hit points) that would put them below hit points. I don't really think many people here are really saying, "The potential to have my character to do nothing in a round is an absolutely bad thing", and if they are they better think carefully through the implications of that. Rather, I think this whole movement against 'stuns', 'panic', 'paralyzation', 'domination' and anything else that effectively takes away the player's choice for some period of time is actually motivated by how easily these effects occur and how few choices exist to actively defend against them.

I think the basic proposition is that the potential for a player to have absolutely nothing to do in a round is a pretty bad thing, and it gets worse if it can happen at or near the start of an encounter, and will last for pretty much the rest of it. Allowing other characters to offset or negate the inactive character's condition does help, but it relies on the other players being willing and the other characters being able to do so (this is not necessarily a bad thing, though, as it could reward group play and co-ordination).

 

[kennew142]

Last Friday, my gaming group (level 14) spent 90 minutes on 6 rounds of combat. This isn't uncommon in 3e, especially at high levels. Being stunned for 3d4 rounds doesn't take the player out for half the combat. It takes the player out for the entire combat, and a considerable amount of real time.

I agree with the posters who've made the distinction between conditions that take the character out of action, and those that take the player out of action.

I disagree with posters who seem to be experiencing shadenfreude at the imminent death of tabletop rpg because it is becoming too much like a video game. This is pure supposition based on no facts. We've heard about the imminent death of tabletop rpg with each new gaming format. First it was video games, then computer rpgs, then collectible card games, and now games like WoW. It wasn't true then. It isn't true now. And there is no evidence that it will be true in the future.

 

[Henry]

I used to feel pretty strongly against the lessening of stun and paralysis effects; however, over time I've come to appreciate the argument that a player with no actions is a frequently bored or frustrated player. Hold person, stunning, etc. for a couple of rounds is one thing; however, having a player sit out an entire combat because of it is another matter completely. This also applies to situations where a given PC would not logically be a part of certain activities; in those cases, I'll often give the sitting-out players something to do, even if it's running NPCs in the opposition.

In a recent Star Wars game, the party split up to perform a two-pronged effort; two of the players went to hostage negotiation talks, while the rest of the group went to secretly free said hostages while the first two ran interference. The two players were at first expecting to sit half of the game out, but instead I gave them the NPC stats, and the levels of forces they were allowed, and let THEM run the hostage-takers! It was IMO one of the best game sessions we ever had, as they tried their level best to kill the rescuers by tactics and strategy, and the other players had fun fighting hard to win the victory. Meanwhile, we switched back occasionally to the diplomacy proceedings, ran a couple minutes with that, and went back to the action.

In a later session, (the final episode), one player character turned traitor on the group; another player character sacrificed his own life to kill the traitor; then I gave both of them the NPC thugs to run against the rest of the group in a climactic final battle. Again, the group really enjoyed it, because no one sat out, no one lost interest in the outcome, and regardless if it was a victory or a TPK, no one was left hanging.

The worst sin I ever committed as a DM years ago, was forcing a player to actually sit out the entire game session, because his character was physically in another location, and I couldn't realistically figure out how to get him back together with the group. He pretty much drove for two hours to a game he never played in, and I learned a valuable lesson about listening to ALL the player's needs, not just for what made a better story or was more realistic.

If a game mechanic forces a player to sit out doing nothing for an hour of real time, then it needs to be changed a bit, for that game session if nothing else. I wouldn't mind it if it was 5 or 10 minutes, maybe (heck, snack and restroom breaks take that long!) but when the effect in question takes longer than that, it really should be altered in some fashion to get them back in the game quicker -- or hand them an NPC and get that dice-hand rolling!