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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by RPG Bloggers Network, DMSamuel. DMSamuel said: My post about our tweet conversation yesterday, stun/dominate and winning the game: http://tinyurl.com/23b5km3 #dnd #rpg [...]

Good questions, personally I feel that dominating creatures are rare enough that I would leave that in. As you said there is plenty of opportunity to roleplay the situation. When asked by the dominated player which ally they are attacking, its really fun for the DM when you can say “oh, I don’t know, why don’t you pick.”

Stun is a much harder decsion. I’ve been on the fun-killing, receiving end of stun both as a player and a DM. It may be as simple as replacing any power that says ‘stun’ with ‘dazed.’ That way powers till work, but affected creatures aren’t completely useless. It may throw off the power cost a bit, but if done across the board may not be big of an issue. Or maybe its like Dazed, but only move and/or minor actions can be used.

Simple solutions to a silly problem: Healing Surge to remove an effect. Remember a lot of monsters have Healing Surges, too, despite no second wind.

Add them in just for the players to use against the monsters.

As you said you have more than enough to do as the DM. Being the DM usually mean never having to be bored. While even players that are not stunned have to wait from 5 – 10 minutes before its their turn again.

You may also want to consider changing stun, making it more like a state of confusion. Perhaps they consider then slowed and have a chance that they target gets switched to the nearest party member (perhaps on an odd die roll). So the player may decide if he or she wants to risk hitting a party member. This is a lot more fun than losing a turn.

JesterOC

My comments regarding this:

http://bit.ly/9OeoYg

Wow everyone, great comments! I guess I hit a hot button with this issue? It must be on more minds than just my own. Let me try to address each one of you separately:

@The Twixt: Interesting, so an ally could use heal to give a +2 to save, but not use their own standard (use it as a minor). This sounds good, but if the player still fails their save it puts them out for another round. I like the idea regarding skills though. I already let the PCs make knowledge checks to ID monsters as a minor action anyway, so it does match some of my own style already implemented in game. I’ll have to think on it.

@Rob Sanderson: This, so far, is the best option that I can see working in my games. It satisfies all the conditions of my conundrum.

@DieMacher: Interesting, good idea – shift stun into the dazed category. The thing is, I would just not pick powers that stun then, so it’s really like taking stunned out of the game. So really, I would be taking it out of monster powers and am left with the same question.

@Rev. Lazaro: Also a good idea – I already do a couple of “strange” things with healing surges, so this could either fit right in, or make it seem like surges are too fiddly. Hmmm, I’ll have to think on this as well.

@Klee Baker: Yes, please try and find the post and comment here – I’m interested in reading the rationale behind it.

@JesterOC: You’re just saying that because you are in my game :) Seriously though, good idea, something to think about.

@Geek Ken: I have thought about giving them a save at the beginning of a turn, but some classes (I’m thinking of the Warden) already have that and giving it to everyone would be like cheating that class (or PC that took that power). In terms of damage output, I have been tweaking dmg and defenses of the monsters since the third session. My players are very tactical and I had to do that to keep the challenge at an appropriate level. I was really relieved to see the changes in MM2 and then MM3 because it meant that I was doing something right :)

@Dean: Oooh, now that is a good idea. Make stun like an Uber-Daze, giving a penalty, but not taking the players out of the game. Hmmm.

Lots of good stuff here. I’ll have to think on it and decide which is best for my various groups. Every gaming group is different, and my DMing style changes a little bit depending on the makeup of the group and the personalities of the players.

Thanks everyone for commenting!

I think things like Stun and Dominate need to be in the game. They’re the “oh crap” equivalent of 3e’s level drain – when you see a monster toting stun or dominate, it’s a clear indication that that monster needs to die fast.

Having said that, I think it’s beholden on the DM to minimise the fun-killing aspect of the conditions. Don’t use them too often, and when you do, try to think of something the player can do while they’re out of action. Give them the minions to control, or a brute or a soldier – something they can happily bash the others with, but which isn’t giving them too much tactical knowledge to use against you.

I like Dixon’s approach. In our game last night we came across some DM frustration with our use of Dominate and Dazed. It made for a pretty good story and the long term effects were pretty minor, but I understand the frustration…it appears as if the players just run roughshod over the enemies. But I also agree that it’s no fun to be denied your actions as player. Even with all the house rules and suggestions, combat still takes a long time, and its hard to stay engaged if there’s nothing to do.

I like the idea of the threat of it, without it actually happening (like level drain). You can change Dominate power into something like the Psion’s “Betrayal” where the NPC makes the player move & basic attack an ally but still allows him to take some or all his actions on his turn.

As a point of clarification, my player has taken some hits for this conversation, but he shouldn’t. He didn’t say a word. It was me who had the problem with stunning him.

Dean (@ArcaneSpringboard) posted the following link above, and I really like his solution. Check it out: http://bit.ly/9OeoYg

While I think it’s a great idea and it’s been suggested elsewhere to have other characters use actions to help the PC succeed at the save, it presents another problem. Now two players are wasting turns dealing with an effect. The key is to never have a turn where a player is completely idle. Maybe they aren’t “being heroic” every round, but every round should present an opportunity to do something.

I and @countingku discussed healing surges being burned to allow a PC to break a stun/dominated effect. The problem with just one is that it doesn’t present enough penalty for breaking out. My suggestion, inspired by @gamefiend is to have the player burn 1d4+1 surges. This presents a risk to remove the effect. You get to keep the effect in the game for both monsters and PCs, but you present an option that allows them an out. Then it’s up to the player to determine whether the cost/benefit is worthwhile.

Or, if multiple healing surges is too much, what if a PC could burn a healing surge to move up one notch on the Will effect chain? The same idea as saves on the disease chain. If you’re stunned, as a free action spend a healing surge to become dazed, which allows you one action this turn. Fail your save, move back a step to stunned and repeat next turn. (Writing this now, I think I actually really like this option.)

In my game I make Stun and Dominate progressive effects. Instead of the usual first failed save makes the condition worse, I make it a little better. After the first failed save against stuns and dominations it becomes dazed. At the end of the next turn the player recovers, no saving throw needed. Not all conditions need to get worse; heroes can slowly regain strength of will, it just takes a little longer for some and instead of being stunned or dominated they are dazed. Another quick focus on collecting themselves and they’re right as rain.

I actually considered something like Dean mentioned regarding Stunned. Dazed plus Weakened sounds like a good re-definition of Stunned. In that case, I wouldn’t give the option of spending healing surges to escape the effect. The player still has the option of acting on his or her turn.

To be clear, I don’t really have an issue with Dominated. The player still gets to act on their turn, and it serves as a great role-playing opportunity. My only issue is a round where a PC is alive and cannot act (Stunned.) Unconscious kind of bites too, but I don’t know how one would get around that (and without it there’s very little need for a Leader anymore, not to mention it replaces just being Dead.)

This is indeed a conundrum for sure. Some of the things included here might be slightly off topic to the blog post but I feel it is a necessary discussion. As a player and a DM, being out for a round or two can be very frustrating. On the same token, while players get frustrated and the fun factor starts to drain when these conditions are applied, there are several player powers that have these affects, that the players will use or at times, OVERUSE whenever they can. Like SarahdarkMagic said above, the DM can be drained of fun as well.

Ask yourself this, why is the player(s) dominated or stunned? Were they reckless and jumped into the thick of things because they like hack and slash and didnt assess the situation? Did the party not come together tactically and everyone is doing whatever they want? If this is the case, why should the players be “rewarded” for screwing up and remove conditions and such?

Everyone can have a bad night, have bad dice rolls, or they could have an awesome night of dice rolling, however the players Ive seen, cant take the bad with the good and start to whine about it being unfair. Like I mentioned on twitter, players cant expect to skate through everything and always come out on top. There will be some encounters/situations that they are not meant to succeed at. I feel that there has to be repercussions or rewards for their actions.

For monsters, those powers are or at least should be encounter or daily powers. An at-will dominate, while it does suck, makes for great role playing aspects and adds a bit of morality. Dominate a good aligned player and watch them cringe. LOL.

While everyone likes to have fun during play, those ideas of fun can be so widespread that it can be hard for a DM to accommodate them all, ALL of the time. What I also find frustrating, that with the varying degree of ideas of fun, some players enjoy only certain parts of the game and refuse to partake in others like skill challenges, role playing or whine about conditions and take joy in dishing the conditions with no thought about the DM. They just roll the dice, say the power they are using and roll for damage if its a hit. To me as a player and a DM, that isnt very fun either. It can also be frustrating when a player isnt ready on their turn and take several minutes ho humming about what they want to do. Why not use the “downtime” between turns to observe what the rest of the party is doing and strategize in your head about how you would like to act. I dont see how that could be boring even if stunned. “Well crap, Im stunned, I cant move or act”, why cant I talk and direct the party to some weak spots I see on the monster, or sing, or something entirely out of the norm than sit there and pout.

I dont think it should fall on the DM in every instance when these conditions are applied for the player to be entertained.

Some of the ideas presented here do have merit but I would not remove these conditions from the game. Im not a fan of using a surge to get rid of the effect entirely, but I do like the 1d4+1 surges but increase with the tiers to maybe 2d4+2 and 3d4+3 respectively. I also like the idea of the condition getting progressively better.

With the group I was in, the fear of a dominate or stun wouldnt matter cause they would just do it back ten-fold. However, it could work in other groups.

OK, I think Ive rambled enough for now.

No, your math is wrong.

One roll doesn’t influence the other. The two rolls are treated as two individual, separate events, so they each have 55% chance of success.

There is no case where you could add that together and get a 110% chance to save because each is treated as a singular event not influencing the outcome of the other.

The only way you can calculate and stack percentages like that is if you are drawing something out of a finite pool, when you take one thing out, it influences the chances of drawing the stuff left in the bag.

It sounds great though! LOL

I do like the idea of letting the player use a minor action to immediately roll a save.

@DM Samuel: While Opportunist was wrong to add the percentages together, he is right that by adding another saving throw roll, the chances of successfully escaping the condition increase.

In scenario one (a save only at the end of round 1), a player gets one chance to make a save with a 55% chance of success. Therefore, their chance of ending the condition in round 1 is 55%

In scenario two (an immediate save and another save at the end of round 1), the player gets two chances over the same time period. They are only still stunned if they fail both saves. The chance of failing both rolls is 45% x 45% = 20.25%. The player’s chance of succeeding on one of the rolls is therefore 79.75%.

Adding the extra chance to save infinitely increases the chance of avoiding the condition altogether (0% vs 55%) and significantly increases the player’s chance to throw off the condition by the end of round one (55% vs 79.75%).

You’re thinking of the gambler fallacy, which doesn’t apply until after the dice have started rolling.