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Dazed and Confused

It has been a while since I’ve been able to play any D&D, but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about it every day. Something that I’ve made a stink about in the past and which still tweaks my nerves is the subject of the conditions labeled “Dazed” and “Stunned.” I think I may have come up with some changes that are more fair to players at the table, but still manage to be the hinderances they were meant to be.

I’ve spent the past few weeks thinking about this issue, and I am presenting my proposals to the web-at-large for opinions. I’m sure there will be people who will say that Dazed and Stunned are fine and that they should be left as-is. It’s fine if you feel that way, but I immediately hated Stunned when one of my monsters stunned one of my players, and he spent the rest of the combat skipping his turn with a frown on his face. No person, DM or player, should have to skip their turn. It’s clearly not fun when it happens to someone on Wheel of Fortune. It’s even less fun when you’re playing a casual game with a bunch of friends and no stakes on the line.

That said I’m looking for feedback. I haven’t been able to playtest these variant conditions, so I have no clue if they hit a sweet spot between bringing fun back into the game (on both sides because let’s face it, if you’re a DM who has had his/her solo beholder stunned, you know how it feels to be a meatsack punching bag too) and keeping the value of powers that have conditions. Here are my proposals:

Dazed:

  • You grant combat advantage
  • You are Slowed (save ends)
  • You can’t shift
  • You can take a move and either a standard action or a minor action. You cannot take immediate actions or opportunity actions
  • You can’t flank an enemy

Confused (replaces Stunned):

  • As Dazed; in addition:
  • You gain Vulnerable 5 All
  • You may not use a minor action
  • You may only use basic melee or basic ranged attacks
  • You must use your standard action to attack a random target, including allies, within reach, range, or within your current speed. If you are currently wielding a melee weapon, and cannot reach your target, you must move up to your current speed to that target, even if it provokes opportunity attacks

Originally, Dazed only allowed you to take a single action, choosing between a move, standard or minor. There was no change to your Speed. In the proposed change your Speed becomes 2 via Slowed, but you are also allowed to move up to those 2 squares while having the chance to attack. This slowing effect has its own saving throw. Therefore, even if you remove the Dazed condition, you must still contend with being Slowed. The rest of this condition remains unchanged.

Stunned is a depressing condition. When you are stunned you are basically told that you may sit quietly in the corner and do nothing while everyone else plays the game. Dazed isn’t terrible, but Stunned is categorically un-fun. This proposal completely replaces the Stunned condition in the game. Formerly, the power was identical to Dazed (you grant Combat Advantage and you cannot Flank) with the difference being that you couldn’t take any actions at all. With the Confused condition the effects still build on the revamped Dazed condition, but add in a vulnerability to all damage types (because you’re in shock and aren’t going to be able to avoid an attack very well). You are also still able to move (albeit slowly) while also being able to roll dice on your turn. Of course, you never know who you’re going to hit, but at least you get to do something. (I have debated adding in an allowance for using at-will powers in addition to basic attacks. A player would need to decide what attack to perform before randomly choosing a target under this addtion. What do you think?)

I stumbled onto this idea while playing Dragon Age II. During a load screen one of the “tips” spoke about the game’s conditions: Staggered, Disoriented and Brittle. Staggered and Disoriented sound like much more interesting roleplaying conditions than Stunned. The original Dazed condition isn’t too bad, but in order to make a smoother change to Stunned the change to Dazed is necessary. I see this new Dazed proposal as more along the lines of a Staggered feel. The proposed Confused replacing Stunned runs along the same line as Disoriented.

What do you think? Would a change to conditions in 4th Edition make for a more enjoyable experience? Do these changes strike the balance between powerful and fair? Are these proposals something you would consider in your own game? Would you change them before introducing them? Talk back to me in the comments below.

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This entry was posted Tuesday, 14 June, 2011 at 7:30 am
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About

AlioTheFool has been "around" D&D for 25 years, going back to the old "Red Box." However, having no one to play with, he simply spent ridiculous amounts of time creating worlds, adventures, and stories. After a D&D "vacation" from high school until around 10 years ago, Neverwinter Nights brought AlioTheFool back to the game. A few years later he found his way to the tabletop via the D&D Miniatures game. As that game wound down from official support, he bought a 4e starter set and gave the game another shot. After being invited by a fellow Minis game player to join his home 4e game, he progressed from player to now DM.

9 Responses to “Dazed and Confused”

  • I did something similar:

    I changed dazed to either slowed or weakened (Depending on what seemed more appropriate) and grants combat advantage.

    I changed stunned to slowed AND weakened AND combat advantage. I feel like taking away immediate/opportunity actions would be fair as well, but possibly too confusing.

    I also have forgone dominate. Slyflourish wisely pointed out that “Slide 5 and make an at-will attack” as the effect of a monster power is just as good as dominate and doesn’t take away the player’s action, so I immediately switched to that.

    This is all stuff I do behind the DM’s screen so my players are unburdened with my tweaks and I am free to further fine tune or even reverse my changes if i so desire. If I find a way that works, I may propose permanent house rules in future campaigns so the players are similarly less able to disable.

Badwe on June 14th, 2011 at 9:13 am

  • @Badwe I like the idea of Weakened. I had forgotten about it. I’ll have to think about that. I like the idea of Vulnerable because if you’re “stunned” you’re really just standing there stupified, and aren’t paying attention to incoming attacks. Perhaps rather than restrict the standard action, any action is available and the character suffers the Weakened effect. In this case, would the random target be removed, and allow the character to take actions normally? Thanks for the contribution!

AlioTheFool on June 14th, 2011 at 9:22 am

  • I like your conditions, but I worry that they may be overly complex. The biggest thing that stands out to me is that becoming Dazed (or Confused) inflicts the Slowed condition on you, with a duration that will likely differ from the duration of the base condition. This carries with it a few problems.

    1. People at the table often forget conditions (both negative and positive) that they are under, in my opinion. This is rarely intentional, but it happens. Saving throws are forgotten all the time. If a player is dazed for one round, and that causes the player to be slowed (save ends), it’s a little confusing because a single condition introduces two separate durations that have to be tracked.

    2. Suddenly, powers that daze, even for one round, are better than powers that slow in pretty much all cases. You’re going to have a lot of encounter powers, and maybe even some at-wills, that cause a save ends slowed condition. This introduces balance concerns.

    3. I’m not sure I understand the differing durations from a story perspective. Virtually every power that inflicts multiple conditions (with few exceptions) ties them to a single saving throw, because it is both simpler and makes sense thematically. I’m not sure how the slowed condition frequently outlasting the dazed condition makes thematic sense.

    Also, one thing about being confused: combining the granting of combat advantage with vulnerability 5 all makes that character extremely susceptible to monsters that deal extra damage with combat advantage. While this is not necessarily a bad thing (and may not come up in some encounters), there are probably plenty of times where the character will get confused, then quickly dropped, resulting in a de facto stun.

Brian Engard on June 14th, 2011 at 12:18 pm

  • @Brian Engard You’re probably right about Slowed. I know there was a specific reason why I put the (Save Ends) in it, but now I can’t remember what it was. Having multiple conditions is a pain to track.

    To your last point, sure, there will be times that Vulnerable 5 turns out to be painful and puts down a character. However, there has to be a counter-balance for the fact that the character would now be able to attack and cause damage, where they’d just be soaking up damage with no retailiation in the original Stunned scenario. The net effect is that the character will get in a bit of damage rather than none at all, but shouldn’t get much. The key to the change is to allow players to not have to sit idly by while everyone else gets a turn.

AlioTheFool on June 14th, 2011 at 12:52 pm

  • I personally believe that the problem with Stunned is not what it does to your players, but rather how your players deal with it.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but my interpretation of the PHB is that players get to make a saving throw versus Stunned, no? Sure, they don’t get to do anything on their turn except save, but I argue that isn’t the problem.

    D&D is a team sport, co-operative game, shared adventure, whatever you want to call it. An effective, co-operative group of players should be able to easily overcome the challenge of having one player Stunned.

    First, look at the leader in the party. By level 2 a Cleric has two powers that can grant saving throws: Sacred Flame and Divine Aid. By level 3 a Warlord also has two options: Shake it Off and Inspiring War Cry. This is just the base classes in the PHB1; I’m sure this trend continues in the other books. Thus, a balanced party should have the ability to negate any combat condition very quickly in their character progression.

    In D&D, as in life, good leaders need to balance their own desires with those of the people they lead. They have to effectively manage the people around them to attain the ideal level of performance. The leader in your party needs to be conscious of this. If a player has been stunned, they shouldn’t have to sit there until the end of their next turn, hoping to make a save. The leader needs to take control of this situation and give that player an extra chance to get back into things(via granting a bonus saving throw). Even if it costs the leader their Standard Action(and steals some of their ‘fun’ some might argue, since people like to kill things)it really is their job. By taking on the leader role, you’ve assumed a particular area of responsibility in your group. So, when the time comes, suck it up, skip your attack and do your job.

    **It is worth mentioning that Sacred Flame and Inspiring War Cry actually allow the leader to attack and grant a saving throw(everybody wins)and that Shake It Off only requires a Minor Action**

    Second, look at the whole party. Any character can grant a saving throw to an ally by using their Standard Action to attempt a DC 15 Heal check. Even an untrained character with no WIS modifier has a 25% chance of succeeding at this. Sure, you have to give up the chance to attack something, but if it was you sitting there Stunned and out of the game, wouldn’t you want someone to ‘take one for the team’ as it were? If the whole party rallied around the Stunned PC for a round, there is a chance that the player would have 4 bonus saving throws, plus their own roll on their initiative. I’m no math geek, but I think the odds of rolling ten or better on a d20 if you get five chances at it are pretty solid.

    The problem that Stunned really brings up is the general lack of co-operation at the table. We, as players, are far more likely to be a collection of individuals instead of an integrated team. After all, it’s just a game and we are playing it for our own amusement first. But if you immerse yourself into the game for a minute, you realize how ridiculous it is that an adventuring party would not go out of their way to help each other, especially in a case like this. In real life, if a bunch of Navy Seals are on a mission and one of their team members gets Stunned by a flash grenade, do you really think they all just let the soldier stand there while they go about their own business? Of course not. They protect their ally first because they know they need everyone in the fight to accomplish their mission. D&D is exactly the same; your best plan for success is to have everyone contributing.

    My advice/opinion is this: you shouldn’t change the rules around Stunned. You should use it as a way to teach your players that they have to co-operate. The next time a player makes a face at you because they’ve been Stunned for two rounds, point out to them that their fellow players have plenty of ways to help them out. While it is the job of a DM to bend the rules to encourage fun, a DM shouldn’t have to break or remake those rules because the players are suffering because they can’t/won’t or don’t co-operate.

    I wouldn’t want to play with anyone who would just let someone else sit there and stare at the Battlemat because they put their own fun ahead of the group’s. And neither should you.

Steve on June 14th, 2011 at 1:49 pm

  • I’m fine with leaving them as is, but I can understand how Stunned is full of suck. How about this if Stunned (save ends) is bumming out you’re table. PC becomes stunned (save ends). PC makes the save, it goes away. If the PC fails the save, they become dazed until the end of their next turn. That puts a cap on how long the suck remains. I do know how a series of bad saves can ruin an encounter. A fellow player was once removed from play(save ends) for 8 rounds. The encounter was also designed for him to get vengeance on the Mad Wizard who killed his family. Luckily on round nine, he stormed back and struck the killing blow.

Gurban on June 14th, 2011 at 2:29 pm

  • @Steve I appreciate you taking the time to comment. Personally, I really like the guys in my group. During a game though, they don’t think about teamwork, and I don’t feel they should have to. It’s their game time to use as they choose. That’s the beauty of the game, really; the ability to play any way you’d like. (As long as selfishness doesn’t impose on another’s fun.)

    You do bring up an interesting viewpoint. A Leader’s responsibility is to help his “subordinates” through the tough fights. One issue with my group is that no one wants to play the Leader role. There are 4 guys plus me as DM, and they play strikers, controllers and defenders. I give them a Companion Character that is little more than a healbot to cover the “Leader” role in the 5th slot.

    I actually do agree with you that players should cooperate and work together. I would never ask a player to just sacrifice a turn in the fight for the chance that they might help a companion rejoin the fight though. What if the saving throw fails? Now two players are stuck doing nothing while the enemies continue to press the attack. (Again, the Leader role isn’t one anyone is interested in playing, and I’m not interested in forcing.)

    That’s not counting a DM’s Solo creature that gets Stunned as well. A BBEG can be Stunned and just becomes a fleshy pinata filled with XP. I’ve been there. It’s both boring and frustrating.

    My players don’t really immerse themselves. One of the players and myself are big on the roleplaying aspect of the game, but the others tend more to be looking to “Kill Things, Steal Their Loot, Rinse, Repeat” and that’s fine with me. The roleplayer is actually the guy who had the worst Stun experience, and I felt awful watching him sitting there the whole fight. He never complained, but the disappointed look on his face was too much to handle.

    @Gurban As I said in the beginning of the post, I knew there would be people who are fine with Stunned as a condition. Your solution is good if you want to keep the Stunned condition in the game. It still doesn’t hit that sweet spot of allowing a player to do something on his/her turn though. Thanks for the comment!

AlioTheFool on June 14th, 2011 at 2:46 pm

  • I agree with Steve. By the time a DM is going to whip out stunned (save ends), the party should be equipped to handle it. The other side of that coin is that a DM shouldn’t use stunned (save ends) until the party is prepared for it.

    That said, I can understand a specific group that shuns leaders and is more interested in the action than the tactics. Nothing wrong with low-stress head-bashing with your buds on a Friday night. That said, I think you want to specify that to begin with. You’re not wanting to alter stun/dazed because the mechanics are unfun, but rather because your group is not interested in that kind of fun.

    And in that case, I think you might find it more effective to just not use monsters that daze/stun save ends. Brian pointed out a lot of possible issues with your current mechanics. In addition, adding vulnerability significantly changes the stun power. It is no longer a defensive move but an offensive one, since Dude A can stun an opponent and then let Dudes B-E wail on the target for much more damage (especially if Dude B is a multiattacking ranger or something similar). There’s also the issue of random attacks, which can be gamed in some cases, confusing in others, and nonsensical. A party fights a dragon, and all of a sudden the battle-hardened Fighter can’t tell the scrawny Rogue from the 10 ton firebreathing reptile? Not buying it.

    All of those issues and more can be resolved by simply avoiding the conditions instead of trying to alter them. Especially for your group, Weakened may just be a more interesting condition, so maybe you want to use a monster who has a stun, but you switch it with a weaken. And so on. I suspect you’ll run into fewer unforeseen consequences.

Juzaba on June 20th, 2011 at 12:30 pm

  • @Juzaba I’d argue that there are some groups that are never ready for Stunned. I’ve seen enough people complain on Twitter to know that this isn’t just a problem in my own group. Honestly, I’d have never posted this if I wasn’t sure others were having problems with it.

    As for lack of a leader, that wasn’t even on my mind until someone pointed out. Honestly, I have my opinions on the “Leader” role and what place they have, but that’s mostly unrelated to the topic.

    Outright banning “Stunned” or any condition isn’t necessarily something I’m looking for. I believe in playing by the same book as the players. If they’re allowed to do something, so are the enemies. One of my players has used Stun on my monsters (most notably a beholder solo who became nothing more than a floating speed bump). It’s not fun for a DM to sit around while the party just plays pinata with his hand-selected baddies either. If I remove Stunned from the enemies in the game, then I have to tell the players that any powers, items, etc. with Stun effects are no longer available either.

    I understand your interpretation of the dizzying effect, but my idea behind the random target would be that you’re completely disoriented, and you’re just really swinging wildly while you stagger around the battlefield. It’s definitely something I need to consider revising if it’s confusing though.

    Thanks for your input!

AlioTheFool on June 20th, 2011 at 1:57 pm

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