Dazing: What is immune to it?


Rules Questions


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

In a campaign where the DM is trying to limit out crit/mind effect/spell casting/etc by loading us up on golems, undead, outsiders, etc.

My feats are Heighten, Intensify, Persistent, Piercing, Spell focus evo, Greater focus evo, spell penetration, and great penetration. Recently got Dazing metamagic rods so wanting to start the dazing madness. However the rules on immunities for dazing are not so clear.

For example constructs are immune to mind-affecting effects, stunning, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain, or nonlethal damage. But nothing about daze no one things ok maybe so. That perhaps this is a physical delay like being stopped in your tracks.

I'm sure there are some limitations, i just want to figure out what those are.


No types of creature get immunity to Dazing. Individual monsters might have it, but no broad categories get it.

It's a great form of CC--use it, rely on it.


Thanks, that's good to know!

(Shameless bump so that more people read this useful answer.)


mplindustries wrote:

No types of creature get immunity to Dazing. Individual monsters might have it, but no broad categories get it.

It's a great form of CC--use it, rely on it.

When explaining this to my GM how would I say "look I know this is immune to well.. everything else but its not immune to this"?

I mean for example how would it effect:
- An animated object
- A vampire
- An iron golem
- An air elemental
- Clockwork warrior

Just trying to get this nailed down before its an issue.


It would work on all of them.

It works on undead and constructs as long as:
A) It's not a fort save
B) It's not mind-affecting
C) It's not specifically listed as an immunity.

Some sources of daze are mind-affecting, and thus doesn't work, but Dazing Metamagic is not listed as such, so it would work fine (I personally think it's a little broken, but these are the rules. Just be careful your GM doesn't throw stuff at you when you start putting the lockdown on everything that moves).

Also remember that some constructs have outright immunity to magic that allows SR, so that could still foil Dazing Spell unless you use a spell that disallows SR for Dazing purposes.


Aww man, I thought you said Danzig. Nothing is immune to Danzig.

Paizo Employee Publisher, Chief Creative Officer

Yeah, I thought it said Danzig too.

Sovereign Court

Creatures with the Behemoth subtype are somewhat more resilient against it (recover from Dazed at end of turn), but that's the only case I know of.


Before I restate this post exactly as Grayfeather, how does this work?, hopefully in the form of a FAQ response, I will blatantly Necro this thread.

I have Dazing metamagic, a spell that does damage, and use it on a Lich.

My GM said, "its a minor form of stun, undead are immune to stun. Besides that, its a magic spell effect causing it, so its the same as the Daze spell." (Wrong and extra Wrong)

My futility in rules lawyering was overruled regardless of pointing out Daze is a CONDITION versus a spell effect per the CRB. Somewhere in the rules it needs to be stated that how metamagic feats are resisted and alter spells of this kind.

Also the side argument of whether liches can be Blinded, if a Blindness effect will negate lifesense.

Please list any book references or existing FAQ/Dev responses so I have ammo, thanks!

Also, you can resist Danzig with a dose of Rammstein.


Your GM is wrong. Daze is not a lesser form of stun. It is listed as an entirely separate condition in the glossary and makes no reference to stun. It is not at all linked to the Daze spell. If your GM thinks that all dazing effects are mind affecting you might want to point him to something like the Ankylosaurus tail slap which causes daze on a hit. There are many other examples, a search of the PRD for Daze will bring them up.

You can find a post in the Ask Mark Seifter thread in the Off Topic forum about Dazing. DrDeth, in one of his rather futile campaigns against the idea that caster superiority was a thing, asked Mark if every daze affect was mind affecting. Mark was clear that this was not so.

As far as Blinding Liches they don't have any immunity to the condition as such. They would be immune to the Blindness spell as it is a fortitude effect which does not affect objects and as such all undead are immune to it. You could blind them with something like Holy Smite or Burst of Radiance. Whether that affects life sense I could not tell you, expect table variation.


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Heimdall666 wrote:

Before I restate this post exactly as Grayfeather, how does this work?, hopefully in the form of a FAQ response, I will blatantly Necro this thread.

I have Dazing metamagic, a spell that does damage, and use it on a Lich.

My GM said, "its a minor form of stun, undead are immune to stun. Besides that, its a magic spell effect causing it, so its the same as the Daze spell." (Wrong and extra Wrong)

Uh, you say, "It's not a minor form of Stun. The only thing that's a minor form of something else is shaken->frightened->panicked. No matter how commonly people think sickened is a minor version of nauseated, or staggered and daze are minor forms of stun or paralysis, it's just not the case. Nothing in the rules links these things besides people reading into the fact that a buttload of, say, nauseating effects cause sickened on a successful save.

So, you have two obstacles

1) He is the GM, so he could just be making a (very reasonable) houserule, in which case, you have no ground to stand on

2) You can't show any references to prove your point because you are arguing the negative. The burden of proof is really on your GM. He says these effects are connected when they're not. He has to prove that point by showing how they are. This is obviously a problem because the GM is the one making you prove your case when he's the one who should be proving it.

Seriously, imagine if a judge said, "you killed that guy." And you said, "no, I didn't, I don't even know who died." And then the judge said, "Ok, prove it."

Heimdall666 wrote:
Also the side argument of whether liches can be Blinded, if a Blindness effect will negate lifesense.

Blindness:

"The creature cannot see. It takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class, loses its Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), and takes a –4 penalty on most Strength- and Dexterity-based skill checks and on opposed Perception skill checks. All checks and activities that rely on vision (such as reading and Perception checks based on sight) automatically fail. All opponents are considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) against the blinded character. Blind creatures must make a DC 10 Acrobatics skill check to move faster than half speed. Creatures that fail this check fall prone. Characters who remain blinded for a long time grow accustomed to these drawbacks and can overcome some of them."

Lifesense:
"The creature notices and locates living creatures within 60 feet, just as if it possessed the blindsight ability."

Blindsight:
"Some creatures possess blindsight, the extraordinary ability to use a non-visual sense (or a combination senses) to operate effectively without vision..."

So, yeah, no, Lifesense still functions when someone is Blind.


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mplindustries is correct. Daze is not lesser Stun although it would not make an unreasonable houserule.

Frankly, there are some significant gaps in the rules where undead and constructs are concerned. There is too great a reliance on the Fortitude and Mind-Affecting immunities.

There are effects that are *normally* a Fortitude save but either have no save or are a different save.
There are also effects that *should* be mind-affecting but aren't listed as such.

A GM can and should adjudicate these discrepancies.


I recommend allowing FoM to negate dazing based on wording because it allows powerful monsters to be immune. RAW also supports this as a possible reading but because FoM isn't exactly a well clarified spell and subject heavily to interpretation it's up to the GM.

Dazing

Quote:

The creature is unable to act normally. A dazed creature can take no actions, but has no penalty to AC.

A dazed condition typically lasts 1 round.

FoM

Quote:
This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web. All combat maneuver checks made to grapple the target automatically fail. The subject automatically succeeds on any combat maneuver checks and Escape Artist checks made to escape a grapple or a pin.


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Also, lets be honest here. Dazing Metamagic is incredibly powerful. It's a combat ender really. Dazing presistent fireball. Alright melee types, mop it up please.

It may not be RAW, but its completely reasonable to rule that undead and constructs are immune. For my home games, I just removed dazing spell as an option.


Claxon wrote:

Also, lets be honest here. Dazing Metamagic is incredibly powerful. It's a combat ender really. Dazing presistent fireball. Alright melee types, mop it up please.

It may not be RAW, but its completely reasonable to rule that undead and constructs are immune. For my home games, I just removed dazing spell as an option.

Golems have it slightly better than undead. They cannot be dazed by dazing fireball as it cannot damage them. They can be dazed by various damaging conjurations such as acid arrow as their magic immunity doesn't protect them.


andreww wrote:
Claxon wrote:

Also, lets be honest here. Dazing Metamagic is incredibly powerful. It's a combat ender really. Dazing presistent fireball. Alright melee types, mop it up please.

It may not be RAW, but its completely reasonable to rule that undead and constructs are immune. For my home games, I just removed dazing spell as an option.

Golems have it slightly better than undead. They cannot be dazed by dazing fireball as it cannot damage them. They can be dazed by various damaging conjurations such as acid arrow as their magic immunity doesn't protect them.

Assuming dazing applies to acid arrow. Some GM's will (Wrongly I feel) rule it doesn't since it's SR no. Which poses the interesting question does something like sun metal, acid arrow, or hungry pit apply dazing but I still feel that the FOM work around is the best RAW option since RAW FOM seems to stop Dazing since dazing takes away your ability to act and FOM makes you immune to losing your ability to move and act.

Silver Crusade

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I feel your GMs pain. The way the Pathfinder rules work nothing is immune to Daze. Perhaps it should be, but it's not. It would be an entirely reasonable house rule to reduce the power of Daze, but know it would be a house rule. Since nothing is immune to it, and DCs can get quite high, I think Dazing is overpowered. For example, a mid level Cleric using Variant Channel (Rulership) to Daze can have a DC26 effect. Most groups of foes can't handle a DC26 will save ...

One house rule we use is to make Dazing Metamagic last only one round, rather than one round per spell level. Frankly, in high level rocket tag there's not much difference between 'Dazed for one round then dead' and 'Dazed for the three rounds but dead when the fight ends in round one'.


Just to clarify further, my GM has house rules that jack up the value of metamagic feats for casters by making each feat usable (X) times per day versus (+levels) to the spells. This is just bookkeeping but reflects on the spell cast, all is allowed there.
I am a level 13 Shaman with Mythic Tier I and my spell known is Sunbeam.

I targeted a lich and dracolich (homebrew) standing within range, and first used accursed hex/split hex Misfortune which worked, then cast quickened piercing bouncing Mythic Sunbeam (3-4 other liches and dracoliches about) Again, 2 failed REFLEX saves. I said then they are Dazed for 7 rounds, and 13d8 damage to each. He has been hitting us with 32 SR/400hp monsters so we go armed for bear. I asked him prior to the game to review the spell, the metamagic, and condition but he chose to bog for lawyering. I get that Daze is awesome even on stuff thats not immune, but I could have metagamed (we knew we were facing an undead army) and took consecrate/maximize instead.


I don't think anythink should be definitely immune to daze, as it's a condition representing inability to act.

For a humanoid, it generally represents some kind of brain locking effect.
But for constructs, it can be interpretated the same : a condition preventing info to go from the core of the construct to its movement centers. Same for undead, by blocking necromantic power.

But whatever, it's NOT a lesser paralysis/stun. Even in 3.5, there were only really few things preventing daze, probably even more than stun.
One of the only means of preventing that condition was the Mark of the Dauntless feat from Eberron setting, that required a dragonmark, and prevented both daze and stun.

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