I've never been happy with the "dazzled" status, which seems to me it does so little it might as well not exist. A -1 to hit and to sight-based Perception checks? Wooooo.
My suggestion: have it give a miss chance instead. Could be as small as a 10% chance, but that would be potentially worth bothering with. I'd also make it stack with other effects that give a miss chance, like blur or concealment in obscuring mist.
If ever Pathfinder 2.0 comes out, I at least would like to see this change, and I'm thinking of house-ruling it in the meantime. What do other people think? Am I missing some game design consideration that would make this a bad idea?
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Kirthfinder did this. Here are the different levels:
Minor: Dazzled. The -1 to attacks and Perception rolls cited in the Core rules is so minor as to be hardly worth tracking; instead, the dazzled condition now applies partial concealment (20% miss chance) to everything the afflicted creature sees. In addition, the penalty to Perception checks is increased to -4.
Severe: Blinded. The creature cannot see. It takes a –2 penalty to AC, loses its Dex bonus to AC (if any), and takes a –4 penalty on physical 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.
Critical: Senseless (blinded and deafened; cannot smell or taste; has no tactile awareness). A senseless creature cannot use special senses such as blindsight, scent, and tremorsense, and has no sense of balance (falls prone). It is helpless and cannot take actions.
I had the same track of mind as Kirth. I found it strange there's a condition that grants total concealment to everything, but not a lesser form of it that grants normal concealment.
@Kryx, what sorts of attacks or situations did Kirthfinder suggest would cause "critical dazzling"? That's interesting. Though I think I could still be content with dazzled staying pretty minor (just not a piddly -1).
A standard action in order to make the creature miss 20% of the time still isn't that great. It's ok CC, but nothing amazing imo.
However I would probably make Flare match the psionic Dazzle.
Now when we start talking about Blinding Flash which is a swift action then things start to get a bit more questionable.
@Cleanthes: It's actually not specified in the introduction, spells, feats, or skills. I have no idea. I believe it would only be triggered by a scaling up on blinded. It's a question for Kirth himself.
It might be an easier route to simple have dazzle be 10% concealment and then have a medium condition between dazzled and blinded that is 20% (patial concealment).
Make blinding flash and flare inflict dazzled, have the Dazzle power inflict the medium condition. Allow scaling from Dazzled to medium condition, but not to blinded.
That sounds fairly appropriate to me.
@Kryx, what sorts of attacks or situations did Kirthfinder suggest would cause "critical dazzling"?
In general, minor conditions can be imposed by 1st level spells, or by successful standard-action attacks made by a BAB +1 combatant with the appropriate [Strike] feat.
That said, some condition tracks can be scaled up by repeatedly being affected (e.g., shaken-frightened-panicked-cowering).
It might be an easier route to simple have dazzle be 10% concealment and then have a medium condition between dazzled and blinded that is 20% (patial concealment).
That's totally do-able. One thing you'd have to do to maintain consistency is to change the blindness spell from 2nd/3rd to 5th level (not unreasonable, given that the effects are permanent).
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Dazzled always felt very much like it should be the result of a successful save, not a failed one.
You save vs. a spell that would otherwise blind you. Dazzled.
Though I do think that dazzle remains situationally good at most levels. A -1 to hit can make a big difference. If a monster needs to roll an 18 to hit your fighter, now it needs to roll a 19, reducing the theoretical damage over time by 33%. Against monsters with several attacks, this can result in a real reduction in damage every round. It can also often take an enemy's secondary attacks from a 10% chance to hit, to crit fishin' for 20's.
I'm not arguing it's /good/ I am just saying that people often underestimate the usefulness of a -1 penalty to things like attack rolls.
EDIT: Not allowing dazzled targets to inflict precision damage seems like a pretty cool idea, actually. It's pretty situational then, but something every wizard would want to keep memorized just in case.