This was how the playtest book was written, and people absolutely hated it.Hey look, another example of rules being mixed with flavor description that confused thing!
At this point, I wonder if there would be any value in a full-on revision of EVERYTHING in EVERY PF2 book being rewritten with ONLY the mechanical effects included. The whole "You can't act while stunned" statement is literally meaningless as it's immediately overwritten by the actual rules that define how it works.
Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't kind of situation.
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There's also Stunning Finisher which has "The target can't use reactions until the start of its next turn" as a Success effect, and the Stunned 1 as a Failure effect. Usually the degrees of success build on each other. If that's just flavour text then somewhere in Stunned it should say something about free actions and reactions to meaningfully distinguish it from Slowed and make it worth most effects that give it that I can find having the Incapacitation trait.
That does build on itself. Stunning Finisher has your target make a save. If they Succeed they are only deprived of their reaction. If they Fail they are Stunned 1, which does the former and takes an action from them. If they Crit Fail they get Stunned 3.
Your statement only makes sense if the degree of success chart was applied to your attack roll. In which case the chart would be backwards. It isn't. It's a save effect where your degree of success is based on their degree of failure.
All in all, this problem is addressed easily. The reading of the rules that makes sense and doesn't create issues that has been stated a few times in this thread already.
If the devs have said that Stunned is intended to prevent you from using Reactions, then the "you can't act" bit has to be rules text because it's the only part of the Stunned condition that would prevent you from using Reactions.
I still don't know if you can take reactions if stunned. At the moment stunned seems to work like slowed, so not sure what the difference is between the two. When someone gets stunned or dazed in a real fight, they are usually far more screwed than losing a few actions. You get your bell rung in a real fight, you're usually going go get beat down real good. But the stunned condition in PF2 just seems to be a reduction in actions. No loss of reaction. No reduction in effectiveness. No lack of awareness or truly stunned condition.
Very weird.
Unless "You can't act while stunned" is rules text.
Which would certainly justify the Incapacitation tag. Otherwise it's just a weaker slowed, so there would be no reason for the trait.
Actually looking at Slowed, it specifically says it takes effect at the start of your turn when you'd regain your actions, but Stunned has no such text. This reinforces my thinking that not being able to act is rules text.
You can't act until when? That should have been specified. It should have been made clear you can't take reactions of free actions and cannot act until the stunned condition is removed. It should have had some AC penalty or something.
Unless "You can't act while stunned" is rules text.
Which would certainly justify the Incapacitation tag. Otherwise it's just a weaker slowed, so there would be no reason for the trait.
Actually looking at Slowed, it specifically says it takes effect at the start of your turn when you'd regain your actions, but Stunned has no such text. This reinforces my thinking that not being able to act is rules text.
But there is a rule that refers to Stunned (with a value) and Slowed acting identically. I'll post the text again because it really shouldn't be ignored:
"Quickened, slowed, and stunned are the primary ways
you can gain or lose actions on a turn. The rules for
how this works appear on page 462. In brief, these
conditions alter how many actions you regain at the
start of your turn; thus, gaining the condition in the
middle of your turn doesn’t adjust your number of
actions on that turn."
So it seems that Stunned works identically to Slowed (unless it has a duration, which is clearly spelled out in the Stunned condition).
Here is further text from that section:
"Other conditions simply say you can’t act. When you can’t act, you’re unable to take any actions at all. Unlike slowed or stunned, these don’t change the number of actions you regain; they just prevent you from using them. That means if you are somehow cured of paralysis on your turn, you can act immediately."
Explicitly it says UNLIKE slowed or stunned.
Unless "You can't act while stunned" is rules text.
Which would certainly justify the Incapacitation tag. Otherwise it's just a weaker slowed, so there would be no reason for the trait.
Actually looking at Slowed, it specifically says it takes effect at the start of your turn when you'd regain your actions, but Stunned has no such text. This reinforces my thinking that not being able to act is rules text.
But there is a rule that refers to Stunned (with a value) and Slowed acting identically. I'll post the text again because it really shouldn't be ignored:
"Quickened, slowed, and stunned are the primary ways
you can gain or lose actions on a turn. The rules for
how this works appear on page 462. In brief, these
conditions alter how many actions you regain at the
start of your turn; thus, gaining the condition in the
middle of your turn doesn’t adjust your number of
actions on that turn."So it seems that Stunned works identically to Slowed (unless it has a duration, which is clearly spelled out in the Stunned condition).
Here is further text from that section:
"Other conditions simply say you can’t act. When you can’t act, you’re unable to take any actions at all. Unlike slowed or stunned, these don’t change the number of actions you regain; they just prevent you from using them. That means if you are somehow cured of paralysis on your turn, you can act immediately."
Explicitly it says UNLIKE slowed or stunned.
Sure, the two conditions work exactly the same, in reference to how you "lose actions" to them. But the two conditions are very clearly not the same. If you become Slowed during your turn, you don't automatically lose an action do you?
Because slowed has its effect at the start of your turn, you don't immediately lose actions if you become slowed during your turn.
So if Stunned operates Identically to slowed with regards to losing actions, shouldn't the same be true for Stunned?
The real difference between the two Conditions is that a creature who is Stunned, "...can't act while stunned."
I don't see the problem here. Sure, in the sidebar it mentions, "unlike slowed or stunned." But does this have any actual value where adjudicating a situation is concerned?
I say it does not. A creature who is Stunned can't act. If you are Stunned X, and do not lose enough actions at the start of your turn to reduce that X to 0, you can't act. If you are stunned mid turn, you can't act.
Edit: From a design perspective, Stunned is the more advanced version of Slowed. It naturally has more drastic effects on the suffering party. We know this because it Overrides slowed, in the same way that Blinded overrides Dazzled or Restrained overrides Grabbed.
Why should Stunned be relegated to be LESS impactful than Slowed 1 in this situation? (Assuming you just reduce the suffering parties actions by 1 and move on)
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I don't think there is much point left to this discussion, since basically everything has been said two or three times already. Especially since I was a big dingus and put this thread in the general discussion section, rather than the rules discussion.
So here is what we (mostly) objectively know:
(A1) The RAW is unclear. There is a conflict between the description of the stunned condition on page 622, specifically the second sentence ("You can't act while stunned"), and the sidebar on the same page, which states "When you can’t act, you’re unable to take any actions at all. Unlike slowed or stunned, these don’t change the number of actions you regain; they just prevent you from using them.".
(A2) Abilities or spells that apply the stunned condition pretty much always have the incapacitation trait, unless they are very high level (16+). Those that do not have the incapacitation trait only apply stunned (usually stunned 1) on a critical failure.
As far as I can tell, the only times an ability or spell that applies the slowed condition has the incapacitation trait, is when there is also a possibility of receiving a much worse condition (e.g. petrified or paralyzed).
(A3) All other conditions in the game have at most 1 sentence of flavour text, never 2. As do essentially all feats, if I recall correctly.
(A4) "You can't act" is a defined phrase with mechanical implications.
(A5) If you were to declare the "You can't act while stunned" part flavour text, then stunned 1-3 would be essentially superfluous. Everything in that regard could have been done with the slowed condition.
---
And here is what is a little more open to interpretation:
(B1) Stunned is meant to be a similar, but worse condition to slowed, as it overrides slowed.
(B2) The examples in the text of the stunned condition only deal with what happens when you regain actions. They create no conflict with the second sentence, as that is usually only interesting when things are happening outside of your turn. The only time that would get interesting is if you were stunned 4+, which I don't believe is actually possible right now.
---
I think all of that paints an extremely clear picture of the RAI and I have made my opinion on this topic clear plenty of times. All we can really do now is live with the table variation and wait for an errata post.
I disagree with most of what you said, in particular with:
A4: Not true, since everything is mixed. What we can look at is comparison with anything else we have, trying to to understand what their real purpose was. There' nothing granted ( especially stuff like A3 )
A5: No, because the slowed condition is essentially with a duration, and it is meant to be opposite to quickened. Stunned is different ( when it comes to a value it should be meant to have no duration ).
While it's all about "removing actions" it's quite different.
B1: See A5.
B2: It happened in AoA, and rules mentioned the "possibility", just to enlight that characters "might" find themselves with stunned 10, loosing 3 rounds and 1 action to recover.
A4: There were extremely few cases of game terms being used in flavour text and most of those have already been errata'd. Otherwise, abilities follow a very clear format: flavour text as the first sentence or no flavour text at all. Every other sentence after that is purely rules. There is nothing mixed about that. If you want to claim that something that is an established rules phrase is actually flavour text, you have to have a little more than one sidebar, which doesn't even clearly state the opposite.
A5: If slowed and stunned worked the same, slowed 1 for 1 round would be mechanically identical to stunned 1. Same difference with stunned 2 = slowed 2 for 1 round and so on. If the interpretation of a rule leads to you mechanically invalidating most of an entire condition, you are likely on the wrong path.
And while you can obviously disagree with me, nothing under A is really an opinion, its just restating of game rules an general trends. You can't really disagree with facts, only someone's interpretation of them.
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Seems contentious. I'd wait on developers to chime in, if ever. If not, just rule whatever leads to fewer arguments at the table.
On the other hand you have the text of the condition itself.The text of the condition itself tells you that Stunned only deprives you of a specific number of actions, though.
but the support for your argument seems rather flimy to me.Then how do you reconcile your reading of the rules with the multiple citations in this thread that directly say that's not how Stunned works? Just declaring 'oh those aren't rules' doesn't seem particularly compelling.
It does both, though.
If you are stunned, you cannot act until the Stunned condition goes away, either
-by having a certain amount of time (1 round or more) pass if the condition has a duration
-by losing a certain amount of actions if the condition has a value (which doesn't take place until the next time you gain actions by RAW)
-by having the condition extraneously removed by another player's abilities or effects (which is pretty rare or unheard of in terms of player options)
So not only are you unable to act until the condition goes away, you automatically lose the actions valued by the condition the next time you gain actions (or don't gain any at all if Stunned has a duration and not a value, thus reducing the Stunned condition's remaining duration by a round).
This definitely makes Stunned something completely separate, and more powerful than, Slowed, which has boggled me a bit. Why not just make Slowed and Stunned the same condition if they are basically the same thing? But this distinction makes them much more grounded in separation, and puts a better emphasis on why some things are immune to Stunned or Slowed but not the other one.
But really, just because there are other rules citations in other parts of the book doesn't mean it precludes other rules citations. None of those additional citations override the rule of "You can't act while stunned."
This definitely makes Stunned something completely separate, and more powerful than, Slowed, which has boggled me a bit. Why not just make Slowed and Stunned the same condition if they are basically the same thing?
Stunned decreases by a value specified, typically as part of the transition to your turn, and Slowed does not as it is generally tied to a duration where you consistently lose the same amount.
When you lose your action from being slowed, your slowed value does not decrease.
Much the same way Sickened/Frightened are different despite carrying similar penalties.
If that were the only distinction, slowed would be more useful than stunned yet stunned is generally the one with incapacitation.
Getting stunned on your own turn is a significant hit, but isn't generally likely to happen.
Frightened has more restrictions on it than Sickened.
Arguing that Stunned must be more valuable because it has incapacitation doesn't really take into account the full picture.
There's level 2 feats that allow PCs to grant the Stunned condition. Level 1 if we're talking Daze.
There are 4-5 Feats that can inflict the slowed condition, none below level 10.
On spells, the soonest you can realistically get Slowed in a combat situation (Divine Plague offers it as a disease, and another spell is level 2 and Rare) is Slow or Cloudkill, which don't come online til level 5 (spell level 3). And Slow is considered one of the best spells in the game for a reason.
So if you're trying to argue "Stunned is supposed to be stronger than Slowed", I would say the evidence doesn't really support that.
Mostly I'm arguing that it is stronger.
An ability with this trait can take a character completely out of the fightThis makes no sense if stunned is just a garbage slow. It does make sense if you treat "You can't act while stunned" as rules text.
"Take them out of the fight" means to effectively reduce their action count to nothing.
Slowed can never reduce your action count to nothing (or at least it typically would not).
That doesn't mean Slowed isn't a better condition to have than Stunned or even that Stunned can't be the "better" condition to have under certain circumstances (just like any other condition).
The reason Incapacitation is on Stunning Fist is because 3 action reduction is an effective turn removal. There generally is no Slowed 3 or a way for Slowed to remove your turn entirely.
That's another major difference. Most Stunned 1 things do not have incapacitation, but most Stunned 3 things (or duration based) do.
It's really not that complicated to understand why the two are different.
Stunned is concentrated action removal, Slowed is consistent.
A flurry of replies to various posts:
RE:
Midnightoker
To be fair, most things that would probably inflict "slowed 3" probably just Paralyze or similar instead.
Generally, I personally rank by Severity logically. So Dazed is just less "impactful" than Blinded for example, making Blinded "worse".
Slowed is more likely to remove more overall actions from an opponent, over time than Stunned without a duration. But Stunned is more immediately deadly, in that it prevents reactions prior to ending and can, in the corner case specified by the OP anyway, potentially stop an opponent literally in their tracks. So I see Stunned as being "worse" than slowed. Not saying that this is how Everyone does/must see it, but that is how I do.
Then you see that Stunned "overrides" slowed which is an example of progression of severity in itself, though you could explain that by the way that either condition works, and how they would have to work to work "together" nicely.
@Karmagator
The only effect I am aware of that can inflict higher than Stunned 3 is Power Word Stun, but only against 13th level or lower creatures. So mooks in other words.
As to infinite repeat, it's not like this is the first time we've had this conversation on the forums.
Midnightoker
To be fair, most things that would probably inflict "slowed 3" probably just Paralyze or similar instead.Generally, I personally rank by Severity logically. So Dazed is just less "impactful" than Blinded for example, making Blinded "worse".
Slowed is more likely to remove more overall actions from an opponent, over time than Stunned without a duration. But Stunned is more immediately deadly, in that it prevents reactions prior to ending and can, in the corner case specified by the OP anyway, potentially stop an opponent literally in their tracks. So I see Stunned as being "worse" than slowed. Not saying that this is how Everyone does/must see it, but that is how I do.
Which is more severe comes down entirely to which one deprives more actions and the value of the actions deprived.
AKA its entirely subjective and usually based on the opponent. If you have an opponent that's 3 action activity will devastate your party, Stunned is only going to work 1 round more than likely and Slowed will prevent that the entirety of the duration.
Then you see that Stunned "overrides" slowed which is an example of progression of severity in itself, though you could explain that by the way that either condition works, and how they would have to work to work "together" nicely.
I definitely see it as the latter in the same way that both Sickened and Frightened apply a circumstance penalty. It's just so you're not double-dipping on different action deprivation conditions in order to purge someone of their turn via "stacking".
It also makes sense that Stunned would "override" because Stunned is immediate while Slowed is consistently applied.
Seems contentious. I'd wait on developers to chime in, if ever. If not, just rule whatever leads to fewer arguments at the table.
Have to agree with this. Right now it seems either of the main interpretations here are basically required to ignore some existing rules text about how Stunned is supposed to work in order to make sense and I don't really see a good way to reconcile them together.
You don't even need to look at the sidebar though.
But I mean as said above, no one is stopping you from running it that way at your own tables and it's not like being Stunned in the middle of your turn is going to be extremely common either way.
You don't even need to look at the sidebar though.
But I mean as said above, no one is stopping you from running it that way at your own tables and it's not like being Stunned in the middle of your turn is going to be extremely common either way.
It is quite the corner case. I have seen it happen in play exactly 0 times myself. I imagine the only time you would have to worry about this as a GM is if the party caster decides to grab Power Word Stun, and decide to use it as a readied action instead of just casting it.
tl;dr most instances of stunned and slowed should be combined into a single condition.
'Stunned' ought only to be the condition whereby you cannot act at all for X duration/drop everything you're holding/etc.
The numerical value for 'stunned' should refer to turns not actions. Implementing this with everything already written and set as it is would probably be very unbalancing.
So the "you can't act" is rules text and applies to all actions until your stunned condition ends. That makes more sense.
A list of spells and abilities that can end Stunned prematurely. This is in no way an exhaustive list, just what I could find with a cursory search through AoN. Let me know if I missed anything.
Symphony of the Unfettered Heart Bard Focus spell.
Holistic Care Medic feat that allows you to use Treat Condition to end Stunned during combat for 2 actions, though you cannot end a Stunned condition with a Duration instead of a Value.
Snap out of It! Pathfinder Agent feat that lets you reduce the value of a Stunned Condition based on a check.
Paragon Battle Medicine Reduce Stunned by 1 with Battle Medicine at Legendary proficiency.
I wouldn't say that any of these abilities are common, one is Rare after all, but they do exist. Notably only the Bard Focus spell seems capable of ending a Stunned condition with a duration. The others either explicitly can't, Holistic Care, or reduce the Value of Stunned instead of removing the condition directly.
I don't know that their existence weighs one way or the other in the debate, but I was curious exactly how many abilities can get rid of Stunned.