The stunned condition says you can't act. Due to the amount of things that cost less than 2 actions and can stun (sometimes even on a successful saving throw), I can only conclude that this was a mistake and should be ignored, because otherwise, one could Ready a stunning effect and easily rob a higher-level target of its entire turn.
So what does it take away other than the actions you regain at the start of your turn? Nothing? Your reactions? Your free actions?
The more likely oversight is that Stunned can only be paid down with actions at the start of a creature's turn, not during their turn if they happen to get Stunned with a value during their turn.
There are plenty of table rulings that can be used for this - including running it by straight-up RAW. The RAW mechanics aren't unplayable.
There have been 4 reprintings and a remaster so far.
Despite this conversation existing since release the wording is consistent.
Stun is also valued quite more expensively than slowed, with the major difference being exactly this one sentence.
Therefore, there's just no good justification to think that this is just an ovesight.
If you want to spend 2 actions and a reaction to MAYBE rob a creature of his turn, then do so.
I'd be fine with it if the chance of this succeeding was extraordinarily low. But one of these abilities doesn't even allow a saving throw. And others stun the target on a regular success and don't have the incapacitation trait. And it's not just the target's turn that gets lost, it's the first 1 or 2 actions of their next turn.
The more likely oversight is that Stunned can only be paid down with actions at the start of a creature's turn, not during their turn if they happen to get Stunned with a value during their turn.
There are plenty of table rulings that can be used for this - including running it by straight-up RAW. The RAW mechanics aren't unplayable.
Same goes with Slowed though; the only real difference is Stunned has the "can't act" clause, which immediately applies, whereas the condition removal is when your turn begins.
That said, there are a few abilities that the writters didn't really understood the RAW implications when they were written, the most egregious one being the self-stun on Psychic on the beginning of your Unleash.
Violent Unleash, right? That stunned 1 actually occurs at the start of your turn. The regaining of actions is the last step of starting your turn, so this isn't actually an example of the issue at hand.
If the GM is uncomfortable with delaying that spell, he can simply not give access. Uncommon tag is specifically for such occasions, potentially problematic (for the GM) abilities.
Despite the potential to derail things, a rare or uncommon option isn't actually meant to be stronger than others of its level. Stuff like Detect Alignment (which can ruin mysteries) and Scrying (which can ruin everything) aren't broken in terms of raw power, but I worry that deciding to automatically delete 4 of a boss's actions with just 2 of your own is.
I don't know what story-breaker potential Power Word Stun has, though, to warrant it being uncommon. Sometimes, rarity can also just mean that the option is rare in-universe, and it can even go down if the option ends up being produced more.
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There have been 4 reprintings and a remaster so far.
Despite this conversation existing since release the wording is consistent.
It's wild that in five revisions they've still never resolved the ambiguity with stunned. But I guess we can say the same about instances of damage and that's even more likely to be an issue in actual play.
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There have been 4 reprintings and a remaster so far.
Despite this conversation existing since release the
problems remain.
There have been 4 reprintings and a remaster so far.
Despite this conversation existing since release the
problems remain.
Yeah, like how Hidden Paragon and Sense the Unseen are still triggered by something you have no way of knowing about.
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I never said anything about the strength of the spell.
Only that it is spelled pretty clearly that the Uncommon tag is also used for options that a GM can have problems dealing with, despite their actual power level.
The rarity system has two purposes: to convey how common or rare certain spells, creatures, or items are in the game world, and to give you an easy tool to control the complexity of your gameWhich is exactly what we are talking about here. A spell that can be potentially troublesome for a GM to deal with if it's used in a specific way.
Uncommon tag is there to help GMs with spells that can be disruptive for their gameplay, table, and/or story.
So we agree that Power Word Stun is supposed to be as powerful as other options of its rank. I can see a regular use of Power Word Stun meeting this criteria. But if stunned RAW truly is exactly what the devs meant, how is Readied Power Word Stun balanced? Is there a single rank 8 spell in the game that allows you to do anything on par with spending 2 actions and your reaction to unfailingly take away FOUR actions from a PL+4 boss?
Even Power Word Stun can't do that to a level 14 or 15 creature. Stunned with a duration of 1 round would wear off at the start of the caster's turn, so the target would lose only 3 actions. If stunned 1 inflicted on the target's turn prohibits all their actions and then takes away another on their next turn, then Power Word Stun becomes stronger against higher level creatures than those roughly your level.
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Your argument is very solid: Stunned 1 can't possibly be stronger than Stunned for 1 round, and situations that allow for that to happen should be patched somehow.
One thing to consider is that Power word stun was not reprinted in player core 1.
Forgot about Stunning Snare. It's not incapacitation or uncommon, but it's purpose is to inflict stunned on your own turn, even on a success. Yes, it wasn't reprinted, but it doesn't look like any Snares were reprinted at all, so it's probably coming back in Player Core 2. And the options that weren't reprinted were because of OGL ties, not rebalancing.
We could also parse every monster in the game, looking for abilities that stun on a reaction or with an aura. But at this point, isn't it easier to just houserule the condition itself?
Gut how? Because stunned should still be able to prevent reactions and free actions? I'd be fine with stunned still being able to do that. I just don't think losing your entire turn and then some is the appropriate consequence for succeeding on a saving throw, and I think you are underestimating how many abilities there are that can inflict on-turn stunned.
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Gut how? Because stunned should still be able to prevent reactions and free actions? I'd be fine with stunned still being able to do that. I just don't think losing your entire turn and then some is the appropriate consequence for succeeding on a saving throw, and I think you are underestimating how many abilities there are that can inflict on-turn stunned.If you simply make Stun on turn remove actions from that turn then you make on turn Stun strictly worse than Slow: It is now just much more expensive but does exactly the same thing, just depletes actions.
So yeah, you are gutting them.
Most things that apply stunned already do that though, because many forms of stunned are applied as part of a character's action.
It's only in "a scant few abilities" (your words) that we run into an issue of rules ambiguity.
Regardless of where you fall on that rules ambiguity, it doesn't really make sense to claim SuperParkourio wants to "gut" anything when their suggestion mostly just amounts to making the exceptions behave the same as the standard use case (nevermind that since we're dealing with ambiguous rules it's not clear there's even anything to gut).
Is a readied Dizzying Colors the case to consider?
Fail vs Crit fail.
Is a readied Dizzying Colors the case to consider?
Fail vs Crit fail.you cannot ready a 2 action spell.
(although, funny and unrelated story, 1st session on my Resentment witch, an enemy crit failed Dizzying colours... that didn't end well for him since crit fail is Stunned 1 round, thus extendable to infinity lol)
lol. nice.
Right. ok so most spells cant be readied, and power word stun wasnt reprinted what else then is the problem?
If another ability did what dizzying colors does would that be a problem?
Is a readied Dizzying Colors the case to consider?
Fail vs Crit fail.you cannot ready a 2 action spell.
(although, funny and unrelated story, 1st session on my Resentment witch, an enemy crit failed Dizzying colours... that didn't end well for him since crit fail is Stunned 1 round, thus extendable to infinity lol)
lol. nice.
Right. ok so most spells cant be readied, and power word stun wasnt reprinted what else then is the problem?
If another ability did what dizzying colors does would that be a problem?
Well, I already talked about Stunning Snare, which is probably coming back in Player Core 2 along with the other snares. Imagine stepping on a square and suddenly losing 4 actions on a successful save.
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But for all the normal cases of on-turn Stun, I find it perfectly normal for Stun to be that strong, because it is actually budgeted that high.
What normal cases? What ability is completely unusable when on-turn stunned 1 only robs a creature of one action instead of four while still preventing reactions and free actions?
The robbing of all action for the on turn stun is actually what it should do. The only issue is between a situation where an ability provides stun 1 (carrying over to the following turn and eating an action) on a lesser level of success and stun 1 round (where it comes from a spell and is gone before the following turn) on a higher level of success.
Both at least need to kill all actions for the round cause anything less is not stun.
A crit fail should be a worse result vs a fail. Thats where I see your point.
Also losing all those actions when you succeed on the roll is not balanced, as with that legacy snare.
I think it (the snare) should be downgraded to slow on a success.
I'm not saying that on-turn stun should remove the actions immediately and then disappear immediately if the value is zero. I'm saying that on-turn stun should prohibit reactions and free actions, not completely prevent the target from acting. At the start of their next turn, stunned would start eating actions. That way, stunned doesn't eat more actions than it's supposed to, and you still keep the target from reacting.
And Stunning Snare deals damage AND stunned. On a success. And doesn't have incapacitation. A success is not a poor enough result to warrant losing your turn. If one of my players rolled against this snare and I said "Success! You lose your turn!", they would make me eat my dice.
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If one of my players rolled against this snare and I said "Success! You lose your turn!", they would make me eat my dice.
Speaking as a GM who has enforced the Stunned rules as-worded, and having a Stunned condition come up during a player's turn, this very thing nearly happened.
The issue becomes that, if Stunned does not have the "can't act" clause, it is just Slowed with a different name, and last I checked, one of PF2's design goals is to eliminate redundancy like this, so I don't understand why Stunned still persists as a condition when the Slowed condition does everything the Stunned condition does, but better and more consistently.
If one of my players rolled against this snare and I said "Success! You lose your turn!", they would make me eat my dice.Speaking as a GM who has enforced the Stunned rules as-worded, and having a Stunned condition come up during a player's turn, this very thing nearly happened.
The issue becomes that, if Stunned does not have the "can't act" clause, it is just Slowed with a different name, and last I checked, one of PF2's design goals is to eliminate redundancy like this, so I don't understand why Stunned still persists as a condition when the Slowed condition does everything the Stunned condition does, but better and more consistently.
Yes. Stunned should be nastier than slowed. Simply removing the can't act clause won't suffice to see the condition work as intended. Hence my original post. It should be replaced with some other restriction. I'm not sure how that restriction should be worded, though. "You can't use reactions or free actions?" "You can't act, though if you become stunned on your turn, this doesn't take effect until that turn ends?" Stunning Finisher inflicts "the target can't use reactions" on a successful save but stunned 1 on a failure, which means that stunned 1 should be a step up from being unable to use reactions. So stunned should probably prevent reactions.
As a side note, I was looking at Dazing Blow, and I noticed that its press trait actually prohibits it from being used with the Ready activity. The reason given is that press actions can only be performed if you have a multiple attack penalty, which doesn't exist outside your turn. This is a strange reason, though, because Ready explicitly preserves your multiple attack penalty.
I feel like this conversation keeps coming up because people are undervaluing the added costs of Readying something.
I'm aware of the 2 action and reaction cost. I just don't think it justifies all this cheese.
As a side note, I was looking at Dazing Blow, and I noticed that its press trait actually prohibits it from being used with the Ready activity. The reason given is that press actions can only be performed if you have a multiple attack penalty, which doesn't exist outside your turn. This is a strange reason, though, because Ready explicitly preserves your multiple attack penalty.
You keep your MAP when you ready an action actually.
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The issue becomes that, if Stunned does not have the "can't act" clause, it is just Slowed with a different name, and last I checked, one of PF2's design goals is to eliminate redundancy like this, so I don't understand why Stunned still persists as a condition when the Slowed condition does everything the Stunned condition does, but better and more consistently.
But again, doesn't that concern apply to Stunned normally? Like if I apply Stunned 1 on my turn, you only lose the one action, just like Slowed.
It's only when I apply stunned 1 on someone else's turn and run it in this specific way that it becomes markedly better.
I feel like if your concern is that Stunned is a weak or unnecessary condition, having it be many times stronger but only in one specific type of scenario (and even then only with a specific skew on ambiguous rules) makes zero sense as a solution.
Stun 1 still shuts down any reactions before their turn starts and they can pay it down. Small bonus.
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I'm just not seeing a reason to care that 'stun on turn' would lose the benefit vs reactions if you could pay it off with remaining actions on the same turn. The idea that Stunned 1 should rob up to 4 actions if timed just right is nonsense to me, and if you want to negate reactions so badly, you can always stun on one of the several turns per round that aren't the target's.
I know this debate won't end with any opinion I put forth, but if this scenario ever becomes a problem at my table, I feel like the simplest solution is to treat Stunned X as meaning "Lose X actions and reaction immediately, can't take free actions until stun value paid off." For all 'normal use' scenarios where a target is stunned off their turn, there is no detectable difference. For on-turn stuns, you can still take the reaction, but no more than the specified number of actions.
I don't feel like this will have any meaningful impact on Slowed's place in the rules given that, unless using similar house rulings, Slowed doesn't take effect until the target's turn no matter when it's gained, and tends to operate in terms of action loss over time, not action lockout until over.
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The ambiguity was there in the legacy version and it's still there in the remaster.
On the left side of the page we see:
GAINING AND LOSING ACTIONS
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 415. 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. If you have conflicting conditions that affect your
number of actions, you choose which actions you lose.
For instance, the action gained from haste lets you only
Stride or Strike, so if you need to lose one action because
you’re also slowed, you might decide to lose the action
from haste, letting you keep your other actions that can
be used more flexibly.
Some conditions prevent you from taking a certain
subset of actions, typically reactions. 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.
So a condition that says you can't act is unlike stunned. Also, becoming stunned in the middle of your turn doesn't change how many actions you have. It seems very roundabout to insist that your amount of actions you still have doesn't change but that you're not allowed to use them.
But on the right column it defines the stunned condition, and says "you can't act".
Honestly it's messy. It's been messy, it's been asked about for clarification a bunch of times. The text has been changed minutely a bit across the CRB printings, and got moved to different pages in the PC, but it hasn't been really resolved. And as we saw with the whole dying rules drama, the remaster didn't get everything right.
My belief is that the cleanest way to run it is:
- "Stunned for X time" prevents you from acting.
- "Stunned x actions" requires you to pay it off with actions as soon as possible. Until you've paid it off with actions, you can't use reactions and free actions.
This means "stunned 1" is not wildly differently powerful when used out of turn, compared to using it in your turn. It's still slightly more powerful than slowed 1, because:
- If you stun 1 someone, they can't use reactions. So you could do a Flurry of Blows/Stunning Fist, then walk away without provoking a Reactive Strike.
- If you happen to stun 1 someone during their turn while they still have actions remaining, they lose the action immediately, which could mess up their plans. Slowed 1 would only lose the action at the start of the target's next turn.
As a side note, I was looking at Dazing Blow, and I noticed that its press trait actually prohibits it from being used with the Ready activity. The reason given is that press actions can only be performed if you have a multiple attack penalty, which doesn't exist outside your turn. This is a strange reason, though, because Ready explicitly preserves your multiple attack penalty.You keep your MAP when you ready an action actually.
That's what I said.
That's what I said.As a side note, I was looking at Dazing Blow, and I noticed that its press trait actually prohibits it from being used with the Ready activity. The reason given is that press actions can only be performed if you have a multiple attack penalty, which doesn't exist outside your turn. This is a strange reason, though, because Ready explicitly preserves your multiple attack penalty.You keep your MAP when you ready an action actually.
Sorry I must not be reading.
I feel like this conversation keeps coming up because people are undervaluing the added costs of Readying something.I'm aware of the 2 action and reaction cost. I just don't think it justifies all this cheese.Then you are aware of, but not fully understanding, the cost.
Especially since you didn't mention the most important part; the trigger conditions.
You see the cheese that can come out of everything going exactly how you need it to go, and you're missing the "sometimes there's no enemy to stun because you couldn't pick a trigger that was guaranteed to happen."
That risk alone is enough that people, in practice, aren't likely to pick all this extra cost and risk despite the effectively increased action denial.
The trigger doesn't actually need to be very specific. It just needs to be something observable in the game world. "I Ready to use this stunning effect if he moves a body part" would be an example.
I just tried to think of how readying would "look" if a player readies for the start of that NPCs turn.
Are they waiting a second or two for the npc start doing what exactly. my imaging of the situation broke down there.
The reason is because of what thenobledrake pointed out. Although the start of an NPCs turn is something that can trigger other reactions that look for it, it is not exactly a thing a player can really see. What a player can see is the NPC starting to move cause they decided to stride, or starting to attack because they decided to strike. If the NPC doesnt get to decide on something and begin to do it, how does a PC see that yes in fact that NPC started their turn.
I just tried to think of how readying would "look" if a player readies for the start of that NPCs turn.
Are they waiting a second or two for the npc start doing what exactly. my imaging of the situation broke down there.
The reason is because of what thenobledrake pointed out. Although the start of an NPCs turn is something that can trigger other reactions that look for it, it is not exactly a thing a player can really see. What a player can see is the NPC starting to move cause they decided to stride, or starting to attack because they decided to strike. If the NPC doesnt get to decide on something and begin to do it, how does a PC see that yes in fact that NPC started their turn.
That's what I was trying to say. It's not the "start of their turn" you'd be looking for. It's the telltale signs that they're taking actions. There are actions with no observable tells, but most important ones are impossible to do without visibly moving your body. Moving forward. Knocking an arrow. The hand movements during spellcasting.