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I find it a little weird that "you can ready for when an foe acts" is too good to be true, but "stunned 1 deletes 4 actions instead of 1 if timed right" isn't. To me, this isn't a problem with ready, this is a problem with stunned having a particularly junky interaction with turn timing.
I'll concede that the more general Ready triggers are a bit dubious. But as we've already discussed, Ready is not the only way to get stunned on your own turn. There are snares that stun. Some monsters are stunned (with a value) while in sunlight. Some spells like Animus Mine have a side effect that stuns those who trigger it.
I am in support of a stunning trap actually shutting down the turn and cost actions on the next. That feels right for the concept of stun.
I do think that slow should be used instead of stun for a successful save though. If its a fail or crit fail im ok with stun being harsh.
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That's a fair point; there's really no in-universe difference between a creature doing such things on their turn or not. But I think stunned being 3 or 4 times more powerful specifically on the target's turn is too ridiculous to be true for the same reason.
But again, doesn't that concern apply to Stunned normally?
It doesn't, because that's not what the concern is.
The concern is the title thread: there really isn't much of another option to make Stunned maintain a relevant condition in the game without keeping its overpowered effects.
With no change is made to Stunned's current iteration, Stunned becomes an overpowered condition that probably shouldn't be in the game (because it becomes better than a valued condition like Slowed, but is weaker than a duration condition like Paralyzed). And if the only distinctive clause in the condition is removed, it becomes a redundant condition that likewise shouldn't be in the game (because we now have two conditions that do the same exact thing, as evidenced by them subsuming the same actions if both conditions are on a target).
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It's not possible to ready a stun action and use it on a creature's turn to eliminate the creature's ability to act before it has taken an action. There are no abilities that do that. It's not how triggers work.
Take Reactive Strike as an example:
Source Player Core pg. 138
"Requirements: A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it's using."
Triggers take place after actions. Actions are what trigger triggers. As a GM, I don't think intention to take action is a suitable trigger. It's too gamey. There are triggers like the rogue's Nimble Dodge that let you apply an AC bonus before a strike hits, true, but they call that out as an exception.
Reactive Strike also calls out its exception to this:
"If your attack is a critical hit and the trigger was a manipulate action, you disrupt that action."
As far as Stun shutting down remaining actions on a creature's turn due to a readied action, I don't see a problem. In most cases it's so statistically unlikely to be successful, it's not going to happen enough to break the game.
I also don't think a wizard with an 8th level Power Word Stun is going to break the game by skipping their chance to cast a spell and moving within 30' of a creature to wait for it to attack them. It's going to work sometimes. It's going to get them badly hurt sometimes. It's also going to expend a super high level resource. It's never going to take away the target's entire turn.
Stun is an awesome effect to shoot for. It's going to elicit massive cheering if a player ever pulls it off. You might never see it in a campaign though. If someone wants to discuss a build that somehow delivers this easily and often enough to break the game, please put it up and let's see it.
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But again, doesn't that concern apply to Stunned normally?It doesn't, because that's not what the concern is.
The concern is the title thread: there really isn't much of another option to make Stunned maintain a relevant condition in the game without keeping its overpowered effects.
With no change is made to Stunned's current iteration, Stunned becomes an overpowered condition that probably shouldn't be in the game (because it becomes better than a valued condition like Slowed, but is weaker than a duration condition like Paralyzed). And if the only distinctive clause in the condition is removed, it becomes a redundant condition that likewise shouldn't be in the game (because we now have two conditions that do the same exact thing, as evidenced by them subsuming the same actions if both conditions are on a target).
I agree that stunned shouldn't be the same thing as slowed. But the solution has been named several times already: make people pay off stunned as soon as possible, instead of at the start of turn.
* You can still use it to deny reactions, just stun someone during your turn and then go move/cast spells.
* You largely remove the weird extra power spike of out of turn stunning.
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In regards to triggers, there are triggers you could use that aren't such a stretch:
- someone moves within range of my Power Word Stun spell
- someone moves within reach of my flurry of blows/stunning fist
- someone starts casting
These are good examples of why Stun isn't a balance issue.
"- someone moves within range of my Power Word Stun spell" -> This is a valid trigger. A creature takes an action involving a movement into your range. However, this comes with a risk of the loss of your two readied actions. What if they attack you instead? Cast a spell on you? Breath weapon? Your opportunity cost is that you could have cast Slow on them and made them lose actions automatically before their turn began.
"- someone moves within reach of my flurry of blows/stunning fist" -> Same problem, plus what if they do something else, even if it's a single action to manipulate an object, do a ranged attack, etc? Then let's say you get the Stun when they move into your reach: You knocked off 1 action? And that's generous. The odds of stunning on FoB are low. They require 1 success on your part and 1 failure with the incapacitation trait on their side:
"If either Strike hits and deals damage, the target must succeed at a Fortitude save against your class DC or be stunned 1 (or stunned 3 on a critical failure). This is an incapacitation effect." If it's a mook, it's not a big deal that you stunned them. If it's a higher level creature, they basically need to roll a natural 1 to be stunned. Meanwhile, you used 2 actions to FoB which normally only takes 1, and you risked nobody moving into range and wasting those actions. Statistically, it's even worse in the mook case, because in the case where they critically fail, they become stunned 3. That means if you had just spent your actions normally, they would have completely lost their turn anyway, and you would have had more actions.
"- someone starts casting" -> Disagree. Starting to cast is not an action. Neither is "start to swing." "Cast a spell" is. That means their spell should go off before yours. That means if their first 2 actions were to cast, your stun is only going to limit 1 action, and that's exactly what it would have done if you had just stunned on your turn and not wasted the extra action plus reaction readying.
This stun topic comes up frequently, but it's so white room. Yes, at first glance, stunning someone on their turn seems powerful. The reality is it's much messier and harder, and it's a better tactic to just act on your turn and pursue other strategies. The statistics don't support the Stun is OP argument.
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The reason it doesn't happen is most people see it as broken and stop it.
Which really should tell you enough.
The reason it doesn't happen is most people see it as broken and stop it.
Which really should tell you enough.
Can you share the build and scenario that's causing this?
There's no general rule that defines whether reactions occur before or after their triggers. However, Player Core added this sentence:
If multiple actions would be occurring at the same time, and it's unclear in what order they happen, the GM determines the order based on the narrative.
Based on the section it's found in, some would argue that this sentence is referring only to multiple reactions in response to the same trigger, but I do think it can also be applied to the triggering action itself. And a GM would probably side against stun abuse when making this decision. RAW on-turn stun still shouldn't be possible even by means other than Ready, though. It's too powerful.
Remember, effects that only inflict stunned 1 usually do so on a successful save. If it happens on a failure or critical failure, it's usually in combination with other effects like damage. It's not supposed to be a showstopper.
But again, doesn't that concern apply to Stunned normally?It doesn't, because that's not what the concern is.
The concern is the title thread: there really isn't much of another option to make Stunned maintain a relevant condition in the game without keeping its overpowered effects.
With no change is made to Stunned's current iteration, Stunned becomes an overpowered condition that probably shouldn't be in the game (because it becomes better than a valued condition like Slowed, but is weaker than a duration condition like Paralyzed). And if the only distinctive clause in the condition is removed, it becomes a redundant condition that likewise shouldn't be in the game (because we now have two conditions that do the same exact thing, as evidenced by them subsuming the same actions if both conditions are on a target).
I agree that stunned shouldn't be the same thing as slowed. But the solution has been named several times already: make people pay off stunned as soon as possible, instead of at the start of turn.
* You can still use it to deny reactions, just stun someone during your turn and then go move/cast spells.
* You largely remove the weird extra power spike of out of turn stunning.
If that is all it is meant to do, then a simple edit to "can't use reactions" would give that desired effect without introducing shenanigans.
Given that it's been 4 reprints and a Remaster, this is either intended by the devs, or it simply isn't an important enough thing to fix.
I'm saying that stunned 1 on its own with no other debilitating effects alongside it is considered safe enough that many effects use stunned 1 on its own as the result of a successful save. If the effect inflicts stunned 1 on a fail or crit fail, it's probably because it's getting paired with something else, like double damage or forced movement.
And comparing Slow to Stunning Snare is like comparing apples to oranges. One is a spell you spend 2 actions and a spell slot to use immediately, and the other is something you can set up before the fight and spend money to acquire the parts for.
Furthermore, someone good enough at Crafting (which they should be by level 12) can make their snares impossible to detect by creatures not actively Searching and creatures without the needed Perception proficiency rank. So needing to fail to notice the snare to suffer the effects is not a huge downside for the snare.
I'm saying that stunned 1 on its own with no other debilitating effects alongside it is considered safe enough that many effects use stunned 1 on its own as the result of a successful save. If the effect inflicts stunned 1 on a fail or crit fail, it's probably because it's getting paired with something else, like double damage or forced movement.
And comparing Slow to Stunning Snare is like comparing apples to oranges. One is a spell you spend 2 actions and a spell slot to use immediately, and the other is something you can set up before the fight and spend money to acquire the parts for.
Furthermore, someone good enough at Crafting (which they should be by level 12) can make their snares impossible to detect by creatures not actively Searching and creatures without the needed Perception proficiency rank. So needing to fail to notice the snare to suffer the effects is not a huge downside for the snare.
Dont you think that is a huge limitation of a snare though? I take back the thought that the stun 1 on fail is too harsh. Thanks for helping me realize that it needs it.
Most fights are not on your terms where you had time to prepare traps. When you do have that kind of advantage snares should get the better of unwary foes right? but anytime you are going into a dungeon or enemy mansion or whatever its their turf and your not getting the advantages of having access to the battle field before the enemies arrive.| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Because, just like it's not a ready trigger problem, it's also not a stun condition problem - it's a natural downside to turn-based combat timing.
Yeah, I would like to use this as an example for the Stunned condition in relation to other conditions whose benefits are solely determined by their position in the turn order.
Let's say I go right before an enemy, and I Demoralize them, making them Frightened 1. This only helps my attacks for the rest of the turn, and the rest of the enemy's turn. But, if I go before both the enemy and all of my allies, now my allies all get the benefit of Frightened 1 on their turns, as well as myself, and lastly, the enemy. Or even better, Frightful Presence. This means that if a PC walks into it during their turn, they will have a greatly reduced duration of the Frightened condition (since they will likely have spent at least one action getting into range), but if the enemy walks into the PCs, that will apply for both the rest of the enemy's turn, as well as the entirety of the PCs' turn.
Yet, in any instance, nobody is clamoring for Frightened to be buffed as a condition because it lasts for a very short duration, or that it needs to be nerfed because you're "double-dipping" on its benefits. Instead, what we get is "Don't Demoralize right before an enemy's turn, delay and set up for your allies to benefit as well," and nobody is viewing it as cheesing or breaking the system, but solid tactical gameplay.
So when somebody makes the strategic suggestion of "Try to Stun on the Enemy's turn so they lose their entire turn, plus reactions, plus one action the following turn, instead of just the ability to use reactions plus one action on the following turn," why do people cry outrage when it's basically just an inverted argument of the Frightened condition above? Because actions > modifiers? Because it's somehow not intended to work this way? Because players are purposefully trying to break the game?
Despite amount of controversy and a lot of very weak arguments denying "You Can't Act", the question boils down to a simple thing:
If Stunned X is weaker than Slowed X, as in it can't interrupt a turn in this specific edge case (that looks wonderful in theory, but nowhere near as good in play), then Stunned X shouldn't exist in the game.
In my interpretation and in my games, Stunned X is better than Slowed X, that's why it often has incapacitation trait and lasts a lot less as default.
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Despite amount of controversy and a lot of very weak arguments denying "You Can't Act", the question boils down to a simple thing:
If Stunned X is weaker than Slowed X, as in it can't interrupt a turn in this specific edge case (that looks wonderful in theory, but nowhere near as good in play), then Stunned X shouldn't exist in the game.
In my interpretation and in my games, Stunned X is better than Slowed X, that's why it often has incapacitation trait and lasts a lot less as default.
You're making the wrong comparison.
Stunned 3 vs Slowed 1 for 3 rounds. Both are supposed to cost you 3 actions over their runtime, but with Slowed it's done at a different rate.
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This is a fascinating debate, because nobody is moving the goalposts, per se, but rather they seem to have been drawn at perpendicular angles to each other entirely by accident... Regardless, I don't think I've seen anything to suggest that stunned becomes a worthless condition if it can't double-dip when triggered during the target's turn, so I'll keep running it as "Stunned X means can't act until X actions have been lost, including remaining actions on the creature's turn" until then.
Aside, Frightened is a valid comparison for turn-based weirdness, but not a terribly good one. Both Fright 1 and Stun 1 always work during a character's turn (-1 to offensive stats, -1 action) and have a benefit that lasts until then (-1 to defenses, no reactions), but Frightened 1 doesn't become Frightened 3 or 4 if you readied to nail a foe with it at the beginning of their round, and imho nor should Stunned remove more than the 1 action given in its value.
Once again, I propose that if stunned-on-turn is an epidemic that is robbing your players of their ability to shut down enemy reactions, you can always rule that the target's reaction is given over to the Can't Act entirely and isn't regained until their next turn. I see no reason why any other actions should be eaten without counting toward the Stunned value--RAW be damned.
This is a fascinating debate, because nobody is moving the goalposts, per se, but rather they seem to have been drawn at perpendicular angles to each other entirely by accident... Regardless, I don't think I've seen anything to suggest that stunned becomes a worthless condition if it can't double-dip when triggered during the target's turn, so I'll keep running it as "Stunned X means can't act until X actions have been lost, including remaining actions on the creature's turn" until then.
It kinda does. Stunned 1 is basically equal Slow 1, with the bonus of less than a round without the target being able to use reactions. However, Slowed 1 just blows it out of the water because every single instance when it applies it's vastly superior in applicability (easier to land at least for 1 round, no incapacitation) and can last a lot, lot longer, specially
on the player side.I would argue that under this line of thinking, printing Stunned 1 as a condition is largely meaningless, then. Might as well just have Slowed 1 and Stunned for X Rounds/Min as a condition instead (being equivalent to Stunned 3).
To me, the benefit of stopping the enemy round is a balancing factor that warrant the Incapacitation and low accuracy that come attached with Stunning effects.
If a player is willing to pay 2 actions and a reaction to gamble on such a tactic, I think it should pay off. The easiest to use (and also at will) tactic is with Flurry of Blows and even in this scenario, it's not game-breaking in the least. That's me saying as someone who played Monks for years in PF2e.
Don't forget there are monsters with Reactive Strike (aka Attack of Opportunity) that also force a save against stunned whenever they hit with a Strike. So that's a reaction that can regularly inflict on-turn stun. There are few such monsters, though.
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So running Stunned RAW would make amped Forbidden Thought a lot more powerful and interesting. Maybe the designers do understand that stunning an enemy on their turn is far more powerful than stunning them between turns, thus why amped Forbidden Thought seems weak on paper, but when you consider the save is made when they attempt the action and the stunned 1 occurs then if they failed the amped Forbidden Thought, that would make it far more powerful as the stunned condition would ruin their round until they could regain actions on the following round.
Now I'm on the fence. On one hand, if stunned was intended to prevent actions not consumed by the condition, I would think it would be mentioned here, perhaps phrased like this.
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, though stunned still prevents you from using those actions.
On the other hand, yeah, a lot of the options capable of inflicting on-turn stunned are pretty weak if stunned can't prevent actions that it doesn't consume.
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Now I'm on the fence. On one hand, if stunned was intended to prevent actions not consumed by the condition, I would think it would be mentioned here, perhaps phrased like this.
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, though stunned still prevents you from using those actions.On the other hand, yeah, a lot of the options capable of inflicting on-turn stunned are pretty weak if stunned can't prevent actions that it doesn't consume.
I think the designers tend to know about things like this and build with it in mind myself. I can't be absolutely sure minus their input, but it feels that way.
It's like when I first read Divine Smite and thought, "This is so weak. Charisma good damage? That is pretty pathetic for Divine Smite." Then you see how these very weak looking good damage abilities interact with weaknesses, then you see how powerful they can be.
In the case of stun on other turn abilities, they look weak if you use them and they stun causing the target to still be able to act, no offguard, and basically act as slow. If you factor in how they wrote the rule for when you get actions back and the fact you can't act, it makes stun different and more powerful than slow justifying the incapacitate trait. That makes something like amped Forbidden Thought seem even better because it stuns on their turn and no incap trait. It's another one of those abilities that looks very weak, but when you see all the rule interactions it is actually surprisingly strong.