Slowed / Stunned Homebrew

[xman720]

I have a homebrew which attempts to address 3 issues some players have with pathfinder. I like the rules how they are now, and don't have interest in changing them in my own games, but I do think the gripes have some legitimacy, find this fun to think about, and wanted to give an option for people to try if they like.

Problem 1: Slowed/stunned is too powerful. That is, the slow spell is an optimal choice in too many situations and too many combat decisions flows from whether or not the slow spell procs.

Problem 2: There is no mechanical difference between slowed and stunned.

Problem 3: Slowed and stunned don't stack. This doesn't come up a lot but can happen with monks for example, who might score a stunning strike on a critical hit which can leave an opponent both slowed and stunned, but nothing mechanical to show for it.

My proposed homebrew involves nerfing the slowed and stunned conditions in different ways in order to differentiate them, in a way so that being afflicted by both also causes a unique worse effect.

Homebrew slow
Slowed 1: Your body is slowed down by magical or biological means, preventing you from doing too many things. Every activity beyond the first activity on your turn takes one additional action. (This is identical to slowed 1, except the target can still dedicate their turn to a 3 action activity).
Slowed 2: Identical.
Homebrew stunned
Stunned 1: Your mind is faltering and you can't focus. Any activity which takes two or more actions takes an additional action. You recover at the end of your turn. (This is identical to stunned 1, except the target can take 3 single-action activities on their turn.)
Stunned 2+: Identical

There may be some obscure rules interaction problems with stunned 1 recovering at the end of your turn instead of when you regain actions as it happens right now (like being stunned during your turn by a reactive strike?)... but I think the rules as intended is clear. As a result of these rules, homebrew slowed 1 + stunned 1 then means the target cannot take 3 single actions due to slow and cannot take a 3 action activity due to stunned. So the target effectively has 2 actions, same as slowed or stunned now.

Another rules interaction is quickened. I would have these things not affect the quickened action or consume the quickened action, for both simplicity and to maintain the power of being quickened.

This makes slowed and stunned much less universally good-maybe too weak. But if you or your table are frustrated by how powerful the effects are maybe you could have fun with this.

[PathMaster]

xman720 said wrote:

There is no mechanical difference between slowed and stunned.

That's actually incorrect: Stunned prevents you from taking reactions, Slowed does not.

[A Butter Idea]

I've thought about this before. My idea is to make Slowed an inversion of Quickened; instead of reducing the number of actions available to you outright, it should instead impose limitations on what you can do with a number of actions. Furthermore, if an affected creature ends a turn without using some of its actions, it can carry over the unaffected action to its next turn; when it regains its three actions on its next turn, it can choose not to regain the affected action, thus giving it three unaffected actions for the turn.

As an example, you can rewrite the second paragraph of the Magnetic Repulsion spell as follows:

While the spell is active, you're slowed 1, and can't use the affected action to use metal objects (including to Strike with a metal weapon). If you're wearing metal armor, you also can't use the affected action to take move or manipulate actions.

If for whatever reason you choose to cast this spell on yourself while wearing metal armor, and then want to cast a Summon Elemental spell, you can do so, but it requires an additional turn to pull off. First, end your turn with one action not affected by the slowed condition. When your next turn comes, you can choose to regain only the two actions that are not affected by the slowed condition. You can then use your three unaffected actions to cast Summon Elemental.

[Tridus]

PathMaster wrote:

xman720 said wrote:

There is no mechanical difference between slowed and stunned.

That's actually incorrect: Stunned prevents you from taking reactions, Slowed does not.

This is a very important distinction that the homebrew rules remove, which kind of undermines the goal of problem 2 since the changes make them more alike.

Overall, I don't think I'd want to play with this homebrew rule. Slowed/Stunned/Quickened are pretty elegant in that they're relatively simple in what they do and how they interact. The changes here make the conditions more complicated to understand how they work, and they don't interact in the same way anymore.

[Loreguard]

One Stunned is normally just a value, and goes away after it has 'consumed' its action. It does have the additional effect of stopping people from using a reaction.

Typically, Slowed is normally the more dangerous condition... as it normally has a timeframe associated with it, so it may very well impact you more than one round.

However, Stunned for a duration would be a bigger danger in the cases it exists, since it stops you from getting any actions or spending reactions until the duration is elapsed.

I think if anything needing to be changed, clarified is what happens with Stunned when you become stunned during your turn. I honestly think in that condition it should consume up to its value of actions, and should prevent you from using any reactions until your next turn. But some might claim they might be able to use while stunned on your turn, as it impacts actions gained, not already received.

If on the other hand, getting stunned on your turn makes you lose all remaining actions, and doesn't reduce the stunned value, it is giving stunning reactions a lot more potential power.

[xman720]

Can you guys clarify why stunned removes reactions? Are you talking about the text, "You can't act" at the start of the stun condition? I always read this as just part of the flavor text. "You've become senseless. You can't act. [explanation of the rule]" Ι would have thought that if being stunned prevents you from gaining a reaction, it would actually say something like, "If you are stunned at the start of your turn, you don't gain any reactions." This is very unclear to me. What about free actions? Are you not allowed to drop anything you're holding while stunned? What if you are stunned 3, you would be able to use any reactions with the trigger, "Your turn ends" at the end of your turn?

[shroudb]

xman720 wrote:

Can you guys clarify why stunned removes reactions? Are you talking about the text, "You can't act" at the start of the stun condition? I always read this as just part of the flavor text. "You've become senseless. You can't act. [explanation of the rule]" Ι would have thought that if being stunned prevents you from gaining a reaction, it would actually say something like, "If you are stunned at the start of your turn, you don't gain any reactions." This is very unclear to me. What about free actions? Are you not allowed to drop anything you're holding while stunned? What if you are stunned 3, you would be able to use any reactions with the trigger, "Your turn ends" at the end of your turn?

From Gaining and Losing Actions paragraph:

Quote:

Some effects are even more restrictive. Certain abilities, instead of or in addition to changing the number of actions you can use, say specifically that you can't use reactions. The most restrictive form of reducing actions is when an effect states that you can't act: this means you can't use any actions, or even speak. When you can't act, you still regain your actions unless another effect (like the stunned condition) prevents it.

Stunned very clearly states that you can't act.

So no reaction, no free actions, not even speech is allowed while you are Stunned.