The most realistic part of this video is how nobody in his group used a single Inspiration, Abjuration or any other kind of buff to help him get out of his stun and instead just watched him struggle.
True! Once my party and I fought against a whale (we were on a boat) that had a stunning shout, I only had to pass up 1 tuen but our ranger kept getting stunned, the fighter doing ok-ish and the wizard had not even gotten to SEE the whale because they were just stunned nonstop - so it was basically just the fighter brute-lowering the whale's HP and me, the cleric, doing whatever damage I could. After the 2nd or 3rd stun cry I said "Ok this is getting ridiculous, enough - DM, I use my lvl 4 spell slot to leave the whale out of water" "You wanna create a whirlpool to hopefully throw it to the beach? You aren't close enough to the shore" "No, I open up the water from under it. Like Moses." "What.. you can do that?" "Yeah, it's one of the things I can choose from with Control Water. I want to create a massive hole around the whale and drop it out of the water." "Okay... you can do that limited to how far you can reach. Remind me what the spell range is?" "300ft" "OH" Cue the DM rolling a ton of fall damage for the whale.... and for the fighter that was "riding" the whale to bash it with her sword, who unfortunately also fell 300ft... I had misunderstood that detail 😅 Surprisingly, I did not kill the fighter lol. But we bested the whale 😂
@@tuononnovainbici first, that is not how the spell works. Second, are you flauting your lack of inteligence to use a CANTRIP to help them with the saves? Shame on you
@@burningshine5524 well, the spell does say it’s a 100x100x100 cube of water that he can control, so it’s a valid use of Control Water. That said, a generous DM would allow either Lesser or Greater restoration to remove the condition
@@burningshine5524You are thinking about the cantrip Shape Water, not the 4th level spell Control Water Edit: After checking the guy I’m replying to’s other comments. Burning is one of those “D&D players need to get good and not complain” types.
I feel you, played a DnD 5e fighter vs Su-monsters once, rolled shit, and got stunned for 6 consecutive rounds. Stunned REALLY sucks, I‘ve replaced it with the dazed condition by now.
@@TronHammer our DM put us up against one Su Monster on level ONE (in our first session). It won initiative AND SURPRISED US and instakilled my 8HP wizard. DM felt bad and revived the wizard lol
@@adamcimrmann It is a CR1 creature, but similar to ghouls, I feel like if you roll bad on your saves, you're just done for. And with the 5d6 Psychic damage on a failed save, that's just begging to instakill someone. 2d6 would probably be much more appropriate, as it currently stands, on a failed WIS save the damage output does not say CR1 😅
Was fully expecting this to be the bbeg wizard getting stunned immediately and the end of the 64 session campaign to just be a boring beatdown that would be just as equally not playing the game.
Assuming this is 9th level, you forgot Indomitable. For those that don’t know, it lets you turn a failed save into another failed save because honestly what did you expect.
See, I haven’t read the comments, but does anyone else think stun being bad goes both ways? Like as the DM, it is a very nice day when we’re allowed to use the encounter we’re running-
It does go both ways, but to play devil's advocate, the DM has all the power to compensate. They can just add another monster or choose one that's immune to stun.
Whether or not you add a creature immune to being stunned, the main issue is that a player being stunned means they can't post the have. An NPC/monster being stunned doesn't stop the DM from playing.
Reminds me of one session where I couldn't do anything the entire time. The DM was semi piloting my character I got magically stuck to a chest. I don't think it was my choice to touch it. Plus a monster got a magically stuck to me as well. The only technical choice I made the entire day was choosing to grapple the monster and get us more entangled so it couldn't attack other people. Fun..
Playing with everyone highly leveled: you’re either doing the raddest shit ever witnessed in the history of mankind…or you’re stunlocked for twelve straight rounds
a tip on stun for gms: give good saves or legendary resistances to solo boss encounters or just add minions. As a gm who runs for a monk, nothing hurts more than the 2 hours you spent prepping an encounter going down the drain cause your boss failed their save 3 times in a row.
Or, you know, know what your players are capable of, empower them to use those abilities, and reward them for doing so. I had a session where a monk pc and cleric pc finally had the chance to get their licks in on a terrifying creature that had been hunting them all game. They stunned it. Full well knowing nothing short of a Nat 20 would do it, I just rolled to see if I could get out in the next x rounds. The answer was no, so I put them in montage mode and allowed them to jump the monster. The sheer joy in their voices at racking up an insane amount of damage basically for free is what it's all about.
@@zendoclone1 I get that, but like. DMs are people too, if you're really looking forward to an epic boss encounter and your players cheese it somehow that hurts as a DM. So yeah, stun sucks for both sides cause its the 'you don't get to play' button.
@@seasnaill2589except as DM you do still get to play. Because you're in charge and also you're playing more than one thing. What players can do against being stunned: -Hope they save. Cause if they're stunned they literally cannot do anything. What the DM can do against stuns: -Make your main big bad with cool mechanics immune to stun -have more than a single guy. -give your big bad very good saving throws so that they're likely succeed getting against stunned anyway -Legendary Resistances. (This one has the added benefit that it'll make the player that's applying stun feel like they've helped by using up one more legendary resistance for the high impact spells)
@@Chrosteellium I can't help but notice that every one of your GM-side examples are things you prepare for _before_ getting stunned. There are things players can do on that side, too. Your PC could have better saves, could cast spells like Freedom of Movement or Mind Blank that make you immune to certain kinds of stun conditions, seek out magic items, there's a number of class features that help as well, and you could make sure to have inspiration at the right moment. But yeah as a general rule I think these conditions probably just shouldn't exist in a game like D&D.
This literally happened in our last game. We were fighting mindflayers and this exact intelligence spell was used on us. I got lucky because I decided it would be fun to try out intellect fortress since I hadn’t until then, but are rogue just couldn’t do anything because of it
Just for the clarification, Illithid Mind Blasts aren't spells, and are a cone. Some tips on fighting them is not being bunched, or closely grouped, while being within 30 feet of all allies to help anyone who gets stunned and grappled by them.
@@jplays338 oh I thought it was a spell. Our dm usually doesn’t play with maps so we are always some random distance between each other at around 30ft ish. We don’t mind though this rarely happens, and the same is always true for the enemies so fireballs always hit big
@@jplays338not being bunched doesn’t help as much as you’d think with a mind blast. It’s a 60ft cone, which covers ALOT of ground. And that’s if there’s only a single one.
@@Specter_1125 It can help more than being a 4 man blob looking like a 10 ft cube of Player Characters and dreams. In all fairness, stops a full team wipe of stuns by excluding at min 1 or 2 members. Plus, if you can restrict their movement you can force em to make suboptimal usage of it.
I really like the headcannon of one of those players being a Paladin who’s standing just far enough away that his Aura of Protection doesn’t reach the Fighter. Add a bit of insult to injury.
My DM had an encounter set that really worked for our party comp. As a sorceress i tended to stay in the back (i had several spells that could teleport me and one other so i tried to stay reasonably close to any of my melee party members). However my party was getting upset at me because i was almost never in range of the enemy aoe spells (several of my own spells or attacks were 60+ range) or some of their long range attacks (i had a pretty OP robe set that added +3 to AC and a symbiote that gave me +1). They insisted that i use my symbiote every encounter (i had an enchanted gunblade that could eject the blade so even for non magic attacks i could still do physical/blunt/piercing so there was no need for up close interactions for me.) One encounter i finally decided to be in the fray with the Barbarian and rogue, the rogue crit failed a slash attack and i nealry lost an eye; the Barbarian crit failed a swing and took out the rogue. I crit failed a con saving throw and got paralyzed. I thought i was the real problem because my group insisted we could get through fights faster if i would just join them on the front line. The barabarian made it seem like he carried the group all the time. The problem was that i usually played my sorceress well enough that when the DM balances our encounters, any time i was taken out of commission i couldnt provide cover, suppression fire, dispel, teleport or reasonable suggestions LMAO This happened three sessions in a row nd my group finally stopped bitching at me for staying in the back
Oh man - even though my sorceress tries to stay out of the action, she still will usually go down 1-3 times a flight, so... Everyone knows I'm the brittlest of glass cannons and would prefer I stay tf away from the smashy guys. (The one time I stayed up was when I cast haste on the fighter and the DM was trying so hard to force me to lose concentration but I stayed up and it was *awesome*.)
My character died mid campaign right before the bossfight and my next character was a pure illusion/mind focused mesmer. We went to fight the big bad, who was a hag immune to all mind/illusion. And everytime my spells failed, it made things worse (she would duplicate). I literally couldn’t do anything, because all my abilities were her immunities 😭 the dm couldnt stop apologizing because he had built the fight for the last team comp. My friends ragged on me the same way though
Yeah I've done that before on a wisdom save against being charmed, got 3 on the dice but was a barbarian with -3wisdom 😅 I was instantly friends with an elder brain, good thing it was a one-shot
HERE'S THE FIX! Replace all effects that cause stun with one of the following: - Dazed. On your turn you may take a move, an action, or a bonus action; you only get one of the three. - Debilitated. Anything that requires an action now also requires a bonus action. - Delicate. Each time you take damage, you take additional damage of that type equal to the damaging creature's proficiency bonus. - Disoriented. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and concentration checks. - Drowsy. Cannot take reactions and movement is halved. Also, these effects, like most, should repeat their saving throw at the end of their turn
This is great, my party's going to be coming up against the bbeg soon and he has a stunning cone (it's a gauth, beholderkin for those not familiar) and I've been worrying about him just annihilating the party if they roll bad on saves 😅
@@TERMINATOR3900 so you party is only full of rogues and fighters? As anyone else will be able to help. Also, no magic items? No preparation? No potions?
My group of high level characters (like level 18 after 100 sessions) were fighting an ancient red dragon. It had used all it's legendary resistances by this point in the fight, had like 50 hit points left and was starting to fly away when my warlock cast Power Word Stun on it and it worked. The damn thing died from fall damage
This is a problem that rarely comes up in Pathfinder 2e. Stunned is typically accompanied by a number which reduces your actions (of which you get 3 per turn). So if an effect gives you Stunned 4, you lose 3 actions on your turn, then next round you're only Stunned 1 meaning you have 2 actions on your turn. No endless cycles of being hopelessly reliant on low probability die rolls. Rarely an effect gives Stunned with a duration (like 1 minute), which sucks but those kinds of problems are what high level spellcaster allies are for.
Fair. It still sucks to be locked out the game for multiple rounds of a combat that potentially takes upwards of an hour. I feel like if the min situation results in you being better off watching a movie or catching up on a show because you aren't allowed to interact with the game it might be too harsh. Hell, at least being debuffed or charmed just makes you worse or a stage hazard. Stun is just painful for the player.
I know this pain. I've shared that pain for years. It's become my friend. And long lost ally throughout the ages. Don't worry my friend, when you die, the condition will end...
Feel this, as both a player and a DM. As a player we got ambushed by mindflayers, and my wizard was the only one to pass the saves. Put up a dome of force to keep them at bay and pray the other PCs broke out before the mindflayers recharged. As a DM, I try to avoid spells that completely remove players for the game, especially if they don't require concentration. I've used forcecage more times for plot than for combat. Most of the time it's just not fun for the players.
One of the best homebrew rules I've implimented in my sessions: Stuns will NEVER be used against the players while in combat, but players are still free to use stuns against enemies. Some enemies who rely on stuns' HP may be adjusted to compensate. Everyone has gone out of their way to make time for this game, so they deserve to play the game. I don't care if my imaginary monsters get to move or not.
Been there, used it, still failed because it's a high DC save in a stat I didn't have proficiency in saving against. Proceeded to be able to do nothing for the entire boss fight because the stun hit before I got a turn to reposition or do anything to mitigate the chances of getting hit with it.
@@paradocks23this is why I run the indomitable feature as a legendary resistance for fighters. "Player make this save or be Charmed/Stunned/Unconcious etc. Oh you failed well in that case..." "Nah, I'd Succeed." Instantly hype
Indomitable is a tool for turning a failed save in a mental stat into another failed save in a mental stat. With it, you still have a 2/3 chance of failing the save.
@@Chrosteellium I love the idea here, but I'd probably not give the Legendary Resistance version to the Fighter at Level 9 immediately, perhaps when the feature improves at Level 13
This happened to me during a climactic boss battle a while ago. A very important NPC (former player character, now mind controlled) was wielding a cursed sword which had the power to corrupt anyone who touched it. Our party spent nearly an entire session planning how to approach the inevitable fight, since we didnt want to kill this NPC, but we needed to get the sword away from her. We had a druid, a hemotheurge (homebrew blood mage), a rogue, and pugilist ( homebrew unarmed fighter, also me). Since I was the Strength-based character, my role in the plan was to try holding the NPC down to help get the sword out of her hands. Well, the fight started with a lair action which cast Confusion on me, which I failed the save to resist...for the whole fight (about 5 hours irl). Over the course of the encounter, the rogue was able to take the cursed sword without requiring any sort of roll, and he was also not affected by its corruption effect without making any sort of save. The whole boss battle we worked up to and spent hours planning for went off without a hitch, all while down a party member. My role in the plan ended up being completely unnecessary. I literally sat around doing nothing the whole time, with no assistance from the party. Up to this point I had felt fairly unimportant in the story as a whole, so I took that as a sign to just back out of the campaign. We had played for a long while and accomplished our latest big task and it was mostly fun overall. After the session, I went to the DM in private to voice my frustrations, to let him know I would be taking my leave, and I was met with what seemed to be a good enough response from him. I was looking forward to a new campaign that the rogue player was starting up anyway, so I wouldn't be without a game at least. Well, a few days later, the rogue player messages me to let me know that the DM told him what I said. Rogue player then uninvites me to his upcoming campaign (which we had already made characters for) on the basis that I am too much of a rules-lawyer. So, my frustrations about the plan we made not mattering because, even though I was stuck for that whole fight, the rogue player was able to effortlessly accomplish everything I would have done, were somehow translated into me caring too much about sticking to rules and not enough about having fun. To this day, I still don't understand how that was the conclusion, especially after my conversation with the DM seemed positive to me. Tl;dr I spent 5 irl hours failing Wisdom saves and lost a whole friend group because I had the nerve to tell the DM it bothered me.
That's why I've stopped using stun and other such conditions and replaced them with dazed, where the PC gets to do action, bonus action or movement, but only one
This is why I’ve started adding alternative effects. The players can choose to pass a save instead of failing, but they give up something or expose themselves to danger. Context changes how much you give up depending on what the stakes are. You could just sprain your ankle, reducing your speed by 10 for the rest of the day, if you’re trying to jump a small crevasse; or if you’re resisting the effect of a finger of death you might lose access to the left half of your body, severely disabling you, or perhaps instead of dying you lose memories. Ideas go on. In this situation I’d probably offer the player if they didn’t want roll to resist the stun, their stunned fear is replaced with rage and they have to describe what part of themselves the rage has taken over. Now they write a new trait about the aspect of themselves they gave up, and the rage that replaced it.
Dazed is a WAY better condition that can be ported over. You lose your reaction and on your turn you can pick only one of the following to use: movment, action, bonus action. It can hugely hamper what your character can do, but also provides a fun puzzle of what the most important piece of your turn is RIGHT NOW.
In my first long campaign, this happened to me. And yeah, a few players were this kind of shitty. Oddly enough, now all my characters since across every system have been designed to have at least a +1 modifier for stats/skills. Wonder why…
Honestly, if they're going to have stun in the game it should either be a less severe version or there should be more methods of cleansing the stun. Pathfinder sort of achieved this. I played a cleric and I did very little damage but my main job was keeping the group free of poison, paralysis, and other annoying status effects and the game was a lot more fun because of it. The issue was sometimes we'd fight monsters that had debilitating conditions I wasn't yet powerful enough to get rid of. Restoration sucks compared to Greater Restoration, which is locked behind too high level of a level.
My brother got stunned in a boss fight for three or so rounds. He had a rocket launcher that was primed and ready to go. The tension was high. When he finally saved, he got off the shot and dealt the killing blow with massove damage. It turned out really awesome. So, if anything, stun sucks, but there is always an exception.
This happened to me. We were trying to push through a mindflayer blockade in the astral plane and they kept hitting me with an intelligence save that knocked me out. DC was either 20 or close to it. Rolled high a few times but still wasn't good enough. Finally rolled a nat 20 and snapped out of it, only to immediately get hit with it again and get knocked out. Every single player texted me after that session apologizing to me for being done dirty like that by the DM. One of them threatened to end the campaign if we had another session like that. DM didn't even let the wizard's simulacrum kill me in order to utilize the clone he made for me.
I'd start by kicking the player who threatened DM :) no need for those people at a table. Then i would recommend you to ask all the party members to stop kissing your ass after deeda are done and instead learn their classes to learn how to help you next time
@@burningshine5524 well they tried helping but nothing actually helped. It also didn't help that they had to burn their entire action to try to help me (and then it not work). DM even admitted afterward that he made the DC too high. But if it makes you feel any better, we've kind of split off from two of the players, the one you say should be gone included. Now it's me, DM, and wizard that tried to save me by killing me. Also I've been DM'ing lately. It's been going well so far.
Pathfinder 1e had the staggered condition, which makes it so you can only take one action on your turn (In 5e terms this would be taking movement, making a single attack, or using an item, casting a spell, etc). There was no multiattack though, so a staggered person can only make a single attack, and can't two weapon fight. It would certainly be less debilitating, but there was still the dazed condition (stun without ac drop), and actual stun (which drops your AC in addition to no action).
This is why I have a rule that if anything is preventing you from taking your turn, you can take a point of exhaustion to ignore it until the end of your next turn. Exhaustion is also tweaked to not be quite as big a penalty.
I gotta say, definitely thought this was going to be a monk video. But psychic scream is the spell of choice when the gloves are off. Meteor swarm may wreck anyone without evasion but everyone is gangster until they make int saves.
I've been running my own extremely loosey goosey campaign, none of us have really played before so we're mostly just describing whats going on and I'm making up the checks they have to make for success on the spot I fear I may be doing this wrong
This is so on the nose, I played the finale of a long-running campaign a year or so ago, my wizard got stunned by a mind blast effect before he got his first turn, and I then proceeded to be stunned for 5 full rounds. The whole combat lasted 7 rounds. Only difference was I didn’t get mocked or get into an argument about it (as if the DM could change my dicerolls somehow) but I did admittedly mentally tune out as I sat inactive for about 90 mins, interspersed with rolling a terrible save every 15 minutes. I think what’s more annoying was that it was downplayed a subsequent game night as “just a round or two” rather than nearly the entire fight.
Been there, I rolled a nat 20 on my initiative, went first, moved into position, triggered a trap and was petrified for the whole fight, the petrify lasted a minute, I didn't manage to save against the DC14 for the entire minute, 10 bad rolls. Still had fun though!
One of the best feelings in the game is navigating a labyrinth of powerful abilities until you can exploit that one quirky interaction that turns things around in your favor. One of the worst is running face first into a wall of an ability without anything to compensate.
Lost power due to storm after arriving home from a not fun long trip out of town to the doctors. I waited 4-5 hours (Missing an hour of the session) and finally got power back and got online. The party was in a combat and i got back in time for my turn. I got 3 whole turns. 3. In the last hour and a half i got 3 turns, two of which i missed my attacks so they may as well not happened. I took one turn and got stunned by an enemy wizard who them got sanctuary cast on them. For an hour and a half i sat there unable to do anything rolling nothing above a 10. Stunned. Once the session was over i said, out loud, that I genuinely wished i just had not shown up for the session and done my own thing that night.
The Stun condition always reminds me of Dimension 20 Sophomore year when Fabian was having his big climatic fight with his father's nemeses. Before the fight Fabian was talking crazy smack and was smacked down by this guy so the fight was suppose to be him regaining his pride and masculity but on the first turn he was stunned and proceeded to fail every single saving throw even when his friends sacrificed their actions to give him the help action. It was pretty sad how he just sat their on his ass for the entire fight and his companions finished off the nemeses. But the unlucky dice rolls was turned into a roleplaying opportunity that went on for many sessions until Fabian's realized he doesn't need to be hyper masculin like he was raised and instead rely on his friends even if it could be seen as weak.
Stun, along with a few other status affects, should have a DC that reduces every turn. That was it's impactful when the ability or spell is used but isn't debilitating for too many turns.
I was literally this person in a game once. Was playing a Barbarian fighting fey creatures and multiple sessions in a row was being hit by Wisdom save or be Paralyzed effects. I was one of the worst experiences I've had playing the game. Stun, Paralyzed, and Incapacitated are incredibly rough and basically ruin the game for certain classes. But this is also true as a DM. As a DM you get excited when preparing the game, looking forward to using certain monsters and wondering how your group will overcome them. But conditions like this that make it so the creatures can't actually DO anything sucks the fun right out of the sessions as well.
Stun, in my amateur opinion, is best used as a one-off condition that doesn’t need a repeat save and just ends the next turn. Simplifies it and stops… unfortunate circumstances from occurring.
I know it's a joke, but. The way to balance it is either: stun lasts one turn (like stunning strike), or the attacker needs to make concentration saves when damaged in addition to the victim's save at the end of the turn (like hold person). Or you could allow an ally to rouse them like hypnotic pattern or sleep
lmao this feels like perfect timing. So I'm in a campaign where most of the players are first-timers (I'm one of the most experienced despite only having played in a 2-shot once before), so the dm had been taking it easy on us for a while and just recently told us he's gonna stop doing that since he's confident we've gotten decently used to the game. Anyway in the most recent session he held true to his word by stunning me. I couldn't move for 4 turns. Nothing too bad but it was his first use of a condition so it caught us off guard. Thankfully the enemies didn't have any ranged attack options and couldn't get to me so I didn't take any damage. Even more thankfully, I am playing a monk and cannot wait for level 5 so I can get my revenge.
At this point I usually just have it where if a boss can stun something it only lasts until the end of the player's next turn, then its just one round and it still gives time for the boss to capitalize on a stun without ruining the game.
This hits SO close to home, last weak I had to succeed to on a DC 21 wisdom saving throw to remove a custom frightened condition that made me attack my allies, I had a +6 to the save and advantage......I spent the entire 3 hours session losing, I almost killed my teammates on multiple occasions so that sucked.
