Topic: Sage?s House Rules - Volume II - Stuns

[Dr_Sage]

Hello again.

I hope you are enjoining the small modifications that made all the difference inside my gamming group. All the mods have been playtested from levels 1 to 12 during aproximately 8 months of intense gamming.

Bleeding (including internal injures, burning clothes or whatever) can be lethal considering that the person can die in 1 minute, while damaged organs can be long-lasting remminders of a battle, but usually what defines a battle?s curse is the well aplyed stun.

The way core rules works its almost impossible to resist then at low levels, but I disliked the idea of just lowering the numbers becuse I knew that would be bad for high level play.

So basicaly I use this numbers to resist stun:

RR must be equal to 100+10/round of stun.

Meaning:

To resist 1 round  of stun RR = 110
To resist 3 rounds of stun RR = 130
To resist 9 rounds of stun RR = 190

If you really enjoy hard to resist stuns I still recoment our way, but just with a higher base (120+ 10/rd for example) becuse it has much more variation than the original core rules.

I would love to hear your feedback fellows.

PS: I hate the word "stun" for this effect. I am no english teacher but I think maybe "stagger" or something like that would be more appropriate.

[Duskwalker]

Great idea!

I don't like the current way stun is handled, either. Simply too hard to resist for even experienced characters. Your house rule sounds pretty playable to me. Definitely worth the idea point. 

This actually made me think a little about the whole thing:
Another approach might be to make it a cascading resistance roll with lets say 110/ +10 per round, so 5 rounds would result in:
RR: Stamina (160) - no stun
RR: Stamina (150) - 1 round
...
RR: Stamina (120) - 4 rounds
all other results    - 5 rounds

A tiny bit more math to do, but everyone should be able to cope with it. This rule would allow for more differentiated results. Please, don't be to hard with your critique, it just sprang to my mind.

By the way, if you think "stun" is a bad choice in English, you've never heard it in German (Benommenheit). Its even worse.
I looked up stun and staggered in the dictionary. They're synonyms for someone being shocked and surprised, with stun having the connotation of "unconsciousness", while stagger has more to do with surprise. So stun might be a better choice, but hey, that's just phraseology.

[Dr_Sage]

Lovely!

I think we can combine our ideas for a very good result.Idea Point for you too. 

This +10/-10 logic is so simple that deserves some playtesting.

I am kinda hurry now to DM a session, but I promisse I will be back.

Regards,

Andre

[Atom]

HI

Well i like the core rules of stun, thats makes the battle more complexs and can easy change corse. stun is a very bad ting and worse in lower lvl becouse you aint used to withstand it, by time and higher lvl you withstand more, but i guess that you avoid that kind of criticals, and uses your mind to battle for you so you dont need to get stun, if you rush some battles or stronger oppenents you almost doomed to get party members stunned and unable to assist during the combat and big chance to die if you not getting out of there.
im glad that harp as put up stun like a very hard thing to come over, so i must avoid getting hit, and that makes it more intersting.

but still at like lvl 7 to 9 for a warrior he usually got 20 pick+ in the rr stamina and has a ok chance to make the RR. for you got like 100 to 130 in that skill.

regards

D

[Dr_Sage]

Glad to hear from you atom.

PLease consider this: I am not bothered buy the absolute high value of stun. What bothers me more is the small variation in the RR numbers, from aproximately 150 to
 190. Not much variation, and makes pointless to roll RR at low levels.

I do agree that stuns are to be feared and in fact its the introcudtion of my post, I just believe the mechanics must be tweaked a bit.

Regards and thanks for the answer. Lest keep it comming. 

[Pecete]

How does last a 1 round stun?

[Right Wing Wacko]

Yeah...how does last a 1 round stun?

And... if it takes a round to eat an herb, what friggin good are herbs that relieve 1 round of stun?

If you are stunned for 1 round and decide to eat your herb on that round, isn't it better to save the herb and just deal with the stun since you will not be able to do anything anyway?

[Dr_Sage]

Yeah...how does last a 1 round stun?

All depends on witch iniative systen do you use.

In my games I ask players to declare the actions, basicaly "by the book". So the stun must be enough to prevent then to act once.

If the player has declared an "press and melee" action for instance, and got stuned for 1 round before he could act I believe he would just forfeight his atack for the round in question, having the defensive options described on the Core Book at hist disposal.

If he has already acted, he shall loose his action on the next round.

In my judment (I may be wrong here, ok?), I count the actions the character loose, becuse its easier to keep record of that, than a time frame.

If you do not declare the actions for the round the accounting is even simplier. 

If you are stunned for 1 round and decide to eat your herb on that round, isn't it better to save the herb and just deal with the stun since you will not be able to do anything anyway?

LOL tecnicaly you are alright.

I believe roleplay solve this: the player know its only 1 round and its not worth spending the resourse, but do the character have a so precise view of the universe?

[Witchking20k]

I guess it depends on if you know how long you are stunned for.  Many GMs don't tell you how long you are stunned for....

[Dr_Sage]

Same thing happens on the initiative issues.

When my players declare their actions I try my best to do NOT use that knowloge in favor of my NPCs, usually with bery interesting results. I actually have fun seeing my monstrers fell in clever tactical traps somethimes.

But I have a couple of playrs that are not capable of separating Player knowloge from Character Knowloge.

[Witchking20k]

Thats what seperates good roleplayers from not IMO.