Stunned after taking Wait maneuver

Lancewholelot · 09-22-2019, 07:57 PM

Recently in a game I was running, a player took the Wait maneuver to attack a cave bear if it came toward him. Before this Wait was triggered the player was stunned by a sorceress' Death Vision spell. The cave bear then gets to move in on its turn without the stunned player getting the attack he was waiting for. The player's next turn starts and I tell him he must take the Do Nothing maneuver due to stun. The player protest that he had already lost a turn and should have already gotten a chance to recover. I stuck to my ruling, but how would you call it?

~~evileeyore~~ · 09-22-2019, 08:45 PM

My ruling? His Wait would have finalized with him stunned and making his first recovery roll. Why? Because his turn doesn't end until he either takes his Wait or it passes.

If he succeeded his recovery, then he acts on his next turn. If he failed, he's still stunned.

And partially because he's right, he already lost a turn to the stun.

Anthony · 09-22-2019, 09:20 PM

Recovery from stun does not occur on any action; it occurs when you take the Do Nothing maneuver.

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Originally Posted by b364

On each turn of Do Nothing, he may attempt a HT roll to recover from physical stun or an IQ roll to recover from mental stun.

On the other hand, nothing in the description of stunning actually prevents you from using a delayed action (it specifies that you take Do Nothing on your next turn, gives a penalty to active defenses, and forbids retreat, but does not address readied actions), and a Wait that fails to trigger is equivalent to Do Nothing.

Lancewholelot · 09-22-2019, 09:32 PM

If the player's nullified Wait counts as his "next turn" and he successfully rolls recovery, then he'll get to act normally before the sorceress gets a turn following her casting. That's why I think this is wrong and the player still has to Do Nothing on his actual next turn. The Wait maneuver was his last turn, Do Nothing is his next turn. Everyone else still gets their turns while the player is stunned.

finn · 09-22-2019, 10:50 PM

I agree with Lancewholelot's ruling and reasoning.

I see no reason the character should recover from the sorceress' spell faster just because the character was waiting to do something. Yes, the character did kind of lose an extra turn, but that risk is inherent in the Wait maneuver, though it was worsened by a timely stun effect.

Anthony · 09-22-2019, 10:55 PM

The risk of losing your turn is inherent in a wait maneuver anyway; if the trigger doesn't happen, you lose your action. The actual rules are sort of strange, though.

Ultraviolet · 09-23-2019, 01:44 AM

I don't think the Wait should allow the Do Nothing needed to break the stunning. That would be converting his action.

The character called a Wait manoeuvre, which specified to attack, if the circumstances occurred, otherwise keep waiting. You don't just wait until the thing you're waiting for accurs, you're waiting until it's your turn again. Only then can you do something else.
Or Nothing, as it is here...

And I don't think one should be allowed - even if it is suspected that the sorcesess casts Stunning spells - to call a Wait in order to do an instantaneous break stunning, and then react as if nothing happed first in the next round. Because this nullified the sorceress' effect and because of the 1 second rounds the Stunning is broked almost instantly. Pre-emptive Stun breaking? Nah.

Tomsdad · 09-23-2019, 03:29 AM

Yep I agree talking a wait is always a risk.

You risk losing the action if your trigger doesn't happen, and you risk something bad happening to you while you wait for your chosen trigger.

What happened here is the player was setting a trap with the bear in mind, but instead got the tables turned on them by the wizard and the bear working "together*"

Allowing the wait to be converted into a retroactive do nothing / recovery effectively gives you an instant recovery. IMO the intent of the do nothing to recover is clear you lose your next turn doing it.

Right OK that's my general ruling based on general principal. But if it had been at my table I might have allowed it / taken pity, depending on what else been going on etc.

1), Did the player know about the wizard, and if they didn't did they take reasonable precautions to see if there was anything else other than the bear about**?
(Ignoring a wizard and giving them time to mess with you, you get what you deserve aka gank the wizard first)

2). Is two rounds of the bear attacking pretty much an automatic death sentence for this character without options to avoid it?
(other characters etc)

I don't go out of my way to fudge rules to save characters but I might take the above points into account and let them make some kind of will roll to allow them to convert the wait action to recovery action after the bear's got it's first round in.

*I don't know how in concert they were working

**this last point is of course nebulous and very dependent on the game up until then. basically was the player not playing smart or was this more towards the "no win" death trap end of the spectrum. Was this encounter in the final hidden sanctum of "The Bear Cult" a group of sorcerers who worship bears and make a habit of working with bears that the players have been working towards for 10 sessions. or was it more a random wilderness encounter.

~~evileeyore~~ · 09-23-2019, 04:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

What happened here is the player was setting a trap with the bear in mind, but instead got the tables turned on them by the wizard and the bear working "together*"

If bear and Sorceress are run by other Players, I'm with you. I strongly suspect they were NPCs run by the GM. In which I prefer my ruling.

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Allowing the wait to be converted into a retroactive do nothing / recovery effectively gives you an instant recovery.

Then rule on this:

Player: I Wait, and if a stunning spell is cast on me I Do Nothing.

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1), Did the player know about the wizard, and if they didn't did they take reasonable precautions to see if there was anything else other than the bear about**?
(Ignoring a wizard and giving them time to mess with you, you get what you deserve aka gank the wizard first)

There is a Wizard casting something over there and a bear rushing you... What do you worry about immediately?

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2). Is two rounds of the bear pretty much an automatic death sentence for this character without options to avoid it?
(other characters etc)

I don't even care about that. Dude decided that fighting the bear was the right option, dude get's to fight a bear.

My concern is stripping someone of their Wait, and then acting like "Well, you took a Wait, maybe next time don't waste your turn on risky propositions that."

Not saying you're saying that, but there is a definite stink of that from some other posts. As a GM who almost never sees Waits being used? Yeah, I give those maneuvers a little extra somethin-somethin* to encourage the usage.

* I actually allow 'wasted' Waits to convert into Aim, Evaluate, or Concentrate (Situational Awareness) as most appropriate. I'd also let it slide into one of the "useless" Maneuvers like Do Nothing, Position Change, Ready or even let them take the move portion of whatever Maneuver they had chosen as their Wait if nothing else is appropriate (and they had not yet moved).

Tomsdad · 09-23-2019, 05:17 AM

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