Stunning
 

What if we pushed the rules for being knocked down by wounds to better simulate stunning? My proposition is simple: if one sustains damage necessary to knock them down, they are considered stunned. Stunned figures may take no action until they recover with a 3/ST roll, which they make at the end of each turn they are stunned.

Examples:

• Turn One, Buparal, a character with ST 12, is hit for 8 points of damage, and falls, stunned. At the end of the turn he rolls 13, failing on his 3/ST roll to recover; he remains stunned. Turn Two, Buparal can't act, except, at the end of the turn to again roll 3/ST to recover. He succeeds with a result of 12, and may act on Turn Three.
  
• Turn One, Zypho, who has ST 14, is hit for 10 points of damage, and falls, stunned. At the end of the turn, he succeeds on his 3/ST roll with a 13. He has recovered from being stunned and can act on Turn Two.

This approach creates a greater grey area in which someone is not dead, but is temporarily out of the action. It also gives another benefit to having a higher ST.

Re: Stunning
 

This has the effect of making a knockdown even worse than it is. Seems to me that a knockdown is already dreadful. It's nearly a death sentence unless the opponents are outnumbered.

If I were looking for some way to include stun, I'd make it effective at some lower damage and require losing one turn, not an indefinite number of turns. I'd also not make it cumulative with knockdown, which often requires the loss of an action anyway. So, perhaps when one takes 5 damage but less than 8, he makes a 3/ST roll. If he fails, he loses his next action. If he succeeds, he takes his next action at the usual -2 DX penalty.

The effect of this alternative (to your) rule for stunning is that low ST figures have a worse situation when taking 5 hits. High ST figures have a moderately worse situation as well, but most of the time, they will make their 3/ST roll.

Re: Stunning
 

An alternative could be to not make stunning at 8 damage automatic, but to allow an immediate 3/ST save, and if they fail, on the next turn allow a roll to recover during their turn to act. If succeeding, they can act as normal. This gives a decent chance for someone to recover in time to stand at the end of turn two, as they would be able to under RAW.

Re: Stunning
 

It's my understanding that if a person that is knocked down can take no action in that turn. However, if they decide to stay on the ground or are jumped for HTH while down, they can attack the next turn if they decide not to stand up. This means that a wizard could cast a spell or participate in HTH combat.

Adding this stun factor could prohibit the above scenario. I'm with phiwum. Knockdowns are dreadful enough. Now, what you propose could be part of a knock down that results from a shield rush where the damage is low to non-existent.

Re: Stunning
 

RAW says that if you are knocked down you lose your action. So you lose your current turn's action if you haven't used it already, and spend the next one standing up. If you get hit in Turn T then you have 0.00 chance to act in Turn T+1 and 1.00 chance in all subsequent turns. By the time this happens the combat probably doesn't have a lot of turns in it, so losing T+1 is a big deal.

Under the proposed scheme you have P(ST) chance to act in Turn T+1, 1-(1-P(ST))^2 chance to act in Turn T+2, etc. How bad this is depends on P(ST), the probability of rolling 3/ST given your ST. But for it even to be possible to be stunned you must have a ST of at least 9, which means you must have a P(ST) of at least 0.375. The weighted average P(ST) over all characters of interest is probably well over 0.5, perhaps 0.65. So the probability of getting to act in T+1, T+2, etc. is maybe 0.65, 0.88, 0.96, ... This is a lot more attractive than 0.00, 1.00, 1.00, ...

You can argue with a lot of my numbers but on balance, and despite what others have been saying, I think this proposal weakens the effect of knockdown/stuns.

Re: Stunning
 

It's not obvious to me that recovery should depend on ST. If the giant gets knocked down, for instance, does it pop up every time? It's possible the roll should be against IQ instead, representing willpower.

Re: Stunning
 

If you want ST to affect stunning then consider instead making the number of hits needed to cause unconsciousness depend on the target's ST.

Re: Stunning
 

If you're going to make stun resistant and/or recovery depend on ST then consider having one or more talents that also affect it.

Re: Stunning
 

You absolutely could. But since IQ can already represent memory, logic, creativity, perceptiveness, cunning, abstract thinking, willpower, wisdom, social acumen, etc., and ST pretty much is just lifting ST, stamina, and health, I find letting ST represent ability to rebound from injury appealing.

This has come up at least a few times in the various discussions on these forums and Discord, and it strikes me as also appealing. RAW already has a bit of this, with ST 30+ figures needing to take more damage to suffer -2DX and knockdown. The drawback is that having variable thresholds involves a tiny bit of arithmetic to determine, and you need to remember them in combat, both of which some folks find objectionable. But it makes perfect sense to me that knocking down a ST 8 figure should be easier than knocking down a ST 15 one.

This is simple enough to do. Toughness and Brawling could give a bonus here, and I have a couple of house rule talents, Rugged and Sturdy, the former increasing the wound threshold for DX penalties and knockdown, and the latter giving a saving roll to avoid being knocked down, both of which could be tweaked to work better with the proposed stunning changes.

Re: Stunning
 

I adjust ST by size to split health from hit points that are derived from bulk: https://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#Health