Stun weapons are overpowered in every rpg

[Elemental_wanamingo]

(Change my mind)

One of the things I always notice in any turn based rpg I play is that stun is generally super effective, low action points and low skill cost weapon. Be that the nets or stun grenades in underrail, the stun spell in arcanum or the stun gun in shadowrun among other examples. There really isn't even any counter to it in most cases (other than being a robot and then switching emp..). You just papamole some enemy with it and then you get free round or two of damage to spray over it. Or you can literally remove a powerful enemy from a big brawl for couple of turns with very little cost. It literally does two things super well. Negate all damage you were getting or multiply/guarantee all of your damage. Even one of these is super effective but having both is too much.

I feel there is a trick missed here with making the stun weapon more gradual in its effect. One use of it should just reduce the ability to fight. Not to totally incapacitate. Or add a timer of some kind to it to make it less instantaneous. But overall the stun feels such powerful crutch that it is always a no brainer to have unless it is literally not possible to do with your build.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Falksi]

Original X-com?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Depends on how many enemies you face, in Xulima, for example, i always go for as many stun weapons and the bleeding sucks anyway due to enemy HP bloat, it's just annoying for you as you're trying to keep your guys alive to fight hundred of battles as opposed to enemies whom just have to fight one.

In Urtuk, Stun is interesting but not overpowered, for you at least as there is a lot of enemies past the first area.
Of course, it's overpowered for your enemies as you only have 6 units, one stunned could put you on a bad spot.

Anything that incapacitate enemies is overpowered, more so if it has an area of effect (freeze flesh or freeze all in wizardry 8 for example, grease and such in most d&d cRPg).

 

[Excommunicator]

Yes it's overpowered in games and it's also less fun so I just don't use it

 

[Grauken]

As Darth said, stun is only overpowered against few or single enemies, once you fight a group you usually lose that advantage as you can stun one or two, but then the rest will massacre you

Which is as it should be

 

[Grauken]

That said, the sleep spell in Goldbox games is usually a win-button against low-level enemies, but it stops working later on. Gives you a good way to kill crowds and level up

 

[Cryomancer]

Depends. In some games you can stunlock gigants, and they have no chance to resist. In others, is very hard to stun and possible to resist. But IMO spells that grapple on NWN1 are far more deadlier than spells that stun. One of the biggest nerfs that WLK received on NWN2 in relation to pnp, is that Chilling tentacles "stun" instead of an grapple check like on pnp and the enemy can do an FORT save.... And on NWN1, Black Tentacles was borderline broken against enemies without DR. Mainly with metamagic. Empowered tentacles at lv 20 can raise an big tentacle army. (D4 + 20) * 1.5 of then.... Bigby's crushing hand was also amazing. Can make even the lightspeed disarming/knockdown monks be frozen in an place...

Look to Dark Souls, heavy armor was useful on DkS 1/2, but become useless on 3 since you can stunlock someone on plate armor or havel set with an kitchen knife due how poise (not) work on DkS3, while the correct is make bladed weapons extremely ineffective against armor and blunt weapons far more effective by obvious reasons.

TL;DR - Stun is only good when they can't be easily resisted and there are worse effects. I rather have an arrow that insta petrify or knockdown the enemy on a failed "DC X save" than an arrow that only stun for one round on a failed "DC X save"

 

[Saerain]

Oh, a round or two? Meh.

What really grinds my gears is the conceit of "non-lethal takedowns" where you punch or choke someone out and they just stay down indefinitely. If they're not dead, they're definitely shitting themselves in a hospital until their next of kin pulls the plug.