Hi everyone, new player here. I have the suspicion that I misunderstood the rules, because strike to stun seems weirdly overpowered to me. It seems to me that I when I use a pummel weapon I would stun enemies on average on every second hit or so (depending on my strength), which would be an insane advantage in every fight. And additionally to the stun it does the usual weapon damage? I am looking at the wfpr e4 base book page 146. Can anybody tell me how they handle the strike to stun talent?
Without the talent:
A pummel weapon has a 10% chance to hit the enemy’s head and trigger the opposed endurance-strength-test to stun them. That is pretty unlikely. Or I could aim all my attacks at the head to ensure the opposed test on every hit, but that would give me a -20 on every attack.
With the talent:
Now there is no penalty for called shots at the head if I use a pummel weapon, so I can basically decide without a disadvantage that every single successful attack will hit the head and trigger the opposed test to stun. Compared to using pummel weapons without the talent, you can view this as either an increase of the 10% chance to a 100% chance, or as saving a -20 penalty on each attack, depending how you used your pummel weapon without the talent.
Without a disadvantage, I don't see a reason to not just always aim for the head, so every successful attack triggers a stun-test. If we say for simplicity that I will win roughly half of those opposed stun-tests, every second hit that I make stuns the enemy, which means they cannot attack and suffer a -10 on every test until they remove the condition.
This seems like a mechanic that will decide many fights since it triggers so often. Or am I overestimating the stunned condition? It also seems a bit boring to me – there is no decision to make, it is almost always better to aim at the head for the chance to stun. I would rather have to make a strategic decision about it, e.g. to decide if I aim to inflict damage or aim to stun, just some reason why I wouldn’t do it with every single attack.
But before I homebrew something as a beginner, I would rather hear from you if a) I understood the rules correctly and b) how you handle this talent.
Bonus thought – how strong is it compared to other talents?
Strike to stun gives +1 SL to successful melee tests, so basically every time I manage to hit the enemy, I get +1SL and therefore do +1 damage, is that correct? (only when I use strike to stun, but why wouldn’t I do it all the time?)
I compared this to the talent “Strike Mighty Blow”, which gives +1 damage with melee weapons and nothing else. This seems a bit weak in comparison, since a +1 damage bonus is already baked into the strike-to-stun talent (due to the +SL on successful tests). Isn’t strike-to-stun in most cases the same damage increase as strike mighty blow and additionally has a pretty good chance to stun enemies without any cost?
I know the system isn’t meant to be perfectly balanced, but it seems weird to me when the “stun enemies” – talent not only possibly stuns enemies, but additionally has the same damage increase as the “make more damage” talent. That makes it a far, far better talent, with the exception for fights in which enemies cannot be stunned / aiming at the head is not possible or if I lose my pummel weapon.
Did I get it wrong or is strike to stun just that much better?
Strike to Stun talent seems way to powerful
Yes, I agree that strike to stun is powerful save to enemies who have thick metal helmet on their head. Often it is a must have for a melee fighter, and plenty of classes have access to it.
It has some major restrictions, like you should use weapons with Pummel quality. This may be a drawback when you utilize melee range rule in your game. And there are circumstances where you cannot hit the head as the enemy is too tall.
"Strike to stun gives +1 SL to successful melee tests, so basically every time I manage to hit the enemy, I get +1SL and therefore do +1 damage, is that correct?"
Technically yes.
It has some major restrictions, like you should use weapons with Pummel quality. This may be a drawback when you utilize melee range rule in your game. And there are circumstances where you cannot hit the head as the enemy is too tall.
"Strike to stun gives +1 SL to successful melee tests, so basically every time I manage to hit the enemy, I get +1SL and therefore do +1 damage, is that correct?"
Technically yes.