My 2024 DnD home game is using Mind Flayers as one of the major villains. With the 2025 Monster Manual being the only book allowed to print Mind Flayers, I had hoped the design would be more interesting and lean away from stunning the PCs, instead giving them more interesting options. Well, this week I got my eyes on my tentacly lads, and not much changed. So instead, I wanna discuss my problem with Stun and my alternative.
Why do I dislike stun?
My in-person games often run with a group of 6. When all 6 are present, players can sometimes wait 10-20 minutes or even more, especially at higher levels. Being stunned, at minimum, doubles the amount of time that a player is essentially doing nothing. At higher levels, I have personally experienced waiting an hour between turns due to being stunned back in my player days. That inability to make any choices makes for unfun and boring play, and I instead prefer to have stun give players interesting choices.
The Alternatives
I personally call the condition I replace stun with for players “Staggered.” The condition itself is strongly inspired by the “Dazed” condition in “Flee, Mortals!” but tweaked to hit slightly harder. It also borrows elements from the “Slow” spell.
Staggered: A Staggered creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t use reactions. On its turn, it can take either an action or a bonus action, not both.
This works for me because the player is still heavily impacted by the condition and is much less effective, but on their turn, they are still able to make an interesting decision about what to do.
If you want another alternative, you could use the “Dazed” condition that was present in an Unearthed Arcana a year or two back.
Dazed: While Dazed, you can move or take one action on your turn, not both. You also can’t take a bonus action or a reaction.
These two conditions are fairly similar but serve the same purpose, so it’s really up to you as a DM to decide which to use.
Using it for Boss Monsters
I think every experienced DM has encountered a situation where their boss monster has been stunned for multiple rounds due to a bad roll, completely deflating a narrative climax. Legendary resistance can often protect against this, but it can sometimes take the wind out of a player’s sails. To address this, I often use an ability called “Stun Resistance” for bosses.
Stun Resistance: If this creature would be Stunned, it is instead Staggered.
This helps ensure that the characters’ abilities still have a significant impact on bosses while allowing the bosses to still use their cool abilities. I would also recommend letting the players know that the boss has Stun Resistance, so they can plan accordingly and use their stun abilities on other enemies if they want to fully stun them.
