This actually made me think of an earlier discussion we had regarding the shield bash perk and how it is currently rather weak. A buff to it that would be both thematic and useful would be have the perk add stun to the shield bash. However, the issue was that this might infringe on the niche of stun weapons. So, supposing that this idea gets implemented, how about if the shield bash perk made it so that shield bash did a partial stun? So, rather than the full 9 AP, it could do 3, 4 or 5 AP damage. A kind of mini-stun, if you will. It’s weaker than a regular stun, but still useful even when it doesn’t succeed in ending the target its turn since it does slow them down.
Yeah, we had that same thought. The thing is that the effect in many cases would be essentially the same as a character being stunned for real. For example, if I knock back some opponent, he’ll lose 4 ap from the shield bash and then 2 to 4 ap (depending on terrain) for closing in again on me, leaving him without enough ap to perform a skill. Of course, an opponent may not always be able to close in again on me due to Zone of Control, and an actual stun would also be better because it triggers the ‘Push the Advantage’ perk, but my worry is that the actual difference in gameplay between a character being stunned or shield bashed is somewhat negligible. That in turn may also render bludgeoning weapons somewhat obsolete, since their main advantage is the ability to stun. But maybe I’m missing something?
