Enervation is janky and strictly in favor of enemies

[Colette Brunel]

As I was running Affair at Sombrefell Hall and The Mirrored Moon, twice, in fact, I could not help but notice that the enervated condition was significantly more in favor of enemies than PCs. If an enemy is enervated, it takes a global penalty, and that is it. If a PC is enervated, then the PC loses actual abilities.

Perhaps there could be more of a debuff to enemies who are enervated?

[Rycke]

Enemies get all the penalties as players. If they're a 9th level wizard and get enervated 3, they can't cast 4th and 5th level spells.

[Edge93]

As above. It prevents enemy spellcasting the same as players if their level falls appropriately. This can actually be especially nasty as some enemies only have spells up at their level and lack good lower level fallbacks, so Enervation can shut off their good spells completely.

[TheFinish]

I think he mostly means monsters, not enemy NPCs. At least, going off of the adventures he mentioned. So Enervation affecting stuff like innate spellcasting and the like.

Do note that it doesn't just prevent spellcasting for NPCs. It prevents stuff like Feat usage and such, ifit's an Action/Reaction/Activity. If you're a level 10th level Fighter and you get Enervated 1, you can't use Certain Strike, or Debilitating Shot, or Mirror Shield, etc.

[Fuzzypaws]

Of note, enervation doesn't just stop spellcasting! It wrecks fighters, barbarians and etc as well:

Page 321 wrote:

In addition, you treat your level as though it were lowered by your enervated value (to a minimum of 1st level) when determining which spells you can cast and which abilities you can use. This applies only to actions, activities, free actions, and reactions you gained from feats and class features, and only those that have a level prerequisite.

So everything shuts down if enervation drops your level below the level where you can get it, including class features (eg, a sneak attack damage increase) and martial feats and skill feats. This should probably be called out more explicitly.

But this is definitely an area where enervation is lopsided, because aside from spells enemy abilities are not given a level in the playtest bestiary. Whirlwind Attack is a feat with a level, so a player can lose it to enervation, but a marilith seemingly can't lose its ability to act like a blender.

(EDIT: Partially ninja'd, darn!)

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On a side note to the OP, might I recommend not always tossing the word janky around in posts like this and many others? It's unprofessional and I doubt it makes the devs inclined to listen to you. On many occasions I notice you raise some good points about the wording of rules but then you undercut it with inflammatory language.

[Gaterie]

Rycke wrote:

Enemies get all the penalties as players. If they're a 9th level wizard and get enervated 3, they can't cast 4th and 5th level spells.

Let's suppose the ennemy is a night hag. Night hag aren't spellcasters: they have innate spell but this isn't spellcasting per say. Even if it were spellcasting, the hag is level 9 and has access to level 8 spell: at what level did she gain a level 8 slot? At what level did she gain an infinite number of slots for invisibility? At what level did she gain a constant detect magic effect?

Monsters aren't builded as PCs, so you can't tie their abilities to any level. When a night hag is enervated 9, she retains her innate spells, she retains her change shape ability, and she retains her coven spells. In the end she doesn't lose any ability - although she looks like a spellcaster monster, she isn't, and she doesn't have any feat nor class feature.

This is how most of the monsters work.

Now let's look at goblin: can a goblin lose Goblin scuttle? No. Even the level 0 goblin has it. Anyway, goblin scuttle isn't a racial ability (do you see it somewhere in the goblin feats? no? So it isn't a racial ability) nor a class ability: it's a monster ability and those abilities don't fall in the scope of the enervated status.

Now the hobgoblins: the soldier can't lose his attack of opportunity. Even if this hobgoblin was a fighter (hint: monsters don't have classes), the attack of opportunity can't be removed because it doesn't have a level prerequisite.

Now the Fire Giant: can't lose his attack of opportunity, because, again, this isn't a class ability. A level 9 paladin PC can lose his attack of opportunity, but a level 9 monster can't because attack of opportunity is never a class ability for monsters.

Now the drow fighter: can't lose his quick draw. For the same reason a fire giant can't lose his attack of opportunity: because the quick draw isn't a class ability with a level requirement. Even if quick draw looks like a class feat, the drow fighter doesn't have the right class nor the right level for it: hence it isn't a class feat.

To conclude, the masterful rogue: can't lose his sidestep ability. For the same reason the drow fighter can't lose quick draw: even if it looks like a class feat, it is actually a monster ability.

... No, monsters aren't affected by enervation as the PCs. There are a few spellcasters monsters that are, but anything else isn't.

This is not new. It was the case in 3.0, 3.5 and PF1: conditions are written to debuff the PCs as much as possible but to preserve monsters. It's maybe a bit worse in PF2, since disarming a monster doesn't even debuff it (its bonus to hit and its number of damage dice are innate instead of depending on the magic of its weapon: if a level 6 skeleton grab a rotten pointy stick, then it deals 2d6 damages with +15 because a level 6 monster deals 2d of damage with +15 to hit. If a PCs grab the same stick, he deals 1d6 damage and replace the +1 item bonus from his magical sword by a -4 from his poor quality weapon), but this problem is 20-year-old. PF2, like PF1 and 3.5, decided to pretend this problem doesn't exist. The forum of PF2, like the forum of PF1 and 3.5 and 3.0 before, will be filled with DM complaining the PCs don't use combat maneuvers and other debuffs because they don't understand those maneuver don't work on monsters and NPCs as they work on PCs.

Nothing new under the sun.

[Fuzzypaws]

Also with the way the character sheet is laid out, with lots of different lists all over the place, it can be hard to keep track of everything you lose when enervated because you have to reference eight different places on the sheet. So maybe there should just be one long combined list for features, ancestry feats, class feats and skill feats?

Not sure though. That'd make enervation easier to use but maybe it'd make general reference and leveling harder.

[Dire Ursus]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

So everything shuts down if enervation drops your level below the level where you can get it, including class features (eg, a sneak attack damage increase) and martial feats and skill feats. This should probably be called out more explicitly.

This is wrong isn't it? It specifically states "This applies only to actions, activities, free actions, and reactions"

Meaning sneak attack wouldn't be affected. It's not an action, activity, free action or reaction. Passive class features are unaffected it would seem.

[Gaterie]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

Page 321 wrote:

In addition, you treat your level as though it were lowered by your enervated value (to a minimum of 1st level) when determining which spells you can cast and which abilities you can use. This applies only to actions, activities, free actions, and reactions you gained from feats and class features, and only those that have a level prerequisite.

So everything shuts down if enervation drops your level below the level where you can get it, including class features (eg, a sneak attack damage increase) and martial feats and skill feats. This should probably be called out more explicitly.

(I changed the emphasis)

Enervation specifically remove actions (and activities and reaction). A sneak attack increase isn't an action (nor an activity nor a reaction), so this isn't affected by enervation.

[Edge93]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

Of note, enervation doesn't just stop spellcasting! It wrecks fighters, barbarians and etc as well:

Page 321 wrote:

In addition, you treat your level as though it were lowered by your enervated value (to a minimum of 1st level) when determining which spells you can cast and which abilities you can use. This applies only to actions, activities, free actions, and reactions you gained from feats and class features, and only those that have a level prerequisite.

So everything shuts down if enervation drops your level below the level where you can get it, including class features (eg, a sneak attack damage increase) and martial feats and skill feats. This should probably be called out more explicitly.

But this is definitely an area where enervation is lopsided, because aside from spells enemy abilities are not given a level in the playtest bestiary. Whirlwind Attack is a feat with a level, so a player can lose it to enervation, but a marilith seemingly can't lose its ability to act like a blender.

(EDIT: Partially ninja'd, darn!)

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On a side note to the OP, might I recommend not always tossing the word janky around in posts like this and many others? It's unprofessional and I doubt it makes the devs inclined to listen to you. On many occasions I notice you raise some good points about the wording of rules but then you undercut it with inflammatory language.

SO much of this. I've said much the same thing a couple of times over in the Red Flags Vault thread about similar issues where forcing TPKs over milking an obviously unintended rules exploit and then going on about it on the forums and blindly ignoring any of the many reasonable ways around it, or in some cases acting like a small text inconsistency changes the clearly written rules (As in the simultaneous crit success and crit fail thread) instead of just reasonably pointing out an obvious rules inconsistency for discussion or acknowledgement on the forums makes people MUCH less likely to listen.

Not exactly inflammatory language as here per se but just examples of a few other ways to ruin your points by how you make or present them.

[TheFinish]

Dire Ursus wrote:

Fuzzypaws wrote:

So everything shuts down if enervation drops your level below the level where you can get it, including class features (eg, a sneak attack damage increase) and martial feats and skill feats. This should probably be called out more explicitly.

This is wrong isn't it? It specifically states "This applies only to actions, activities, free actions, and reactions"

Meaning sneak attack wouldn't be affected. It's not an action, activity, free action or reaction. Passive class features are unaffected it would seem.

Correct, Passive abilities, even Feats, are exempt.

For example, if you have a level 12th Fighter with Agile Grace and Certain Strike, and you get hit with Enervated 3, you lose access to Certain Strike (because it's an Action), but not Agile Grace (because it's not an Action/Reaction/Activity).

Sneak Attack falls into this as well, it's unaffected. Glancing through, I only found one Action that could be potentially headscratching: Quick Alchemy. Because I'm not sure if being Enervated would affect the level of items you can use. But that's a discussion for another thread.

[hyphz]

Let me tell you about that one time I managed to roll a crit and use Trade Items to steal Queen Ileosa's artefact crown in the middle of a fight, only to have it make no difference to her at all because her monster description doesn't specify which abilities are granted by the crown.

Sorry, I'm still bitter about that one ;)

[Fuzzypaws]

TheFinish wrote:

Dire Ursus wrote:

Fuzzypaws wrote:

So everything shuts down if enervation drops your level below the level where you can get it, including class features (eg, a sneak attack damage increase) and martial feats and skill feats. This should probably be called out more explicitly.

This is wrong isn't it? It specifically states "This applies only to actions, activities, free actions, and reactions"

Meaning sneak attack wouldn't be affected. It's not an action, activity, free action or reaction. Passive class features are unaffected it would seem.

Correct, Passive abilities, even Feats, are exempt.

For example, if you have a level 12th Fighter with Agile Grace and Certain Strike, and you get hit with Enervated 3, you lose access to Certain Strike (because it's an Action), but not Agile Grace (because it's not an Action/Reaction/Activity).

Sneak Attack falls into this as well, it's unaffected. Glancing through, I only found one Action that could be potentially headscratching: Quick Alchemy. Because I'm not sure if being Enervated would affect the level of items you can use. But that's a discussion for another thread.

Oi, yeah I see now, but that's a bit of a mess. I'd rather they just unilaterally removed abilities from the levels enervated away, so it doesn't slow the game to a crawl while evaluating each individual feature.

Also, can monster abilities have a level attached, please?

[Unicore]

Is there even a great necessity for enervation to do more than just take away the level bonus and possibly reduce Max HP? Everything else feels like more of a headache then it is really worth, especially since it will also affect the save DCs of spells. I understand that there is history to the idea that Enervation is sucking the levels away from the character, but the gritty details of that in PF2 feel like a needless slow down that is pretty well covered by a semi-permanent -1 to everything. It seems like a much simpler application that will have the same feel, because level is such an important part of your ability to succeed at most tasks.

[Bagpuss]

I don't think it's a problem, in the new model for monster builds, if they aren't affected in the same way, is it? Other than 3.x, it's generally been the case in D&D that some things--level drain, my God--were worse for players than monsters even before you consider monsters deliberately design to only screw player (rust monster, come on down!). If one doesn't have a prior commitment to build characters and monsters with the same rules, then it's not that odd if some effects end up lopsided in their nastiness.

Myself, I really like the idea of monsters being built like players, but it doesn't seem there's a way to do it simply enough given how d20 systems tend to work. If we give up on that--and I think we are, not just in PF 2e but D&D went that way as well, starting with 4e--then lopsidedness isn't really that surprising (and is it really that bad, anyhow?).

[Tridus]

Unicore wrote:

Is there even a great necessity for enervation to do more than just take away the level bonus and possibly reduce Max HP? Everything else feels like more of a headache then it is really worth, especially since it will also affect the save DCs of spells. I understand that there is history to the idea that Enervation is sucking the levels away from the character, but the gritty details of that in PF2 feel like a needless slow down that is pretty well covered by a semi-permanent -1 to everything. It seems like a much simpler application that will have the same feel, because level is such an important part of your ability to succeed at most tasks.

^ This. With -1 on basically everything and the HP loss, Enervation is quite strong. Having it also affect which abilities you can use dramatically slows the game down and adds complexity.

Just drop that entirely and it's still a very effective debuff, it just becomes one that is much easier to handle at the table.

[Edge93]

Tridus wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Is there even a great necessity for enervation to do more than just take away the level bonus and possibly reduce Max HP? Everything else feels like more of a headache then it is really worth, especially since it will also affect the save DCs of spells. I understand that there is history to the idea that Enervation is sucking the levels away from the character, but the gritty details of that in PF2 feel like a needless slow down that is pretty well covered by a semi-permanent -1 to everything. It seems like a much simpler application that will have the same feel, because level is such an important part of your ability to succeed at most tasks.

^ This. With -1 on basically everything and the HP loss, Enervation is quite strong. Having it also affect which abilities you can use dramatically slows the game down and adds complexity.

Just drop that entirely and it's still a very effective debuff, it just becomes one that is much easier to handle at the table.

Agreed it is an incredibly strong debuff. Enervated 2 turned the final boss of Heroes of Undarin from a very dangerous foe to a total punk.

[Porridge]

Tridus wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Is there even a great necessity for enervation to do more than just take away the level bonus and possibly reduce Max HP? Everything else feels like more of a headache then it is really worth, especially since it will also affect the save DCs of spells. I understand that there is history to the idea that Enervation is sucking the levels away from the character, but the gritty details of that in PF2 feel like a needless slow down that is pretty well covered by a semi-permanent -1 to everything. It seems like a much simpler application that will have the same feel, because level is such an important part of your ability to succeed at most tasks.

^ This. With -1 on basically everything and the HP loss, Enervation is quite strong. Having it also affect which abilities you can use dramatically slows the game down and adds complexity.

Just drop that entirely and it's still a very effective debuff, it just becomes one that is much easier to handle at the table.

Yeah, this seems absolutely right. The complexity-to-payoff ratio is hard to justify, given the substantial increase in complexity ability-removal introduces.

[Dante Doom]

Porridge wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Is there even a great necessity for enervation to do more than just take away the level bonus and possibly reduce Max HP? Everything else feels like more of a headache then it is really worth, especially since it will also affect the save DCs of spells. I understand that there is history to the idea that Enervation is sucking the levels away from the character, but the gritty details of that in PF2 feel like a needless slow down that is pretty well covered by a semi-permanent -1 to everything. It seems like a much simpler application that will have the same feel, because level is such an important part of your ability to succeed at most tasks.

^ This. With -1 on basically everything and the HP loss, Enervation is quite strong. Having it also affect which abilities you can use dramatically slows the game down and adds complexity.

Just drop that entirely and it's still a very effective debuff, it just becomes one that is much easier to handle at the table.

Yeah, this seems absolutely right. The complexity-to-payoff ratio is hard to justify, given the substantial increase in complexity ability-removal introduces.

+1 to this

[Tyrannon]

Gaterie wrote:

Rycke wrote:

Enemies get all the penalties as players. If they're a 9th level wizard and get enervated 3, they can't cast 4th and 5th level spells.

Let's suppose the ennemy is a night hag. Night hag aren't spellcasters: they have innate spell but this isn't spellcasting per say. Even if it were spellcasting, the hag is level 9 and has access to level 8 spell: at what level did she gain a level 8 slot? At what level did she gain an infinite number of slots for invisibility? At what level did she gain a constant detect magic effect?

Monsters aren't builded as PCs, so you can't tie their abilities to any level. When a night hag is enervated 9, she retains her innate spells, she retains her change shape ability, and she retains her coven spells. In the end she doesn't lose any ability - although she looks like a spellcaster monster, she isn't, and she doesn't have any feat nor class feature.

This is how most of the monsters work.

Now let's look at goblin: can a goblin lose Goblin scuttle? No. Even the level 0 goblin has it. Anyway, goblin scuttle isn't a racial ability (do you see it somewhere in the goblin feats? no? So it isn't a racial ability) nor a class ability: it's a monster ability and those abilities don't fall in the scope of the enervated status.

snipped ...

This is not new. It was the case in 3.0, 3.5 and PF1: conditions are written to debuff the PCs as much as possible but to preserve monsters. It's maybe a bit worse in PF2, since disarming a monster doesn't even debuff it (its bonus to hit and its number of damage dice are innate instead of depending on the magic of its weapon: if a level 6 skeleton grab a rotten pointy stick, then it deals 2d6 damages with +15 because a level 6 monster deals 2d of damage with +15 to hit. If a PCs grab the same stick, he deals 1d6 damage and replace the +1 item bonus from his magical sword by a -4 from his poor quality weapon), but this problem is 20-year-old. PF2, like PF1 and 3.5, decided to pretend this problem doesn't exist.

+1, since everyone after you seemed to want to avoid responding to you & pretend this problem doesn't exist.

[Tridus]

Tyrannon wrote:

+1, since everyone after you seemed to want to avoid responding to you & pretend this problem doesn't exist.

... every response after him was about changing Enervated so that there wasn't a problem with it anymore. How is that pretending the problem doesn't exist?

That's an even better solution than adding levels to everything so that someone has to constantly figure out what an enervated monster can and can't do, and it also helps the PCs by making it work the same for everyone.

[Dire Ursus]

I'll throw my hat in the other corner. It's really not that complex. The character sheet even lists what exact level you got the feat. All you have to do is literally subtract the enervation level to your level, look at which feats are unavailable. "is this feat an action, reaction, free action, or activity?" (you should know this already... you picked it.) "Ok I can't use this anymore". The only part you might get stuck on is if the feat you took had a lower level requirement. You can easily by pass this by simply writing the level req next to it on your sheet. In fact I'm going to have all my players do that when they next make characters.

Spells are even more simple.

[Tridus]

Which then puts us back to where we started: many monster abilities don't have levels and are unaffected, putting players at an effective disadvantage where this effect hits them harder.

[LuniasM]

In case anyone was wondering, 7 creatures in the Playtest Bestiary have the ability to cause the Enervated condition (plus 1 NPC), including a couple common staples like Wights and Lust Demons (aka succubi). While the ability does penalize PCs more than monsters, it currently doesn't come up very often. That said, I would personally prefer removing the loss of abilities from the condition entirely rather than adding a level to every monster ability in the game. That would be so much easier.

[masda_gib]

While I agree that Enervated only giving a malus is easier, I would still like to keep the lost abilities.

1) there are so many conditions that give -1 to different checks, some conditions giving other penalties is interessting for a change.

2) Enervation is a rare and very strong condition. It was level loss - a big deal, something that should be feared. It's uncommon enough that a bit complexity doesn't hurt so much.

How it can affect monsters is another question. Maybe just shut down 1 (GM-determined) ability/spell action of the monster per 2 stages of Enervated. :|