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Yeah, there are actually quite a lot of 'save or suck' effects, most just don't take someone out completely instantly unless they crit fail (though even there, a few spells exist...Baleful Polymorph turns you into a newt for an hour on a simple failure, for example).
But more common is people just suffering really nasty penalties on a failure, mild penalties for a turn even on a success, and getting taken out on a crit failure.

citricking |
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Save or suck are some of the best spells, especially when using low level slots because the DCs scale with your level. Calm emotions is only second level, but it's an AoE that can take multiple enemies out of a fight. Because your DCs will never get super high and there a lots of great multitarget effects, they're usually better at taking out multiple lower level creatures vs a single higher level enemy.

Corwin Icewolf |
Last I've heard, they've been called out as being the least effective use of spell slots now, though it's been said it's more due to monsters having stupidly high saves rather than being a problem with the spell effects. Iirc, when they increased the damage for most spells they said they were working on figuring out what needs to happen for other spells.

Edge93 |
Ehh, YMMV. Target a monster's best save and yeah, they'll probably save or even crit save. But most monsters have a weak save. Undead seem to have poor Fort, a lot of monsters have poor Ref, and from what I've seen most monsters have their Fort or Will at least low enough that spells have a good shot.
Also debuffs are an easy way to tip saves in your favor. Some of these involve saves obviously but a Demoralize buddy (Or doing it yourself) are great friends to a caster.

Captain Morgan |

Yeah, save or suck is still alive and well. Getting a debuff (even a short term one) on a successful save can be pretty clutch.
I'd say like most things, the gap between the floor and ceiling has been shrunk, so if you are used to targeting a +2 save with a +23 DC you will be disappointed. But plenty of enemies have bad saves.
My recent game had a 10th level trench mist get pretty trivialized by 1st level gusts of wind from an 8th level Caster.

Captain Morgan |

Edge93 wrote:But most monsters have a weak save. Undead seem to have poor FortWhat proportion of Fortitude save effects work on Undead? In PF1 I remember it being pretty low.
Not sure off the top of my head, but in general immunities are much less common. Undead still have a bunch, but it isn't a blanket "everything with a fortitude save" and most aren't immune to mind affecting stuff.