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On my first read-through of the rulebook, I happened across this paragraph, inconspicuously located under Other Spell Traits on pg 301:
Core Rulebook wrote: Incapacitation
An ability with this trait can take a character completely out of the fight or even kill them, and it’s harder to use on a more powerful character. If a spell has the incapacitation trait, any creature of more than twice the spell’s level treats the result of their check to prevent being incapacitated as one degree of success better or the result of any check the spellcaster made to incapacitate them as one degree of success worse. If any other effect has the incapacitation trait, a creature of higher level than the item, creature, or hazard generating the effect gains the same benefits.
At first it didn't seem like a very important rule, but when I started to build a wizard to test the system I began to realize just how heavily this trait nerfs a substantial number of spells.
The wording is a little unclear, but if "treats the result of their check to prevent being incapacitated as one degree of success better" means that the target's saving throw against the whole effect is improved by a degree of success, any spell with the incapacitation trait is pretty close to useless against targets of more than twice the spell's level. The target will only suffer the failure effect on a critical failure, and if it's already high level relative to the spell then its saves will likely be good enough to make this quite unlikely. Thus, the spellcaster can only reasonably hope for the success effect, which is rarely enough to justify casting the spell at all.
From the perspective of a PC, this situation means that even their highest level of spells with this trait will be ineffectual against the stronger monsters they're facing, and any lower levels of spells will be useless against even foes of their own level. According to Archives of Nethys, all of the following spells have the incapacitation trait, and thus become extremely ineffective quite quickly if they are not perpetually heightened.
Nethys wrote: Baleful Polymorph, Banishment, Blindness, Calm Emotions, Charm, Charming Touch, Charming Words, Color Spray, Commanding Lash, Dominate, Dreamer's Call, Fabricated Truth, Hallucination, Overwhelming Presence, Paralyze, Possession, Scintillating Pattern, Shared Nightmare, Sleep, Subconscious Suggestion, Suggestion, Synaptic Pulse, Telepathic Demand, Uncontrollable Dance, Unfathomable Song, Vibrant Pattern, Warp Mind, You're Mine So, is this really how this trait is supposed to work? I could understand if it simply changed critical failures to failures in order to avoid bosses being knocked out by pure luck, but as-is it seems unnecessarily harsh to spellcasters.
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As someone mentioned earlier in another thread, it s a normalization of spellcasters in general. Spells are still decent to use but far from being "I win buttons" in all situations.
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
The Sesquipedalian Thaumaturge wrote: On my first read-through of the rulebook, I happened across this paragraph, inconspicuously located under Other Spell Traits on pg 301:
Core Rulebook wrote: Incapacitation
An ability with this trait can take a character completely out of the fight or even kill them, and it’s harder to use on a more powerful character. If a spell has the incapacitation trait, any creature of more than twice the spell’s level treats the result of their check to prevent being incapacitated as one degree of success better or the result of any check the spellcaster made to incapacitate them as one degree of success worse. If any other effect has the incapacitation trait, a creature of higher level than the item, creature, or hazard generating the effect gains the same benefits.
At first it didn't seem like a very important rule, but when I started to build a wizard to test the system I began to realize just how heavily this trait nerfs a substantial number of spells.
The wording is a little unclear, but if "treats the result of their check to prevent being incapacitated as one degree of success better" means that the target's saving throw against the whole effect is improved by a degree of success, any spell with the incapacitation trait is pretty close to useless against targets of more than twice the spell's level. The target will only suffer the failure effect on a critical failure, and if it's already high level relative to the spell then its saves will likely be good enough to make this quite unlikely. Thus, the spellcaster can only reasonably hope for the success effect, which is rarely enough to justify casting the spell at all.
From the perspective of a PC, this situation means that even their highest level of spells with this trait will be ineffectual against the stronger monsters they're facing, and any lower levels of spells will be useless against even foes of their own level. According to Archives of Nethys, all of the following spells have the incapacitation trait, and thus become extremely...
A 5th level wizard casting Paralyze(3rd) can target a 6th level creature without incurring the incapacitation restriction.
This wizard will have a DC of 10 + level 5 + trained 2 + int 4 = 21.
According to this stats spreadsheet [1], if you target a 6th level creature who's will save is their weakest, they will have around +11 to that save. So, they need to roll a natural 10 or better to succeed. This gives them roughly even odds of a success (stunned 1) or failure (paralyzed one round), with crit or crit fail being unlikely. Now, since this monster is APL+1, assuming a 4 PC party, that's a "Low-or moderate-threat boss". If this enemy is solo, that's a Low threat encounter, if there's 2 of them, it's Severe.
Since Severe is when it matters most, let's look at the action economy. 4 PCs * 3 actions = 12 actions a round. 2 enemies * 3 actions = 6 actions a round.
You've expended 2/12 actions (1/6) and a 3rd level spell slot.
If they fail, they have lost 3/6 actions (1/2). If they succeed, they've lost 1/6 actions, the same action cost as you.
I think Paralyze is a reasonably powerful spell, when it's the highest level you can cast. Whether it's worth heightening is perhaps debatable. If you are about to try a Paralyze, I would recommend that you or an ally try to debuff their Will save first. Demoralize is a good way.
[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VQdXIJMMeNlkL1ta_b9q_iImAHoujDCYs1W aBJP-Rjs
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