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Hm...
Not feeling any benefits yet, but that might be due to overall party level still being low, i.e. every spell and ability hits you for full effect in addition to there not being any low level enemies everybody is always talking about...
In Age of Ashes,
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Hm...
Not feeling any benefits yet, but that might be due to overall party level still being low, i.e. every spell and ability hits you for full effect in addition to there not being any low level enemies everybody is always talking about...
Until you are level 5 or 6, it can be difficult for GMs and adventure writers to have a big enough pool of monsters to draw on to throw many lower level enemies at you, but it definitely happens. Ghouls are a real killer in particular without incapacitation. 8 of them can be a party killer even at level -4 or 5 in PF1.
But even from the player side, spells that take out higher level enemies with one failed save were incredibly overpowered and down right boring in PF1. They were a huge part of why single monster fights were terrible, and why so many powerful monsters had to basically have resistance to every offensive spell you could possibly cast.
Incapacitation also keeps debuff/damage spell casters more balanced with each other because your top level slots are your heavy hitters. Without the trait, spells like color spray would not have been first level spells or they would have been nerfed so badly that people would never take them.
In Age of Ashes, ** spoiler omitted **Hm...
Not feeling any benefits yet, but that might be due to overall party level still being low, i.e. every spell and ability hits you for full effect in addition to there not being any low level enemies everybody is always talking about...
I guess level 7 is where the incap party protection starts to kick in, as you will be protected from nasty low level effects. However we are not there yet (currently level 6.75).
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My last 5e session we are level 7 and we were up against 30 hobogoblins and a cr 11 devil. Surprise round I took out the hoboglins with an aoe. I'm a caster so I have blast spells: ok, good. Next round I thought I can shoot this guy or throw out a hynotic pattern. I threw out the pattern and it stuck. We tied the devil to something and proceeded to take turns murdering him. The fight ended up being very silly and anti climactic. something just fundentally not fun about that.
5e's solution is legendary resitances, pathfinder has the incapacitate trait. Both have issues their issues, but I feel like it makes sense to address this problem in some way.
What do you think about this small modification in the incapacitation trait rule?
"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 a CRITICAL FAILURE check to prevent being incapacitated as a FAILURE. 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."
Spells with this characteristic would have a more powerful effect but without the possibility of eliminating a monster or PC permanently. This would somewhat mitigate the problem of damage spells by facilitating memorization at higher levels (although it is still distressing due to the small number of slots).
Do you think this interpretation is incorrect and the low level spells with the incapacitation trait would become to powerful?
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The incapacitation trait is designed primarily to insulate against failures, not critical failures. Critical failures are vanishingly unlikely to start with, while failure alone is often a fight ender.
So...no, I don't think that rule would work to actually preserve what Incapacitate is supposed to do.
The most obvious reason to me why both changes listed above (just prevents critical hit, and +5 save) are not rules that I would want to play with, is that they massively boost the part of PF2 spell casting that is already in the strongest shape: debuffing.
Without incapacitation, as is, a debuff caster has amazing offensive spells to choose from, from level 1 to level 10 without ever having to change them up. Sure some monsters will be immune to specific effects (death effects, emotion, etc), but color spray will be sitting in your level one slot from 1st level play to 20th level play.
Meanwhile, blasters will be out with pitch forks because only their top 2 levels of spells do enough damage to really matter as boss fight worthy offensive spells. Removing incapacitation is making all debuff spells auto heighten. Why give this boost only to this narrow range of spells, which already have the best effects in the game?
Personally, I think a lot of the ill will towards incapacitation is misplaced frustration with the rebalancing of general encounter building in PF2. We are seeing that there is a very vocal subset of players that hate how the 3 action economy and 4 tiers of failure have stratified powerful success to things that generally require rolling the equivalent of a 19 or 20 (or 1 or 2 for enemy saves). Against higher level enemies, that definition of Great success, shifts down, because it should not really be possible to cause a solo boss monster to lose all actions for even a single round, on anything less than a critical result.
For players that are frustrated by the general tone of play, there is a really great fix for this problem that can be implemented on the GM side, without touching how incapacitation works: Stop designing encounters with solo monsters that are much higher level than the party. You can even keep the general difficulty of the game high, by throwing 8 or more on level or level -1 creatures at the party, or having the very occasional level +1 boss creature accompanied by armies of level -2 creatures or having the boss fight in rooms with level +1 hazards that will still keep the challenge up. This not only will make your anti-incapacitation players happy, it will also make the players that feel like they are always failing happier as well, because general levels of success go up, but singular instances of great success are less significant over all. This will fix both issues without having to drastically change base rules of the game and seriously over complicate game balance.
Personally, I love the lethal and challenging feel of solo monster fights in PF2, and am thankful for the shifts in PF2 that have made that possible. I think that the adventure writing team at Piazo might want to consider making sure to release some content that is more focused on lower level opposition, because they currently cater much more to players with my play style than players that want a challenge, but not a high risk of individual action failure. But as a GM, it is not too difficult to rebalance encounters with the weak template and an extra mook or hazard.
For players that are frustrated by the general tone of play, there is a really great fix for this problem that can be implemented on the GM side, without touching how incapacitation works: Stop designing encounters with solo monsters that are much higher level than the party. You can even keep the general difficulty of the game high, by throwing 8 or more on level or level -1 creatures at the party, or having the very occasional level +1 boss creature accompanied by armies of level -2 creatures or having the boss fight in rooms with level +1 hazards that will still keep the challenge up. This not only will make your anti-incapacitation players happy, it will also make the players that feel like they are always failing happier as well, because general levels of success go up, but singular instances of great success are less significant over all. This will fix both issues without having to drastically change base rules of the game and seriously over complicate game balance.
I love accompanying bosses with spellcasters mook. The low level Cleric casting Reach 2-action Heal every turn on the boss and the low level Bard using Inspire Courage + Magic Missile on the fallen PCs are the kind of enemies you want Incapacitation spells for.
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For instance, Color Spray will remain an effective 1st level spell for your entire casting career (assuming your opponents are immune for some other reason, of course) while 1st level direct damage spell slots are quickly outstipped by cantrips...You make this out to be something bad.
I don't mind Color Spray being useful at high level. If you cast it in a high-level slot, that is.
Well, that's kinda the whole point: without the Incapacitation mechanic, a 1st Level Color Spray is 100% as effective as a 10th level version.
Illusion, Incapacitation, Visual
Source Core Rulebook pg. 324
Traditions arcane, occult
Cast Two Actions somatic, verbal
Area 15-foot cone
Saving Throw Will;
Duration 1 or more rounds (see below)Swirling colors affect viewers based on their Will saves.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The creature is dazzled for 1 round.
Failure The creature is stunned 1, blinded for 1 round, and dazzled for 1 minute.
Critical Failure The creature is stunned for 1 round and blinded for 1 minute.
My last 5e session we are level 7 and we were up against 30 hobogoblins and a cr 11 devil. Surprise round I took out the hoboglins with an aoe. I'm a caster so I have blast spells: ok, good. Next round I thought I can shoot this guy or throw out a hynotic pattern. I threw out the pattern and it stuck. We tied the devil to something and proceeded to take turns murdering him. The fight ended up being very silly and anti climactic. something just fundentally not fun about that.
5e's solution is legendary resitances, pathfinder has the incapacitate trait. Both have issues their issues, but I feel like it makes sense to address this problem in some way.
What do you think about this small modification in the incapacitation trait rule?
"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 a CRITICAL FAILURE check to prevent being incapacitated as a FAILURE. 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."
Spells with this characteristic would have a more powerful effect but without the possibility of eliminating a monster or PC permanently. This would somewhat mitigate the problem of damage spells by facilitating memorization at higher levels (although it is still distressing due to the small number of slots).
Do you think this interpretation is incorrect and the low level spells with the incapacitation trait would become to powerful?
Interesting. And true. Even now some of my PCs critically fail saves just by random chance and it can get nasty.
Good to know. Maybe I'll come up with a PC against environment solution that suits my sensibilities.
What do you think about this small modification in the incapacitation trait rule?"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 a CRITICAL FAILURE check to prevent being incapacitated as a FAILURE. 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."
Spells with this characteristic would have a more powerful effect but without the possibility of eliminating a monster or PC permanently. This would somewhat mitigate the problem of damage spells by facilitating memorization at higher levels (although it is still distressing due to the small number of slots).
Do you think this interpretation is incorrect and the low level spells with the incapacitation trait would become to powerful?
I think this is one of many compromises to get around the incapacitation trait, and a reasonable house rule. It means that players spells are not totally hosed (which is what is making them upset) but has some reasonable effect still.
I've found the Incapacitation trait very handy recently when I've cast Calm Emotions 2 with our level 5 Barbarian in the middle of it. Being able to affect enemies but not allies is one of the good thing about this rule.
Interesting. And true. Even now some of my PCs critically fail saves just by random chance and it can get nasty.
Mine too. It happens about 5% of the time.
Sorry if I missed this elsewhere on the thread...
Is it possible the 1 degree of success better is only applied upon a successful role? Meaning that if over double the incapacitating effects level you would then treat a success as a critical success and not adjust a failure, critical or otherwise.
I don't think this is what the incapacitation trait is saying, but perhaps an interpretation worth considering?
I hate when a boss encounter is ended the first action by a bad saving throw. I'm pretty used to rocket tag since I played high level 1st edition AD&D and that was just how you did it but I do look forward to not having to worry about a player ending a awesome boss encounter too soon.
Echo.
I like SOD, but love a tactical game; Winning or losing by arbitrary chance is distinctly unsatisfying, IMO.I've reconciled incapacitation with an idea culled directly from the pirate statue "boss" creature in the PF2e beginner box solo adventure.
In this scenario the statue can be instantly killed by using a skeleton key (" Try the Key") found elsewhere in the dungeon. However, this can only be done after the statue is reduced to below half HP. The text narrates this as "slow[ing] it down", but there is no mechanical relation to action economy or speed—It is gated specifically by HP.
Take that concept & apply it to incap:
Incapacitation Threshold (IT)
A creature's incapacitation threshold is half its maximum HP. In other words, the incapacitation trait applies so long as a creature has half or more of its max HP (rounded down). If the creature has less than half max HP, the incapacitation trait no longer applies.
I like this for several reasons:
1. Dev Congruency. The pirate statue alternate win condition is an example crafted by the game designers & applied specifically to a prototype "boss" encounter.
2. Simple. IT reflects a game mechanic already present in the RAW (ie broken threshold), and requires no other rule modifications, additions, or spot changes.* Low word count, high effect. No fiddling.
3. Promotes tactical choice. Implementing IT derails the contrived narrative of a boss fight & causes the battle to evolve with emergent options as it progresses. On the one hand, you are not railroaded into dealing damage as the only way to win a fight. On the other hand, round one rocket tag is curbed whilst still keeping SOD on the table.
ie The magic-user can still pull off an insta-win, but the party must first co-op to soften the BBG & create that opening. This is consistent design-wise with the implied strategy of debuffing the boss & buffing the fighter to land a hard hit. Conversely, it is also consistent with the idea that, as PCs, it becomes increasingly risky and tense as you dip into lower HPs.
4. Nuanced. Incap is fluid; Tactics change based on the circumstances. In the case of the ghoul pack vs higher level party, the party is insulated from the paralysis carrier effect, so long as they are healthy. The effect only becomes threatening when they are weakened. Diligent post-fight healing reins in the danger, while protracted skirmishes with such a mook mob may become perilous.
PS So I realize this thread is dusty. Just breaking into PF2e, coming from childhood B/X. My in-game experience is low so very curious how the grogs here have settled on the topic.
* This is not quite true. RAW Recall Knowledge in particular is a stickler. This is admittedly a separate topic. Having RK reveal a specific stat (level or HP, in this case) per use makes it actually useful to appraise an opponent, and fixes the issue of blindly burning actions on things that have no chance to work.
To note: This thread is over four years gone. Please leave the echoes of the past in the past.
I hate when a boss encounter is ended the first action by a bad saving throw. I'm pretty used to rocket tag since I played high level 1st edition AD&D and that was just how you did it but I do look forward to not having to worry about a player ending a awesome boss encounter too soon.Echo.
I like SOD, but love a tactical game; Winning or losing by arbitrary chance is distinctly unsatisfying, IMO.I've reconciled incapacitation with an idea culled directly from the pirate statue "boss" creature in the PF2e beginner box solo adventure.
In this scenario the statue can be instantly killed by using a skeleton key (" Try the Key") found elsewhere in the dungeon. However, this can only be done after the statue is reduced to below half HP. The text narrates this as "slow[ing] it down", but there is no mechanical relation to action economy or speed—It is gated specifically by HP.
Take that concept & apply it to incap:
Incapacitation Threshold (IT)
A creature's incapacitation threshold is half its maximum HP. In other words, the incapacitation trait applies so long as a creature has half or more of its max HP (rounded down). If the creature has less than half max HP, the incapacitation trait no longer applies.I like this for several reasons:
1. Dev Congruency. The pirate statue alternate win condition is an example crafted by the game designers & applied specifically to a prototype "boss" encounter.
2. Simple. IT reflects a game mechanic already present in the RAW (ie broken threshold), and requires no other rule modifications, additions, or spot changes.* Low word count, high effect. No fiddling.
3. Promotes tactical choice. Implementing IT derails the contrived narrative of a boss fight & causes the battle to evolve with emergent options as it progresses. On the one hand, you are not railroaded into dealing damage as the only way to win a fight. On the other hand, round one rocket...
Necro thread or not, I like the thinking here.
Maybe only apply the threshold for a lesser level difference.The IT could apply to level +1 and +2 but normal incapacitation for +3 or higher.
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To note: This thread is over four years gone. Please leave the echoes of the past in the past.
Acknowledged & obliged, Psychopomp.
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Necro thread or not, I like the thinking here.
Maybe only apply the threshold for a lesser level difference.
The IT could apply to level +1 and +2 but normal incapacitation for +3 or higher.
First of all, thank you.
Second, yes, I can see the value of constraining the IT further. Tho I've not crunched the numbers, I suspect the HP variance by level also creates a similar buffer against takedowns by ghoul horde or vs BBG. Including level in the rule definitely doubles down on the importance of recall knowledge. You'd potentially have to make two RK checks (Lv & HP) to confirm IT could pierced.
I'll mull on it; If the topic is relevant perhaps a new thread can be made.
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Over & out.
Allowing incapacitation past a Hit Point threshold is interesting, and some systems do enable certain special effects when a monster is below half HP -- D&D 4e had this with the bloodied condition that happened when at half HP, and making incap work against a bloodied boss could give those spells a niche as an execution effect. I suppose the question remains whether half HP is an acceptable threshold -- would dealing half the BBEG's HP in damage justify obliterating their intellect with never mind, for example, or paralyzing them for so long that they will likely die within the next few rounds? I can't say for sure, and I imagine different GMs would have different opinions of this too.
In my games, I've been experimenting with a different trait to act as a replacement for incapacitation: the basic principle is that these spells act like normal spells, and and have effects that are about as equally impactful as normal spells (incap spells normally have stronger effects to compensate for the reduced reliability against higher-level targets), but the critical failure effect also applies a bonus effect specifically if the target is of an equal or lower level than twice the spell's rank, or just the effect's level in general. This effectively means you could get the extremely powerful effects of incap spells right now under specific circumstances and against some enemies, but without affecting the spell's accuracy.
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4e was even more granular than that: it also had the critical condition at 25% hp.
I don't think most would go so far, but having a threshold of 1/(n+1), with n being the individual creature's level difference with the caster wouldn't be the most arduous solution.