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"Hey paizo, change this rule. Guys, if you want to discuss it, not here, go there."
"Hey guys, if you disagree with me, don't post."
Guess what. I disagree, and so do a lot of people. The attempt to dodge doesn't really help assuming you're having an invested conversation.
Incapacitation is a simple and effective rule which helps both power control and the creation of powerful spells without making them excessive - remove Incap and we lose out on a lot of interesting spells.
Legendary saves, on the other hand, are a boring shield mechanic which adds nothing interesting to the game other than having to pop through a bunch of freebies to artificially extend an encounter. I'd rather skip it and use my spells.
What this supposed proposed change does is the following:
1) create a frustrating mechanic that annoys casters and relegates them to support roles in bossfights. Wasting 3 turns is enough to state you're not playing.
2) denies the opportunity to create interesting spells, due to the lack of incap to hold back excess power, or buffs ex-incap spells to a point where they're an obvious pick.
Compare spells of the same level with and without incap. You'll start to notice a trend - incap spells are better.
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I think you're missing that the incapacitation trait is designed with PCs in mind. It addresses the "four CR 2 ghouls against a level 10 character" problem from PF1. Similarly, summons should not be able to spam an incapacitation spell for their ten rounds.
Anyway, the issue does bug me a bit, since I'm fond of enchantment and possession stuff.
My houserule would be, if you are using the highest level spell available to a caster of your level, or if you're using another incapacitation ability, you can always ignore incapacitation against your level + 1. That way, you don't yo-yo between "your level" and "your level + 1". You are always able to use your top-level slots to impact normal encounters, but it still generally doesn't shorten boss fights by two rounds.
Am I understanding point 1 right:
If I am a level 1 wizard, I cast sleep out of my highest level spell slot, the DC is normal and ever creature has to make their save against a DC of lets arbitrarily say 17?
If I am a level 3 wizard casting sleep out of a 1st level slot, I am casting it at a DC of 18 instead of 19, if I chose to heighten it. It gains no other advantage from being heightened?
If I am 7th level, with my Expert proficiency, my 1st level sleep spell is DC 22 instead of DC 25 if I heighten it?
Also,
How does this help mitigate against the threat level of monsters casting spells that will take players out of combat? Which is the big threat that incapacitation was primarily addressing.
The issue isn't necessarily casters, it is monsters who have abilities with the incapacitate trait, like ghouls. Is your suggestion just to get rid of the trait from spells?
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Like most of your homebrew ideas that you claim are the true future for Paizo, these are really really bad and make it seem like you don't understand the system nearly as well as you think you do. Hell, people don't even really like legendary saves in 5E either since they're basically just the gm saying "no" to anything that could change the fight.
And yeah, how do you plan to account for the sweeping changes to monsters and non-spell abilities with incapacitation? I'll assume you've put no thoughts in to it, but whatever.
That IS a fun idea. Might actually propose that to my tables...
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Please understand this is a thread that assumes Incapacitation is a problem for YOU. (If you like the trait, please leave the thread. Thank you)
Please understand, this is a forum where all are capable and welcome to post in any thread that is accessible and relevant to their interests. You are neither a moderator of these forums, nor an employee of Paizo and have no ability to restrict the nature of the conversation. You are told this routinely.
If you want to engage with these topics in a way that is 100% under your control you are welcome to create your own forum. Be respectful of others in THIS one please.
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Before trying to fix a mechanic, I find it important to identify all of what the mechanic is doing in the game, and why it was put there, even if I don't like the end result and I want to change it.
Incapacitation is doing several things in PF2:
1. It protects PCs from encounter ending abilities from monsters that they have grown past needing to worry about.
2. It protects Big boss villains from encounter ending spells that will result in incredibly anti-climactic endings to adventures.
3. It makes solo monster encounters more challenging. (related to 2 but a little bit different. Some solo monsters are not the big boss, just an interesting high level threat in the adventure that can often be bypassed or left alone.)
4. It prevents debuffing/control casters from having far superior spell lists from blasting casters.
Some players might feel like the saving throw progression of players, and the bonus features they get when they get to master proficiency take care of point 1. The issue there is that no one character gets that many of these and thus it is easy to end up sitting their paralyzed for an entire encounter because you rolled one bad save. When you face 6 or 8 ghouls at once, rolling one bad save is not that unlikely a situation to find yourself in. Taking away incapication means having good saves for players is even more important, raising the necessity of DEX,CON and WIS while encouraging parties dropping STR, INT and CHA. This might be fine to you, but it is important to make sure your players realize that the one affects the other.
If you, as GM, and your players are fine with the party charming the troll that is 3 levels higher than them because it has one terrible save that is easily exploitable, then points 2 and 3 are probably not issues for your table, but don't be surprised if your PCs become very good at exploiting these effects.
It sounds like you want low level spell slots to be used for the big game defining effects, which is why you designed your house rule this way. SO 4 is probably not a problem for you, but I would be interested to hear what happens with your casters that can effectively use level 1 spells against higher level enemies lowest saves. I think it will start to skew the game into everyone thinking that casters are the best classes again, but that doesn't seem like an issue that concerns you.
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So when my Wizard goes from level 6 to level 7, all of my first, second and third level spells suddenly get weaker?
There's a reason Paizo ditched spell slot based DCs in 2e and going back to that feels like a huge step backwards for casters. It doesn't make the game better for anyone, it just tells players to not bother casting save granting spells out of low level slots.
It's a really, really bad suggestion.
Obviously I prefer 2E over 5e since that's what I'm playing. 5e still has some aspects I enjoy, and some I don't like any other RPG. Legendary saves just happens to fall into the latter camp.
Thank you for saying it more eloquently than I would have, TNB.
my words
Now to your points:
1. Absolutely. But is this really a big concern? In those rare cases where a fight contains lots of mook monsters ready to spam an effect that ruins a character's day on a bad save, the party is definitely expected to take this into account. Or the GM can simply have half of those mooks do something else, etc...
If this is the direction you want to go at your table, great! It is just important stuff to remember for GMs, because, as pointed out, the incapacitation trait is used liberally on monsters, and you need to make sure you have something else ready to go.
3. It does make them more challenging. At the cost of the caster never getting to be the Big Hero, taking them down with a well-selected spell. So as for #1 I ask: is this really a big concern? After all, we are - by definition - not talking about a monster the GM deems important enough to grant plot armor. So what's the harm in the caster winning here?
That last question is definitely for you to decide. Granted it is an extreme example, but a creature like a troll has a 10 point slide from best save to worse, Should a level 1 caster have a 50% chance of one-shotting a level 5 monster with a single 1st level spell?
Personally, I say that is a problem that I don't want coming back into PF2. PF1 had much more awkward ways of dealing with limiting the utility of lower level spells than incapacitation, and I am thankful they are gone.
I strongly believe that the perception of incapacitation as a deal breaker for spells is much worse at lower levels than at higher levels. That is a real problem because you get players set against them early and then ruling them out, but especially for wizards, they add a lot of versatility to your playbook at higher level when you have color spray, sleep and charm sitting in your spell book as cheap spells that can pull a lot of weight in specific situations.
I honestly feel like having charm work against higher level opposition would greatly cheapen adventure design. I like that you can use it to subtly to manipulate guards and "the staff" but would have a much harder time walking in and hit the monarch with it.
I get that these legendary saves could work to counter it, but that mechanic feels awkward to me, especially when balanced outside of combat encounters.
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Incapacitation effectively reduces the spell lists for any player who avoids taking them.That's on the player, just the same if they play a blaster but them their character around Fire spells only.
Save or suck spells already mean the caster is contributing nothing to the party's progress (of defeating the monster) on a failure. At least damage spells usually deal half damage on a failure.
I'm not sure the exact amount, but don't a bunch of debuff spells still have an effect on an opposing Success?
And that's before getting into the fact that the number of player facing options with Incapacitation are rather small.
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I agree that Incapacitation is a serious problem, because is hoses a large number of spells, and makes the save or suck caster style very hard to play.
1) Add a -1 penalty to your spell save DC for each spell level lower than your highest.
This is effectively changing DC by spell slot level which is a feature of other systems. There are other ways of doing the maths for this. Personally I find it a bit cumbersome. It is nice that the save DC for a caster is mostly a constant. I applaud any attempt by Paizo to remove complexity and little modifiers.
Further it would impact the viability of low level evocation spells given the critical system in PF2.My thought in this design space was to allow a +2 circumstance save bonus on any Incapacitation spell that didn't come out of a casters highest level slot. But I don't really like that either though.
2) Add something akin to 5th Editions legendary monster status. That is, the GM is free to decree a particular monster (of any level!) is a legendary monster, and has three legendary saves.
This works in D&D5 but only because it doesn't happen that much, it is not all bosses - it is just particular ones. Players appreciate that it is tough to get a spell to work on a dragon. It sort of fills the same role as magic resistance used to.
It is precisely this point which offends me so much about Incapacitation in PF2. The rule applies way too broadly and therefore destroys the value of some of the traditional spells in the game, rather than protects a few bosses which is its design goal.
There are two ideas that I do like:
3) Add a feat for monsters and NPCs to give them a resistance to these effects. eg lets call it say Force of Will or Tough NPC: +25% hit points and +4 to save versus all spells with the Incapacitation Trait because my GM thinks I'm an important tough NPC and a boss. Remove the normal meaning for Incapacitation it is just a flag for this feat.
and
4) Villain Points. Because PCs get Hero Points, the GM gets 1 Villain Point per session, which he can use at his discretion to reroll any one of his rolls to save a Villain or further the Villains plot. Been mentioned before but its simple and unobtrusive.
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Personally, as a GM, the last thing I want are villain points. I don't want to be seen as actively working to undermine my player's success.
Personally, as a GM, the last thing I want are villain points. I don't want to be seen as actively working to undermine my player's success.
This was the exact reason I referenced something another system does. The FFG Star Wars Hero Point like mechanic known as Destiny Points. They have a somewhat satisfying mechanic where when a player facing point is used it flips and becomes a point the GM can use and vice versa.
Less a static alter the game by fiat point and more of a currency exchange.
I agree that Incapacitation is a serious problem, because is hoses a large number of spells, and makes the save or suck caster style very hard to play.I count just 26 spells in the Core Rulebook with Incapacitation in them.
Not account for Focus Spells.
Yes but they are all of the same type. They hurt that caster type a lot.
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Before trying to fix a mechanic, I find it important to identify all of what the mechanic is doing in the game, and why it was put there, even if I don't like the end result and I want to change it.
Incapacitation is doing several things in PF2:
1. It protects PCs from encounter ending abilities from monsters that they have grown past needing to worry about.
2. It protects Big boss villains from encounter ending spells that will result in incredibly anti-climactic endings to adventures.
3. It makes solo monster encounters more challenging. (related to 2 but a little bit different. Some solo monsters are not the big boss, just an interesting high level threat in the adventure that can often be bypassed or left alone.)
4. It prevents debuffing/control casters from having far superior spell lists from blasting casters.
IMHO one of the problems of PF2 is that it has too narrow a band of level where there is play balance. Monster more than 2 levels above are crushing aginst PCs, monster 2 levels or more below PCs are lambs to the slaughter.
For a game with 20 levels that is too harsh. I know it was a design goal of D&D5, and specifically not a design goal of PF2, to have bounded accuracy. But in my opinion PF2 has gone too far down this road. The curve is too steep. (D&D5 buggered it up badly though, as their basic AC is broken, and having 6 saving throws is impossible to defend)I just do not accept that turning the big boss into a duck is anti climatic. If the players want to go down that route - it is their choice - the system should not stop them.
I do see a problem with Solo Monsters. Having to make 4 saves versus say blindness would be tough, because you are against 4 casters. I just think giving the solo extra resistance is a better idea than making the boss immune.
The spell changes themselves stop debuffing casters from being superior. Most spell effects on a failed save are minor, or last for a short while. You need to inflict critical fails to have a good effect with many spells.
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We've got 20 years of play experience in the 3.5 engine that shows that yes, it is pretty anticlimactic when a caster effortlessly oneshots a boss.
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We've got 20 years of play experience in the 3.5 engine that shows that yes, it is pretty anticlimactic when a caster effortlessly oneshots a boss.
Just as much as when the GM effortlessly wastes your turn.
Before trying to fix a mechanic, I find it important to identify all of what the mechanic is doing in the game, and why it was put there, even if I don't like the end result and I want to change it.
Incapacitation is doing several things in PF2:
1. It protects PCs from encounter ending abilities from monsters that they have grown past needing to worry about.
2. It protects Big boss villains from encounter ending spells that will result in incredibly anti-climactic endings to adventures.
3. It makes solo monster encounters more challenging. (related to 2 but a little bit different. Some solo monsters are not the big boss, just an interesting high level threat in the adventure that can often be bypassed or left alone.)
4. It prevents debuffing/control casters from having far superior spell lists from blasting casters.
IMHO one of the problems of PF2 is that it has too narrow a band of level where there is play balance. Monster more than 2 levels above are crushing aginst PCs, monster 2 levels or more below PCs are lambs to the slaughter.
For a game with 20 levels that is too harsh. I know it was a design goal of D&D5, and specifically not a design goal of PF2, to have bounded accuracy. But in my opinion PF2 has gone too far down this road. The curve is too steep. (D&D5 buggered it up badly though, as their basic AC is broken, and having 6 saving throws is impossible to defend)I just do not accept that turning the big boss into a duck is anti climatic. If the players want to go down that route - it is their choice - the system should not stop them.
I do see a problem with Solo Monsters. Having to make 4 saves versus say blindness would be tough, because you are against 4 casters. I just think giving the solo extra resistance is a better idea than making the boss immune.
The spell changes themselves stop debuffing casters from being superior. Most spell effects on a failed save are minor, or last for a short while. You need to inflict critical fails to...
For you, probably the best solution is: Change proficiency bonuses to half level rather than level. Though I should note even no level to proficiency increases numbers more steeply than 5e, but 1/2 level is a smaller step. You'll have to re-balance encounters if you're using an AP.
Treat Incapacitation spells as a one level higher when figuring out when it kicks in. That way it still fulfills both design requirements (low level monsters can spam save or sucks & you can't remove a "boss" with one spell save).
For you, probably the best solution is: Change proficiency bonuses to half level rather than level. Though I should note even no level to proficiency increases numbers more steeply than 5e, but 1/2 level is a smaller step. You'll have to re-balance encounters if you're using an AP.
I made that very suggestion in the playtest feedback. In fact most members of my group made a lot of suggestions.
I never got the impression that it was read. I guess they were overwhelmed, plus they had lots of contradictory advice. My impression was the numbers in their specific questions were what they were after. Which is frustrating as they were not always the best questions. Anyway it is their game - at least the mainline rules are.
In the Gamemastery Guide they have proficiency without level, which is similar but its not the point I don't want bounded accuracy, I just don't want the accuracy curve to be so steep. I want to be able to revist those ogres in a level or two without them being a total walkover.
Re balancing encounters is something I almost always do. My players are way to efficient. My maths is comfortable enough to just read the source material and convert in my head as I GM. I'm adding an extra ogre for tonights game....
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I made that very suggestion in the playtest feedback. In fact most members of my group made a lot of suggestions.I never got the impression that it was read.
I don't think that's strictly fair. I actually think they read a LOT of the comments and concerns, they just didn't reply so it feels worse if your suggestions didn't make it into the game, as you don't know if they were even read. It's clear to me from statements mostly from Mark S that steep curve is very deliberate. As such they almost certainly considered alternatives and made a considered decision.
They just didn't agree with you on how the steepness should feel, which obviously isn't ideal for you, but...
Re balancing encounters is something I almost always do. My players are way to efficient. My maths is comfortable enough to just read the source material and convert in my head as I GM. I'm adding an extra ogre for tonights game....
CAVEAT: Some of the problems you have are the core math of the game. Paizo are almost 100%, never ever going to patch the core math for you.
That sucks if you disagree with the Core math, but if you can't accept that premise, I don't think we can have a very productive conversation about how to make the game feel better for your group if you still want to play PF2e.Honestly, Incapacitation and curve steepness are REALLY easy to fix if you're good at fudging math. I am too, but I try to suggest more broadly appealing fixes usually.
For steepness, level the curve behind the screen. Use a cheat sheet if you need.
You need to figure out the DIFF in values that would occur if you were using 1/2 level or no level to prof, then apply it. Adding numbers to lower level creatures and taking away from higher. In your had way if you're great at arithmetic is count up in odds or evens depending on if PCs' levels are odd or even, then +1 -1 per odd/even step as appropriate. Your players do no work, and possibly don't even know its happening. The game is much smoother. Split the difference in XP between the current and no level variant if you use 1/2 level and use XP.
For incapacitation, treat it like a skill DC bump. If incapacitation would trigger, the creature gains another +2 untyped bonus to their save. The GM may determine that some creatures are Very Hard (+5 instead of +2) or Incredibly Hard (+10 instead of +2, basically current incapacitation). You should tell your players for free on successful Recall Knowledge checks if any of these apply. Communicating this to players should make the spells more appealing.
Though you've mentioned you have no issue with save-or-die esque mechanics on monsters, so probably the easiest/neatest idea is to ignore incapacitation on all PC abilities.
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It is a serious problem because those 26 spells make the arsenal of an entire TYPE of caster. If we for the purpose of discussion reduce all casters to Blasters, Buffers, Denyers, and Disablers, it invalidates an entire category of Disablers - namely those that target BBEGs, and not just groups of mooks.
That's a hefty subset of a FOURTH of all casters. (Again, let's not quibble whether it's really 1/4 instead of 1/5 etc. I trust you see the point made)
So the Incapacitation trait basically crippled this type of casters, the lack of any items to increase spell attack rolls or spell DCs crippled the blasters, having the caster's lag behind the martials by 2 levels for advancement of their core abilities ranks (expert attacks vs expert spellcasting, etc), and forcing nearly all spells to take at least 2 actions each while martials get a shiny new 3 action economy and lots of action economy enhancing class feats all hammered the final nails in the coffins....
Right now, I think PF2e is a game that basically requires massive modding and house rules to have fun playing, and at this point I think the APG will probably be the last PF2e book I buy. I had high hopes for the game before it was released, but the much-vaunted "numerical balance" doesn't fit my views of what is and isn't balanced in numerous ways. Here's hoping PF3e takes the lessons learning in 2e and makes a better game, the same way WotC did from D&D4e to 5e...
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My assertion is that any single-target spell that "incapacitates" the foe is meant for a significant foe (higher in level than you).
I want to specifically dig into this assertion and figure out how big of a problem it is for the game as a whole.
single target spells with the incapacitation trait are a much different thing than spells with the incapacitation trait. I did some analysis:
Arcane
26 total Incapactiation spells
15 spells that target only 1 creature
9 enchantment
2 Illusion
1 Abjuration
2 Necromancy
1 Transmutation
1st level:
Charm (distinctly not worth casting on higher-level foe) Enchantment
Level 3:
Blindness (success category is still pretty bad for a solo creature) Necromancy
Paralyze (success category is still pretty bad for a solo creature) Enchantment
Level 4:
Favorable Review (distinctly not worth casting on high-level foe)/ also not really a spell worth worrying about. Enchantment
Level 5:
Banishment (distinctly not worth casting on high-level foe), it would be cool if the material component removed the incapacitate tag. Abjuration
Hallucination (depends on whether second save also gets the incapacitation trait, but still an action waster on a success) Illusion
Subconscious suggestion (distinctly not worth casting on high-level foe) Enchantment
Level 6:
Baleful Polymorph (distinctly not worth casting on high-level foe) Transmutation
Dominate (success category is still pretty bad for a solo creature) Enchantment
Feeble Mind (Can be pretty bad, even on a success, when cast on a target worth casting it on) Enchantment
Level 7:
Warp Mind (success category is still pretty bad for a solo creature) Enchantment
Possession (has a weird but potentially useful effect against a solo creature/changes its purpose) Necromancy
Level 8:
Uncontrollable Dance (success category is still pretty bad for a solo creature) Enchantment
Undermine Reality (success category is still pretty bad for a solo creature) Illusion
Level 9:
Telepathic demand (distinctly not worth casting on high-level foe) Enchantment
The majority of incapacitation trait spells are AoE spells with devastating effects, oftentimes even on a success, which will be dealt with below.
The number of spells being "ruled-out" by the player that refuses to take single target incapacitation spells is pretty small, they are also mostly high level spells that will end up being usuable against probably 75% of all potential targets.
Additionally, taking away that trait and giving a small bonus (like a +1 to +4 according to this proposed change) is a huge deal because most of the good combat oriented single target incapacitation spells do nasty things still on a success. Yes it is usually only for a round, but it is enough that having a 75% or better chance of at least partial success against a solo monster is incredibly good. PF2 saving throws just do not work like PF1, nor 5e.
The only caster build that is really impacted by incapacitation spells on a significant level is the Enchanter, who, consequentially has the most spells that don't just win the encounter, they win the entire adventure/campaign. I'd definitely think twice before opening the flood gates on having Enchanters be able to target high level enemies repeatedly out of combat with enchantment spells with only a very small chance of having the target realize they are being enchanted.
I think a much more proactive rule for players would be to give the enchanter a metamagic focus spell that lets the spell about to be cast count as 1 level higher for the purposes of counteracting and for overcoming the incapacitation trait against 1 target. I think that will end up solving 90+% of players complaints about incapacitation without exposing them to the effects of runaway monsters with debilitating abilities.
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I was recently in a boss encounter in Extinction Curse. There were two main enemies and two minions, and I firmly believe that if the witch hadn't cast sleep (an incapacitation spell) on one of the minions, we would have TPK'd. He didn't even have it prepared in his highest spell slot, but the creature was still a low enough level that it could be affected normally.
On the flip side, if the incapacitation trait didn't exist, had one of the main enemies failed their save it could have trivialized the fight, which isn't a whole lot of fun for the rest of the party.
Which is why I'm happy with the trait as is, and I think it's better for the game to have it. You're still welcome to change it in your own game if you aren't happy with it.