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To get back to the actual question, there are some house rules I saw in another thread which try to remove incapacitation, while keeping things balanced by giving every spell a minor buff to compensate.
I'm not intending to use them right now - I'm currently testing the system by running a group of GM-played characters through Age of Ashes and want to give incapacitation a fair chance in actual gameplay - but I could see myself using them if I find incapacitation is as irritating as it looks.
Possibly one could add some sort of extra cost to supercharging a spell, so you have the choice of using the base version or the upgrade. A gold cost like esoteric material components from 1e, or perhaps a cost in hp or a condition, or a wild magic chance of some kind. Or something else, if you have any other ideas.
Also, regardless of anything else, it might be worth adding something like the following spell:
1st level Divination, from all traditions
Cast >> Somatic, Verbal
Duration Until the next time you prepare spells
You give yourself the ability to sense how powerful any creature you look at is, and which of your spells are powerful enough to work on it. As a free action that may be taken up to three times per turn, you can learn the level of any creature within line of sight. You must be aware of the creature, and this spell is fooled by any illusion magic which disguises a creature as something else.
Note: In character, the spell doesn't give you a numerical answer, it just helps you to understand how powerful the creature is relative to you, giving you enough detail to know which spells will work on it, how high level spells it might be able to cast, and anything else you could work out from its level out of character.
That would at least allow you to make an informed decision, knowing when a creature is too high level for an incapacitate spell so you don't waste the spell against an enemy that turned out to be slightly too high level for it. The reason for limiting the number of uses per turn is so that you can't just scan an entire crowd of people in one round and find the high level assassin among them.
You're acting like there is some inherent difference between "the monster is lower level than you, so it can't take one of you out of the fight with just one spell" and "you're lower level than the monster, so you can't take it out of the fight with just one spell" and declaring inequality.
I'm seriously not trying to pick sides here (like I said, I haven't actually got the experience to make an informed judgement yet) but there actually is a difference between those two. A monster is normally expected to fight a single battle, and lose. A PC is expected to fight a lot of battles, and win all of them. Changing that dynamic in a D&D based game would require a major overhaul of the game mechanics with that in mind, and 2e has (probably sensibly) not done so.
But if a PC is expected to fight a lot of battles and win, then letting enemies (permanently) take a PC out with one spell *is* problematic in a way which letting a PC take an enemy out with just one spell isn't. If an enemy loses to a single spell - even if it's a boss, or even the BBEG - all that happens is we have a bit of an anticlimax and the group has more resources available for the next encounter. Things proceed more or less as expected. If a PC gets unexpectedly killed, that has a massive impact on the entire campaign.
So it's normal, nowadays, to give PCs some sort of advantage, to compensate for having to fight so many more battles and to make sure they don't lose quite as easily. Hero points, that let you avoid death. Inspiration. In 1e, that was the point of giving PCs max hp at 1st level - to avoid them dying to a lucky critical hit. Giving the NPCs less money. Even something like tuning the xp budget so that the PCs will nearly always outnumber their enemies is an example. All other things being equal, a PC of a given level *is* more powerful than an NPC of the same level. And the game's encounter design (and, more to the point, its adventuring day) accounts for that.
When designing a system, you can go with a gritty simulationist and try to reduce those effects down to almost nothing, and end up with a world where PCs of a given level are no more (or less) powerful than NPCs or monsters of that level. That's fine. But you need to incorporate that very carefully into the way you balance encounters. Especially if "one level higher" means near-immunity to a class of spells. If you do that, then you should make sure to only use high level enemies when the narrative really calls for an enemy that negates that stuff, not just when you felt like making an enemy slightly stronger instead of giving him another ally. And your balancing mechanics should account for the way that immunity moves around between level+1 and level+2 depending on the party level.
2e doesn't do that fine tuning. It just shrugs and says a level+1 enemy is always worth 1.5 on-level enemies, when in reality that changes dramatically depending on how much the casters are using incapacitation effects and whether you're playing at an even or odd level.
Edit: I suppose the trouble with doing this sort of approach is really is that incapacitation is so binary. For most characters, an enemy having 1 more level means they get a +1 bonus to all their defences and a few extra hp.* And that's the case whatever level the enemy is. So it has a pretty predictable, linear effect. But for a caster who's trying to use incapacitation spells, a monster gaining a level normally makes relatively little difference to its defences. It gets a +1 to saves, but as thenobledrake rightly points out, most incapacitation magic does something vaguely useful even on a successful save so that's not so painful as it is for other characters. But when you cross that particular threshold from level to level+1, or level+1 to level+2, it suddenly has a massive impact. And that causes problems with encounter balance which the system doesn't address - at even levels, an encounter with 3 on level enemies will be a lot easier for an incapacitation based caster to deal with than 2 level+1 enemies, even though the two encounters have the same XP value. And vice versa at odd levels.
*And an improvement to their offences, of course, but that will be the same for everyone.
Snark isn't helpful.
Again, if you're thinking of three spells you find troublesome, why not fix these three spells.
Instead of throwing a wet blanket of the entire game system, I mean?
It isn't snark, it's a direct challenger of your assertions using the spells that you keep using as reference for a "style of caster" that is made irrelevant by the incapacitation trait.
If the fall out of the Incapacitation tag is that a caster can use Feeblemind to make an above level creature Stupefied 4 for an unlimited duration while still being able to permanently reduce the intellect, CHA, INT, and WIS modifiers of an on level or lower creature; that spell has been made one step less effective - not "obliterated."
If the fall out of the Incapacitation tag is that a caster can use Dominate to control an above level creature so long as that creature continues to fail its will save while still denying a will save to on level or lower creatures except on rounds where you give a new command; that spell has been made one step less effective - not "obliterated"
If the fall out of the Inapacitation tag is that a caster can use Banishment to immediately banish an above level creature while still preventing a creature on level or lower from returning for one week; that spell has been made one step less effective - not "obliterated."
If the fall out of the Incapacitation tag is that the caster can use Paralyze to paralyze an above level creature for one round while still being able to paralyze a creature on level or lower for four rounds; that spell has been made one step less effective - not "obliterated."
The word "obliterate" has a meaning - and that meaning is to "destroy utterly" the fact that the spells above still have valuable effects means "obliteration" didn't happen.
No one threw a "wet blanket on the entire game system" because the level of some creatures removes the Crit Fail.
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I'm going to point out that if you're going to consider an even-level foe a 'mook', an equal number of these 'mooks' to party members has a very good chance of TPKing the party.
If I load up on Banishment, I fully expect that a failed save will banish a significant monster, end of story
A failed save from an at level monster or a monster below level will indeed banish it. A crit fail will banish it for longer. A “significant monster” will fail on a crit fail. If you fully expected it to always result in a banishment - then your expectations aren’t based on the game you’re playing but your own previous edition baggage.
Much easier solution for that issue...
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.I would *really* be interested in hearing you explain how Legendary saves is bad and the nasty GM saying no, while Incapacitation is good and isn't the rules saying HELL NO to a much larger selection of foes!
I disliked Legendary saves more than Incapacitation. I'd rather have a chance of succeeding on a 1 than no chance at all. 5E combats were also short. Legendary saves made any spell you could save against useless no matter what level that spell was.
Whereas a 9th level spell like weird is genuinely frightening because it has no incapacitation and can obliterate a bunch of creatures if they roll poorly regardless of level.
Whereas Legendary saves means my lvl 9 spell can be cast on a lvl 3 creature with Legendary saves and he just gets to save.
I am still very unsure of why you consider the 5E magic system better than PF2 other than say summoning and polymorph spells only because they allow you summon existing creatures or get the full stats of a creature with a lot of power. The Legendary Save combined with the Sustained Spell system sucked.
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But you want to say "don't give all bosses plot armor, just the really tough ones" or the like as if that's not exactly the situation as-is.
Yeah I much prefer the current implementation of "stronger stuff gets better saves" rather than "oh this one creature has a boss designation so it gets betters saves just cause".
Counter, what do you propose giving to martials so they can one-shot encounters as well?
They walk up and critical the boss in the first round knocking him prone. It can be quite savage.
There are powers though, like Whirlwind Stike, and the Dragon Barbarians breath weapon.
I'll add my opinion since my view on incapacitation has changed. As can be seen in another homebrew thread, I was planning to limit incapacitation by caster level but held off because as I leveled I started to see other problems by doing this. My feeling about dealing with incapacitation is as follows:
1. Incapacitation should be viewed on a spell by spell basis. Some spells like Calm Emotions should not have Incap removed. They are AoE encounter enders in a low level slot. Could be very nasty if removed. Removing Incap from spells like Dominate or Paralyze could probably be done on a group by group basis as their effects are really a matter of what does your group prefer?
2. Crafting and/or Magic Item shops: Depending on what you allow, I've found it becomes increasingly easy and cheap to expand spell uses with scrolls and other items as you level. You can buy or make if sufficient downtime a ton of low level spell scrolls. It in fact becomes trivially easy to make these items at half-cost for nearly endless true strike and invisibility spells.
That means a crafter or earn income profession guy in a magic shop town could buy a ton of 1st to 4th or 5th level scrolls very cheaply. This provides a lot of castings of something that uses your spell DC and/or attack rolls.
If you make a 3rd to 5th level Incap spell powerful, remember your players can load up on these at higher level off scrolls using their same spell DC and attack roll.
That player could even make fairly cheap wands for daily uses as well of lower level spells.
3. Your players should also first try out spells in battle. See how they work. There are spells out there that are potent without incap as you level. Other spell strategies should be attempted before presuming an adjustment of incap spells is necessary. There are a surprising number of powerful spells without Incap that do things similar to incap spells.
Confusion 4th level
Synesthesia 5th level
Stinking Cloud and Air Bubble which you can use at the same time exactly on your location as Air Bubble is a reaction spell.
Phantasmal Calamity 6th level
There other ways to feel powerful as a caster now that are different than the previous edition.
4. Wizards and Sorcerers: These two classes are the primary classes negatively impacted by weak spellcasting. I think it would go a lot farther improving the play experience of these two classes by improving the classes themselves than trying to make overall spellcasting better.
Making spellcasting more powerful will benefit bards, clerics, and druids equally and those three classes have mechanically powerful niches in the game. Making them more powerful casters as well as their innate abilities wouldn't make wizards or sorcerers more fun to play. Wizards and sorcerers need specific improvements to their class kits to be more fun, not just an overall improvement to casting.
I've played a bard and druid. Improving their casting might push them too far up the power ladder, while only moderately improving the wizard and sorcerer play experience.
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Counter, what do you propose giving to martials so they can one-shot encounters as well?They walk up and critical the boss in the first round knocking him prone. It can be quite savage.
There are powers though, like Whirlwind Stike, and the Dragon Barbarians breath weapon.
Damage isn't outright SoD though, and there isn't Incapacitation on things like Lighting Bolt or Fireball.
So, what SoD effects will martials get so everything stays balanced?
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Posting my incapacitation suggestion here:
The incapacitation trait converts critical failures to failures and failures to successes.
Successes stay successes.
Posting my incapacitation suggestion here:
The incapacitation trait converts critical failures to failures and failures to successes.
Successes stay successes.
This might be worthwhile since the effects of success are mild. However, I haven't playtest this so my perception might be way of.
Humbly,
Yawar
I think Citricking’s suggestion is a good one if that’s what you want to accomplish - and doing so still keeps the main benefits of having incap in the first place. Probably doesn’t do what Zapp wants but I think it can remove a lot of the feelsbad of using incap spells at higher level targets. It does present a significant buff to AoE incap, however.
The problem with most efforts to change incapacitation is that you either need to keep tracking the spell level x2 information, or else you are seriously buffing low level debuff spells. Even shifting it just to a +5 to save basically makes a level 1 color spray twice as good as the incapacitation version of that spell. Critkings suggestion, while fair and reasonable for a house rule, is still going to have a massive impact on the value of low level spells, including how much they will mess the party up when they get hit by those effects from NPCs
Critkings suggestion, while fair and reasonable for a house rule, is still going to have a massive impact on the value of low level spells, including how much they will mess the party up when they get hit by those effects from NPCs
But in those situations, the party would have been messed up more if the enemies selected a non incapacitation spell instead. I think this rule never makes an incapacitation better then non incapacitation spells against higher level targets.
If a monster with incapacitation abilities was deemed balanced, then it was deemed balanced at all levels (I've never seen "only use this monster against parties level X or higher"), and since incapacitation spells are much weaker if they are below the party level this is no issue at all.
So... would it be more preferable if instead of the current implementation that the higher-level Creatures instead simply get something like +5 to their Save vs Incapacitation effects?
Yes that is much more preferable. At least there is still a chance of a critical failure (probably only 5% on a natural 1) and a small chance of a failure (10-20%).
My problem is less so much that there is a penalty or limit on some spells - it is just that that penalty is a +10 cliff, and IMHO a wipe out of many spells.
1. Incapacitation should be viewed on a spell by spell basis.
Too much work for my taste
Some spells like Calm Emotions should not have Incap removed. They are AoE encounter enders in a low level slot.
Calm Emotions is very good, as there is nothing stopping you from snapping your enemies out of their non hostile state one at a time. Even with Incapcitation it is worth while taking in your top slot for ever. It probably need to be watered down a fraction.
You can buy or make if sufficient downtime a ton of low level spell scrolls. It in fact becomes trivially easy to make these items at half-cost for nearly endless true strike and invisibility spells.
This is true of many spells. But once you get to moderate levels, low level spell slots are just not a problem for you. Wands/potions/scrolls are cheap enough.
The limit at this point is:
1) the duration of spell and your ability to prepare and load up. PF2 and D&D5 have cut down on durations a lot.
2) your actions in combat. You could be using your heightened Chain Lightning? Go ahead read your level 2 scroll...
If you make a 3rd to 5th level Incap spell powerful, remember your players can load up on these at higher level off scrolls using their same spell DC and attack roll.
They do need to be balanced. If you look at the higher level spells the consequences for failing a save get worse. But I still want to have some spells for a low level witch to use to debuf her opponenets.
Legendary saves seem to easily tempt the GM into metagaming and also getting into a me VS them (their friends the players) mindset.
I think it far better to steer clear of this kind of temptation.
Sure, but that just brings us back to the first square.
If Incapacitation is the problem SOMETHING needs to be done.
I understand Legendary Saves has its problems. I just find Incapacitation to be unbearably worse.
To be specific: the aspect of Legendary Saves that invites metagaming ("it has only one save left - let me try to draw that out!") is NOT the core aspect I was gunning for when I made my suggestion. An alternative that doesn't have it would definitely be something I could consider.
It is the aspect where EVERY monster gets the plot armor just by virtue of being 1-2 levels above the heroes that bugs me. That's just too many monsters - and more specifically:
It is nearly all of the monsters you want to target with an incapacitation effect in the first place!
You simply never want to spend one of your highest slots on a single-target save or die spell on something less than the main baddie of an encounter, or just possibly one of his closest sergeants.
Ergo: incapacitation completely shuts down the idea of a spellcasting hero using magic to make the enemy save or die. It becomes the domain of enemy casters only (because they are likely higher level than you).
(You might still cast an area spell against mooks, but I'm concerned about the classic single target incapacitation spell here.
Passing on some experiential insight to Mr. Zapp for the future. Incapacitation applies to player characters as well. So an enemy caster would have to forego lower level slots for Incap spells and fill all his highest level slots with Incap spells to them to work. This would also be affected by the numerous characters who have abilities like Juggernaut or Resolve who can critically succeed with a success even against a spell with the Incap trait, much less pretty much auto-succeed at a spell of lower level with the Incap trait.
Example, a lvl 12 caster versus a level 10 party. He will have 6 slots to use with Incap. If he wants to use some lower level spell with Incap like Charm or Dominate, he will have to use it in his highest level slot. Then when casting it he will have to hope the character doesn't save and doesn't have an ability that improves a success to a critical success and every party buff or magic item on the character on top of hero points. Once those six slots are spent with Incap, many of them single target and defeatable by other means as well as dispellable.
I had a lich use one Incap Flesh to stone spell that landed on a PC. It got dispelled by a heightened dispel magic after round 2. It didn't do much at all to slow down the party because casting a Fort incap at a strong Fort save character doesn't work great and a single target incap spell against a party of powerful creatures doesn't do a whole lot to slow it down.
So unless the spell is a big AoE incap spell which are even fewer unless very high level, it is better for a high level caster to rely more on AoE damage spells to destroy a party. AoE damage spells against a PC party who often don't have the best reflex saves removes hit points fast and requires healing across multiple characters. It's a much more efficient use of high end spell power to hit a party with high DC AoE spells than a high DC incap spell.
That lich for example did very little to disrupt a party with a Flesh to stone to stone spell, but his chain lightning and eclipse burst wrecked the party including the healer. Absolutely left them in a precarious position with several characters very low on hit points.
That is another reason why I see Incap spells as a a trap even for high level monsters that have the ability to use them against a party. They don't do the basic job of pressuring the party's hit point pool and healing as an aggregate. Single target healing is extremely strong as is single target dispel backed up with a hero point often able to fairly easily dispel an effect one level over the target.
But a high DC high damage AoE spells is a nightmare to deal with as it pressures the entire party's saves. One or two critical misses on a save and even an average damage roll is immense pressure on the party hit point pool, far more than the typical Incap spell can come close to matching.
I hope you get a chance to see this phenomenon as you push farther into the AP you're playing. It's quite an eye opener to have a higher level caster with a higher level spell DC hammer a party with AoE spells. You'll be thinking this Incap spells for that high level creature are not even close to the best way to use a high level spell slot for an enemy caster.
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Drawing inspiration from another powerful metamagic feat to recover the "big game hunter" feel in an otherwise narratively protected game.
Feat 10 (◆)
Bard, Cleric, Concentrate, Druid, Metamagic, Oracle, Sorcerer, Witch, Wizard
Frequency: Once per day
Special: This can only be used on a spell from the class matching the one you gained this feat from.
If your next action is to cast spell that is from the highest level spell slot you can cast, the spell loses the incapacitation trait.
It would be better to remove all incapacitation spells than having the incapacitation trait
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I'd rather keep the spells and just remove the trait from the game.It would be better to remove all incapacitation spells than having the incapacitation traitRemoving tactical options does not make the game better IMO.
How do you compensate the martials, then? I expect an extensive array of well-playtested houserules to balance this out. Let us know your design chops.
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How do you compensate the martials, then? I expect an extensive array of well-playtested houserules to balance this out. Let us know your design chops.I thought the underlying assumption by the people who want to remove incapacitation tag was that spellcasters are underpowered. Under the assumption, wouldn't there be no need to compensate martials?
I assume the game is balanced as it is, if you buff casters - fine, go ahead, but what about making sure martials don't lag behind?
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... what about making sure martials don't lag behind?
That's the thing though, this isn't possible without giving every martial character a 2 or 3 action ability that has a chance to totally take any creature, irrespective of the level difference, out of the fight for 1-infinite rounds. What they really want to feel badass on their own but what it would actually do is turn what is supposed to be the height of excitement into an anticlimax.
You'd have to cook up something like an absurd new version of Called Shots that they can use to cripple or instantly kill enemies without subjecting the PC to any increased danger for this to happen.
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... what about making sure martials don't lag behind?That's the thing though, this isn't possible without giving every martial character a 2 or 3 action ability that has a chance to totally take any creature, irrespective of the level difference, out of the fight for 1-infinite rounds. What they really want to feel badass on their own but what it would actually do is turn what is supposed to be the height of excitement into an anticlimax.
You'd have to cook up something like an absurd new version of Called Shots that they can use to cripple or instantly kill enemies without subjecting the PC to any increased danger for this to happen.
Why would we do that? The game is different for different classes and that is the way we like it. These sorts of spells have always existed in the game. It is this edition which is making the change.
Really all we are discussing is the probabilty of success.
Having a hidden arbitrary level number which gives a large fraction of enemies almost total immunity to the class of debufs is a big problem. Yes removing it completely would cause some balance issues. But I confess I'd rather not have incapacitation at all than have it in the game.
I don't like the solutions of oldest versions of the game - ridiculously high saving throws numbers such that many monsters only ever fail on a 1, or then stack on a huge number of immunities and resistances or magic resistance. I see incapacitation as another iteration of this. I consider it one of the worst iterations as it is arbitrary and level based. In my games level is invisible to player characters - they need to interact a bit with an opponent to get a sense of it.
Personally I'd be house ruling to make incapacitation roll twice and take the better number. So in some circumstances incapacition will have a reduced chance of success - not be an autofail.
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Why would we do that? The game is different for different classes and that is the way we like it. These sorts of spells have always existed in the game. It is this edition which is making the change.
Really all we are discussing is the probabilty of success.
Having a hidden arbitrary level number which gives a large fraction of enemies almost total immunity to the class of debufs is a big problem. Yes removing it completely would cause some balance issues. But I confess I'd rather not have incapacitation at all than have it in the game.I don't like the solutions of oldest versions of the game - ridiculously high saving throws numbers such that many monsters only ever fail on a 1, or then stack on a huge number of immunities and resistances or magic resistance. I see incapacitation as another iteration of this. I consider it one of the worst iterations as it is arbitrary and level based. In my games level is invisible to player characters - they need to interact a bit with an opponent to get a sense of it.
Personally I'd be house ruling to make incapacitation roll twice and take the better number. So in some circumstances incapacition will have a reduced chance of success - not be an autofail.
I bolded part of your answer because that was the question I was responding to above as well. "Remove all incapacitation spells from the game" vs "Keep the spells and remove the trait." Given those 2 choices, I would choose to remove the trait, as you too said. However, right now, my house rules keep the trait, but give a +2 on the saving throw rather than the +10 in the book or a version of "Advantage" as you mentioned. (Advantage is not a bad idea, though it doesn't match the rest of the PF2 game. Still, something to think about...)
For my own character, I have mostly chosen to exclude choosing "incapacitation" spells from my Wizard's spellbook. I'm an Evoker specialist, so they are not really in my wheelhouse anyway, though I could decide to add some if I found some in an enemy spellbook....
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It would be better to remove all incapacitation spells than having the incapacitation traitRemoving tactical options does not make the game better IMO.
. Removing bad ones helps trim the fat though
I'd rather have 5e legendary saves (that doesn't mean I'd rather play 5e)
As it is. In the games I play, and by how recall knowledge actually works.
You have to meta game to know if the spell is gonna be next to useless.
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I'd rather have 5e legendary saves (that doesn't mean I'd rather play 5e)
As it is. In the games I play, and by how recall knowledge actually works.
You have to meta game to know if the spell is gonna be next to useless.
So you would rather that spells will do literally nothing rather than still have a chance for a powerful effect? You sure that's a good "buff" there? Legendary resistance isn't even a good design in 5E.
So you would rather that spells will do literally nothing rather than still have a chance for a powerful effect? You sure that's a good "buff" there? Legendary resistance isn't even a good design in 5E.I'd rather have 5e legendary saves (that doesn't mean I'd rather play 5e)
As it is. In the games I play, and by how recall knowledge actually works.
You have to meta game to know if the spell is gonna be next to useless.
I never says it was, it's just better then incapacitation.
The issue is they are legacy spells they kept that have typically been save or suck. They were never well designed to begin with. So instead of changing or ommiting them they add in an entirely new unfun system just to try to manage them. The result is unless you meta game you risk having a trap spell and wasted turn at a much higher rate.
Effect on success does not change that feeling or experience. If your lucky as roll high you also never knew. So it still feels all or nothing.