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You can always use the spell in higher level slot. Think of it as every caster having Heighten Spell feat for free.
(well, spontaneous casters have to take the spell as one of their Signature Spells)
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There's a multitude of threads about the incapacitation trait already.
There's also one in the Homebrew section about alternative ways of handling it.
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For what it's worth, Incapacitate comes up in the PC's favor as often as it does against them. If you remove the trait, for example, large groups of ghasts are suddenly very dangerous to higher level PCs.
It does typically mean that you want to prepare Incap spells in your highest or second highest spell slot, yes. I would beware of the consequences of changing, that, though - namely charm and sleep become absolutely monstrously powerful 1st level spells.
Fear is already one of the strongest 1st level spells in the game, and it's weaker than those two if not for the Incap trait.
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This is where Heightening spells comes into play. If you prepare or cast Charm in a 2nd level slot, it now has full effect on creatures up to level 4; at 3rd, up to level 6; etc.
Also, this trait is important because of how powerful the effects of these spells are and this game wants a single higher-level enemy to actually act as a threat. Even a single round of blindness is basically a death for any enemy that doesn't have a reliable, unaimed AoE.
And further, DCs for 1st level spells are the same as your DCs for 9th level spells. So it isn't any easier to make the save against a 1st level Charm spell. This is another reason that trait exists.
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Enemies only get upgraded saves vs. Incapacitate spells when their level is more than twice the spell's level, so they need to be level 7, not 6, to ignore Paralyze.
Also, and very importantly, you can always memorize spells in higher spell slots. So, if you have 10th level spells, you can memorize a 10th level Charm and it will work on level 20 creatures just fine.
But yes, preparing Incapacitate spells in low level slots is pretty useless much of the time...so don't do that. There are lots and lots of spells that lack the trait for you to prepare in low level slots, after all.
As for whether it's a good feature...Incapacitate spells tend to win fights outright, and in PF2 Save DCs are determined by the caster rather than the spell level. So if Incapacitate didn't exist, Paralyze would be a fight-ender a fair amount of the time even when you were 15th level and fighting an 18th level major villain. Which leaves very little room for non-casters to achieve anything and isn't actually super fun for many people, as those people learned in PF1.
I would also strongly advise not messing with how Incapacitation works before trying it in play. A lot of the way the game works is pretty intertwined and messing with something as wide ranging as that will really warp how the game functions, and not in a fun way.
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I looked up the incapacitate trait and it says that any spell that has this modifier functions as one saving throw degree less for creatures of double the spell level. That seems like broken feature as it makes a whole bunch of enchantment spells useless a level after you get them. For example:
Charm - Can only reliably effect creatures of levels 1-2
Paralyze - Can only effect creatures of levels 1-5This seems like a ridiculous penalty to get a spell and then have it lose its effectiveness in 1 to 2 levels. Just a complete waste of a spell slot. A better option would be to give creatures of a higher level a saving throw every round to shake off its effect. This is how D&D 5E handles this issue. I definitely will not use this feature in any games I DM. This has got to be the WORST feature of PF2E that I have come across so far
Charm (1st) and Charm (3rd) are now functionally different spells, and it is expected that if you want to use Charm, you will prepare it in your highest level slots if you want a significant chance of ending/preventing an encounter with a single spell slot.
As well, certain enemies of high enough level (higher than your level, at worst) will only be Incapacitated on a critical failure due to how this works.
In practice, this is only really crippling at low levels. Once you get to higher levels, the broad range of potential foes makes encounters with creatures your level relatively more common and Incapacitation effects regularly spectacularly effective.
Spells that work well from lower level spell slots do exist, but they tend to not be nearly so crippling on a mere failed save.
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You ask if you're interpreting it right, and then declare it useless and that you'll never use it.
How do you know it's useless if you're not even sure you understand it correctly? (which you are missing the heightening of spells)
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A better option would be to give creatures of a higher level a saving throw every round to shake off its effect. This is how D&D 5E handles this issue.
Except that's also not even true. Charm Person, for example, does not have that. That's a Hold Person exclusive text, because it was in the 3.5e version.
5e handles it through Legendary Saves, aka "whoops I failed but actually succeeded x3".
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What do you mean "spells that cannot be heightened"? There's no such thing.
There are definitely spells with no special extra effect from being heightened, but that's not quite the same thing.
As for houseruling Incapacitation, you can obviously make any change you want at your table. You will end up with some odd results, as some low level incapacitate spells end up being extraordinarily strong for their cost, if you just remove this trait. You'll likely won't to replace it with something . No one is going to come to your home and force you to try with the normal rule first, to get a fair idea if how it ends up working in practice, but the people telling you that it's a good idea are giving good advice.
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Sorry but I don't buy the point of view that you just cast it in a higher level slot. It invalidates low level slots unless you just use them for spells that cannot be heightened.
You should not have to constantly heighten a spell after two levels of use for it to remain viable. That is the point of getting higher level spells. To give you versatility and MORE options not LESS
You absolutely gain versatility as you level. You just change what goes into lower slots to things that remain effective, and you put things with incapacitation into your best slots because spells that instantly win encounters should be precious and limited.
Consider that this system means we replaced Charm Person, Charm Monster, Charm Person, Mass, and Charm Monster, Mass with one spell that replaces Charm Monster, available to characters at level 1.
You went from having absolutely less utility from a first level spell, to having access to a similar effect to a 4th level spell available from level 1. And the main restriction is that you have to heighten it.
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I would have to review the Bestiary as I have not had a thorough check through it and all magic items that can effect saves. However, just looking at some level 20 monsters I don't think the chances of them failing saves is very high. At least not at a critical manner where alot of the really nasty effects occur.
For example, save DC is 38 (17th level, master proficiency and +6 stat modifier)
Monsters in range
Balor CR20 - Wil save 35
Marilith CR17 - Wil save 28
Shemhazin CR15 - Will save 28
Pit Fiend CR 20 - Will save 36
Adult Red Dragon CR 14 - Will save 27
Ancient Green Drago CR 17 - Will save 32
Astra Daemon CR 16 - Wil save 27The will save is easily within the range of a 17th level caster and the effect if they fail the save is minimal. Loss of action economy for 1 round. Unless any of these creatures roll a natural one a crit failure for the saving throw is impossible. So, no I do not feel a 9th level spell slot is a fair trade off for paralyzing any of these creatures for a single round. These monsters saving throws to me show that the incapacitate trait is COMPLETELY unneeded
Casting Fireball on a single creature is also inefficient. Paralyze targets up to ten creatures off a ninth level slot.
Plus, consider something like Charm. A 9th level slot to charm the two Marilith guards (45% chance each with no debuffs) for the day, with the option to maintain the charm as long as you keep the slot expended, seems good to me. That's a 20% chance to end the encounter entirely and a 50% chance to get one of them but not the other.
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/le sigh... another one of these. I hate that I feel the need to do this but... the following is obviously just my opinion but it IS one I have strong convictions about.
If your preferred playstyle is that you want to be the kind of one of two trick pony that just invalidated encounter balance and adventure design... then the PF2 Core RAW isn't for you, perhaps the entire system isn't a fit for you. Every time I see another thread like this it just further reinforces my shame for having to occupy the same hobby as dirty munchkin optimizers who only care about upping their K/D ratio or DPR.
Yes, the base Core assumption is that if you're fighting only one or two creatures in a combat that are supposed to actually be of some moderate or higher difficultly that you cannot just nonstop spam I-Win-Button Spells. That's what Incapacitate is added onto, I-Win-Buttons. Trying to say that paralyzing the LITERAL BOSS of an adventure that took your group months to build up toward over 4-10 game sessions resulting in a total anti-climax is a fair use of ANY resource that at PC should have is... just absurd to me.
Forgive my assumptions and all but the mechanics work GREAT at the ACTUAL table unless you want to play the Save or Die Spellcaster, in which case you will be restricted to only reliably doing this versus creatures your level or lower.
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I disagree Hammerjack. See my below post for monster saves at high level in rebuttal to Dead Man Walking. I don't feel a third level slot to paralyze a creature for one round needs to be a 9th level spell. Its absurd to argue otherwise.
Okay, let's take a look at that.
My hypothetical 17th level party under your rules is three enchanter wizards and a fighter.
My Wizards prep Paralyze in every slot from 3rd level through 8th level, and they take Reach Spell just to not worry about range. 9th level is a pair of Disintegrates just to be mean, and the empty low-level slots are True Strike to make the Disintegrates mean.
So, they have sixteen castings of single-target Paralyze, and they have eight castings that hit every enemy in the room.
The party encounters a Marilith. That Marilith expects to take six turns before it finally makes all three saves. And, it's got a 60% chance of crit failing during that time. During that time, the Wizards have at most touched third and fourth level spells, although if they rotate off on their order, they can probably keep it down to just third-level spells.
That seems absurd to me.
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I don't understand your premise. Charm only affects one opponent and I have to be in 30 feet (60 if I use metamagic) to have a coin toss chance that one of the two marilith's fail her saves. No thanks. At best it lasts for an hour. It only makes her friendly, not helpful (unless she rolls a natural 1). Even if she likes me she is not going to let me and my party pass by.
We're talking about using a ninth-level slot, right? A ninth-level Charm lasts until you prepare your spells again, and targets up to ten creatures.
Yeah, if the only benefit you got was that you could target high-level creatures, then it would be bad. But most of the low-level incapacitation spells get other benefits out of higher-level slots as well.
For spontaneous casters its HUGE nerf as I can only heighten spells by using signature spell. This only allows one spell per spell level attained. So if I take Fey bloodline for example I lose out on 3 bloodline spells if I do not take signature spell at 1rst, 2nd & 16th levels for these spells. In addition I have to cast each spell at its highest level to effect equal level opponents. It seems like a HUGE tax for a few spells that opponents will likely make their saving throw
In care you like alternative spellcasting I would suggest Datalores Homebrew. ITs very good (I only disagree with opposed schools and not Sorc not getting a little more stuff). I would suggest you try it out before you mess with Incapacitation. I agree with you that it really makes some spells useless. But I also understand its existance.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/e4b5bt/update_13_neovancian_ alternative_casting_classes/
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For spontaneous casters its HUGE nerf as I can only heighten spells by using signature spell. This only allows one spell per spell level attained. So if I take Fey bloodline for example I lose out on 3 bloodline spells if I do not take signature spell at 1rst, 2nd & 16th levels for these spells. In addition I have to cast each spell at its highest level to effect equal level opponents. It seems like a HUGE tax for a few spells that opponents will likely make their saving throw
You don't need to use your signature spells to heighten. You are allowed to add spells to your repertoire at higher levels. Charm [5th] would just take up a separate spell known from Charm [3rd].
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That's the thing, on paper it's a head scratcher (which has caused people to unnecessarily shy away from them), but in play, incap spells have worked a dream. Dismissing the rule out of hand without ever playing with it leads to these weird circular conversations.
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Yeah, I definitely was in the camp of not liking Incap when I read the rules, but after seeing it in play I definitely wouldn't play without it.
Forget Charm - if not for Incap, the bard in my party would currently be using every single one of her 5th level slots on Synaptic Pulse and trivializing three encounters a day without touching her higher level slots.
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As was noted, Incapacitation helps Players more than it helps the GM's monsters.
Incapacitation tags mean several devastating spells from lots of lower-end monsters won't end you.
Just imagine several lower level casters dropped a 4th level Sleep on you. It doesn't matter how much stronger you are if your party screws up the rolls and you're being brained to death while unconscious for one minute.
The alternative is your Monk can't put the higher level boss in a Sleeper Hold and knock them out for one minute, the best the Monk can manage with that is Clumsy 1.
Incapacitation spells and abilities are for equal level threats and below.
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As was noted, Incapacitation helps Players more than it helps the GM's monsters.
I remember in a Pathfinder 1 adventure path, our party were suddenly surrounded by 8 hostile mummies bursting out the ground.
GM: "Make a DC 16 Will save or be paralysed and helpless for 1d4 rounds."Player: "All of us?"
GM (double checks rules): "All of you, eight times each."
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Yeah, playing low level monsters with incapacitation effects really highlights the traits importance. Removing it is going to basically push the game back towards the rocket tag of PF1. If you liked that, then great.
Also, something to consider is that the incapacitation trait is basically the equivalent of blasts no longer scaling with caster level and needing to be heightened for max damage.
As was noted, Incapacitation helps Players more than it helps the GM's monsters.I remember in a Pathfinder 1 adventure path, our party were suddenly surrounded by 8 hostile mummies bursting out the ground.
GM: "Make a DC 16 Will save or be paralysed and helpless for 1d4 rounds."
Player: "All of us?"
GM (double checks rules): "All of you, eight times each."
Ah yes, I remember that encounter. Kingmaker, wasn't it? Much more deadly than I expected it to be, entirely because of that.
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It's also not accurate that even the low level uses of spells like charm are "useless". A 1st level charm spell can still make mooks your friend and prevent them from attacking you for an hour. That can be a pretty reasonable timeframe, and using a 1st level spell slot to recruit e.g. a level 18 monster at 20th level (just as an example of a low Will save threat that's still relevant and could easily appear in Moderate or Severe encounters even at max level) is still a solid use of a spell slot.
It's easy to forget how much better low level spell slots are in PF2, simply because their DC scales by character level and proficiency, rather than spell level. Combine this with the fact that most spells are designed so that the four degrees of success mean that spellcasters usually do something relevant on three out of four success conditions and the only thing incapacitate always does is lock out the critical failure option, and there's more potential in incapacitate spells than you migh immediately realize. They won't be useful for bosses, specifically, but they can still come up even in boss fight encounters, if at least one of the mooks has the right low save for the spells you've got prepared. Charm always has potential against any enemy who has a reasonable chance of critically failing their roll against the save DC, even if that "only" means they fail, and on something like the crimson worm above, it's pretty easy to get to a 50% chance of the worm critically failing and then suffering the failure condition, which isn't terribly better than the critical failure condition for the worm.
Then there's the other options like preparing higher level versions of incapacitate spells and using your low level slots for buffing and utility spells, which was close to the only thing they were actually useful for in PF1 since their DCs were always 1-8 points lower than your highest level spells), using those slots as staff fodder, and just generally being judicious in your application of incapacitate spells and consistent in your application of recall knowledge checks to help zero in on the right time and targets for your spells.
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surpressing the urge to groan and rant about dnd5 comparisation...
okay I'm good now
1. have you seen the incapacitation rule in work? no? well then have fun playing rocket tag and be glad I am not your gm I would send so many casters with incapacitation spells after you
2. assumptions about battle constellations dont really help here as this is very much gamemaster dependent
2.b) I agree that a level 1 charm agains marilith would not be a good idea (but it still can work)
3.paralyze 1 round can be the killshot or at the very least causes a huge disadvantage - and that is without someone asking the gm if they can just slit the enemies throat since there is no one to protect you nearby
3.b the spell is very powerful, that is exactly why it has the incapacitation tag
4. low level incapacitation spells can harm you, they just do it one degree worse then usual
5. obi wan does not play pathfinder and if he would he has the wisdom to make charm/suggestion either a signature spell or prepare it in adequate spell slots to deal with your average stormtrooper of which he has fought dozens so he exactly knows their capabilities
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Here's how I understand it: The function of incapacitate ties in with the encounter design of pf2. An at level or higher enemy is considered a "boss" encounter (crb 489). Boss enemies should be difficult to affect with incapacitating effects. This is the intent behind the incapacitate rule. A standard mook is supposed to be level-2, so your second to highest level incapacitate spells will still work on them (ex- you are 6th level, your level 2 and 3 spells are fine for mooks who are level 4, but your level 1s aren't).
Whether or not module writers and gms follow these guidelines is going to be another thing, and will largely determine how useful or useless incapacitation spells will be for you.
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It's easy to forget how much better low level spell slots are in PF2, simply because their DC scales by character level and proficiency, rather than spell level. Combine this with the fact that most spells are designed so that the four degrees of success mean that spellcasters usually do something relevant on three out of four success conditions and the only thing incapacitate always does is lock out the critical failure option, and there's more potential in incapacitate spells than you migh immediately realize.
I agree with almost everything you have said, but I don't think this is strictly true. If a natural one would already be a critical failure, then I think the creature rolling a natural 1 would result in the critical failure result, as the incapacitation increases the result by one step, while the natural 1 reduces it by one step. I could be wrong, but I hope that I am not.
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So the Marilith battle starts at 60 feet? I find that really hard to believe. Even with that being the case she can easily make saving throws with 50/50 odds and if she fails she loses one round of combat. She can dimension door right on top of the wizards or move farther away. I doubt that a wizard's first move if a marilith teleports right next to them is hope that their spell paralyzes the demon. If that spell fails they are toast. Its far more likely that they are going to try and escape and reposition.I disagree Hammerjack. See my below post for monster saves at high level in rebuttal to Dead Man Walking. I don't feel a third level slot to paralyze a creature for one round needs to be a 9th level spell. Its absurd to argue otherwise.Okay, let's take a look at that.
My hypothetical 17th level party under your rules is three enchanter wizards and a fighter.
My Wizards prep Paralyze in every slot from 3rd level through 8th level, and they take Reach Spell just to not worry about range. 9th level is a pair of Disintegrates just to be mean, and the empty low-level slots are True Strike to make the Disintegrates mean.
So, they have sixteen castings of single-target Paralyze, and they have eight castings that hit every enemy in the room.
The party encounters a Marilith. That Marilith expects to take six turns before it finally makes all three saves. And, it's got a 60% chance of crit failing during that time. During that time, the Wizards have at most touched third and fourth level spells, although if they rotate off on their order, they can probably keep it down to just third-level spells.
That seems absurd to me.
I mean, 60ft is almost certainly in the same room, so… sure?
A party usually has four members. That's why I'm bringing three Wizards for suppression, and one Fighter to hit the piñata. Each Wizard tosses out a third-level spell, and with a 55% success rate on each one, the Marilith still expects to spend six rounds failing at least one of the saves. We're even setting aside the possibility of rolling a 1.
That would be just using slots they got 11-12 levels ago.
If you remove incapacitation, why wouldn't everybody just gang up and stun-lock enemies using low-level slots?
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Why people speak about Paralyze when Calm Emotions is way better? Without Incapacitation spell, Calm Emotions on a boss has 30% chances to win the fight. If you have a Bard and a Cleric, you can't put any boss who's not immune to Mental against your characters. I think it pretty much summarize why Incapacitation is a thing.
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Stunning Fist on monks, too. Without Incapacitation, Stunning Fist goes from a really good feat to an absolute auto-pick.
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Incapacitation always applies after you account for natural 1s or 20s, so it will always counter critical failure:
Some other abilities can change the degree of success for rolls you get. When resolving the effect of an ability that changes your degree of success, always apply the adjustment from a natural 20 or natural 1 before anything else.
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I do find incapacitation to be a very interesting mechanic from a design perspective. In practice, it is an incredibly flexible and elegant element for having really powerful game effects that characters (and monsters) grow past in play. It is pretty awesome when you encounter ghouls for the second time in a campaign and they are no longer this massive stun lock threat to you anymore. It is a moment where your character really feels like they have leveled up past an opponent and are playing the game at a higher tier. Also, the ways in which it contributes to higher level solo monsters feeling like the terrifying threat that they were always supposed to be is incredibly refreshing after years of having to add mooks to AP encounters just to make boss fights last more than a round. Overall, I am an absolute fan of what incapacitation has added to the game when it is in play.
However, I have seen more players than I thought it would be, test out incapacitation spells at very low levels (1-3) against monsters that were definitely not boss monsters of the dungeon, discover that the monster was going to benefit from incapacitation, and then you see the light go out of the player's eyes as their dreams of using color spray to shut down encounters evaporate before them. At low levels, the preponderance of facing higher level enemies really does create a tangible perception issue for players that their incapacitation spells will never work because they will always be facing higher level opposition when it actually matters.
If the GM doesn't take steps to keep pressure on parties when they are facing multiple lower level enemies at a time, by pushing lower threat level encounters into encounter chains, the party will quickly come to the opinion that lower level monsters are never actually a threat that need to be dealt with quickly, and casters will end up firing off cantrip after cantrip every time they see two or more opponents, especially when Electric Arc is a pretty good option that shines brightest when there is more than one enemy to target.
Overall, I hope that APs head in the direction of using more swarms of mooks in low level play and less level +3 monsters as random threats that can be stumbled into with little warning, and the expectation that the party needs to always be prepared for solo boss fights as their highest priority can be reasonably debunked. Definitely if you home GM, these are principles to be aware of, as there are certain level jumps that are incredibly brutal to overcome (facing level 7 opposition as a level 4 party is incredibly brutal, for example because everyone gets to expert proficiency in their primary stuff by level 7 and almost no one has it at level 4).