What happened to the Break Enchantment spell, and how to best replace it?

[ellindsey]

For an upcoming game, my players may encounter a NPC who is under the effect of a homebrew magical item, that among other things is placing the NPC under a permanent Dominate effect. My players may want to free this NPC from this effect once they realize what's going on. I want to make this somewhat difficult, but not impossible. Something that a mid-level spellcaster could do.

In First Edition, this seems like it would be a clear case where a Break Enchantment spell would do the trick, but Break Enchantment somehow doesn't exist in 2E. What would be the 2E equivalent? Remove Curse? Dispel Magic, possibly heightened?

[Themetricsystem]

Remove Curse is appropriate if that's the flavor you want to give to the Enchantment, yes. Otherwise, a Heightened Dispel Magic is right on the money, perhaps even making it a "layered" series of Enchantments they need to break down before being able to get to the root of the Enchantment that's causing the trouble.

[shroudb]

you are basically counteracting an effect.

if it's magical (but not a curse) Dispel magic will do the trick.
if it's a curse you need remove curse instead.
and etc

heightening the spell (and how much) may be mandatory depending on the level of the dominate effect due to how counteract works in pf2.

[ellindsey]

Alright. I think I'll go with first requiring some research to determine what's going on and how the effect works in the first place, then a heightened Dispel Magic to interrupt the effect, and then destroying or deactivating the magic item that's producing the effect in the first place to keep it from simply re-asserting the Dominate spell. A fun puzzle for my players to work through. Thanks!