If I'm level 7 and casting a level 4 incapacitation spell, does that mean anything level 8 and below can be effected by it?
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If I'm level 7 and casting a level 4 incapacitation spell, does that mean anything level 8 and below can be effected by it?
Your level doesn't matter, just the spell level and the target's level.
For a level 4 spell with the Incapacitation trait, level 8 and lower targets are affected normally. Level 9 and higher targets can still be affected, but they upgrade their saving throw results one step which typically means they shrug off the spell's worst effects with relative ease...
Incapacitation is another reason why it would have been a good idea to use twenty levels for spells instead of ten. You know, like everything else in the game (characters, monsters, feats, items, etc.).
Incapacitation is another reason why it would have been a good idea to use twenty levels for spells instead of ten. You know, like everything else in the game (characters, monsters, feats, items, etc.).
You know, that's an interesting idea.
To maintain balance close to as is, you would need to reduce the number of spells of each level by half and split spells of each level between the 2 levels they should map to. Like a 10th level spell would be levels 19 and 20. And a 9th level spell would be 17 and 18. But it's an interesting idea. I would really be open to seeing an alternate system like this.
I don't really see any gain to that kind of alternate system.
Smoother level progression - especially for Counteract checks.
Also for Counteract checks there wouldn't be the wonky math of some things determining their counteract level directly and others doing the half-level rounded up. You know - that mental gymnastics hurdle that got us a level 10 Clay golem with a counteract level of 10.
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I mean, conceivably you would gain spells at every level, spells of the same level your character is. It would reduce the mental burden of counteract checks and incapacitation and many other things that involve effectively halving or doubling values to compare them.
It would increase the burden on the developers to figure out what do you get when, how does it scale, etc.
True. But let's get specific here.
Lightning Bolt is currently a level 3 spell that has H+1 scaling.
The only real decision that needs to be made for conversion is deciding if it becomes a level 5 spell or a level 6 spell.
The heightening is going to change to H+2.
Similarly spells that currently have a H+2 heightening will end up with a H+4 heightening. Spells that have explicit level heightening will also have to be decided to be an even or an odd level spell.
That's really all there is for converting of existing content.
This does open up more room for additional options. Perhaps spells that do once again have H+1 scaling under the new system - which would be H+0.5 under the current system.
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Functionally, this would complicate spell selection by *2 and make it much more difficult to choose right spells at the right level.
I think it could have worked as a system designed from scratch this way, but would be a much bigger headache than just trying to break up existing spells.
I just don’t think it is compatible with prepared casting well at all. And many casting classes don’t have spell numbers that divide cleanly. It would get very messy around the systems class design.
Functionally, this would complicate spell selection by *2 and make it much more difficult to choose right spells at the right level.
I think it could have worked as a system designed from scratch this way, but would be a much bigger headache than just trying to break up existing spells.
I just don’t think it is compatible with prepared casting well at all. And many casting classes don’t have spell numbers that divide cleanly. It would get very messy around the systems class design.
I still think it's doable, but you're right that it's a complicated change that would have worked much better if done from the beginning.
As it sits, creating an alternate rule set you would have to republish rules for every caster and spell and it's just too much to do for Paizo, for a system that may not even be widely embraced.