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I think if 'Knowledge is Power' was just a standard class ability at level 1 that wizards had...
Gonna advocate for my level one class feature again:
Your academic knowledge about a creature allows you to subtly alter your magic to defeat them. When you succeed at a Recall Knowledge check about a creature, you can invoke your knowledge to make the creature take a –1 circumstance penalty to either AC and saves against the next attack you make against it, or the next spell you cast that it needs to defend against.
If you critically succeed you may share this information with your allies, if you do they gain the benefits as well. If not used, the bonuses end after 1 minute.
I also am introducing something called a "signature skill", basically it scales like additional lore. Arcana does this for the wizard because it damn well should. Needing to upgrade arcana almost feels like a skill increase tax on the wizard cuz you aren't gonna pick anything before it and it is a complete flavor fail if you don't prioritize it. Borderline nonsensical as arcana and the ability to cast arcane spells like a wizard are really just *the same thing* in terms of the game's fiction. This gives the wizard one extra legendary skill, so you can have four meaning you can legendary arcana, occult, society and crafting to cover the whole int basis and easily use skill feats for additional lore and he a knowledge guy
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According to Erik Mona, Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries is intended to work as a soft replacement for Gods and Magic.
If that’s the case, it might mean that this works as a soft replacement for Secrets of Magic.
Someone asked this exact question of Erik and he confirmed that it is fact not the case. Apparently Secrets of Magic would require a lot of work to remaster due to the amount of OGL material in it.
Someone asked this exact question of Erik and he confirmed that it is fact not the case. Apparently Secrets of Magic would require a lot of work to remaster due to the amount of OGL material in it.According to Erik Mona, Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries is intended to work as a soft replacement for Gods and Magic.
If that’s the case, it might mean that this works as a soft replacement for Secrets of Magic.
Secrets of Magic hmm.
I think i would rather see them make a new book with all new content related to magic items and spells instead of just making secrets of magic again but ORC.New wizard schools for each of the major Golarian factions that are known for magic.
Wouldnt mind use of some pages to have Magus and summoner along with any changes they would want for them.
You know something. Isnt it odd that casters other than the wizard get spell shape feats at all?
At least to me formulating and shaping magic to do things differently is very wizard but not very cleric or druid or sorcerer or bard or witch.
maybe if all spell shape feats could only be found within the wizard class they would feel a little more like they had a unique mechanic of their own.
You know something. Isnt it odd that casters other than the wizard get spell shape feats at all?
At least to me formulating and shaping magic to do things differently is very wizard but not very cleric or druid or sorcerer or bard or witch.maybe if all spell shape feats could only be found within the wizard class they would feel a little more like they had a unique mechanic of their own.
If spellshape could be applied to prepared spells like in 3.X I would say that should be the domain of wizards, and using actions to shape spells the domain of sorcerers, but I do think it is weird other classes get this to any significantly degree
10th Shadow Army;
9th Unspeakable Shadow, Unspeakable Shadow, Phantasmagoria, Chain Lightning (H+3), Chain Lightning (H+3);
8th Mask of Terror (H+1), Chain Lightning (H+2), Desiccate, Arctic Rift, Unrelenting Observation;
7th Fly (H+3), Freezing Rain (H+2), Haste (H+4);
6th Unexpected Transposition, Unexpected Transposition, Unexpected Transposition;
5th See the Unseen (H+3), Stagnate Time, Pressure Zone;
4th Agonizing Despair (H+1), Translocate, Translocate; 3rd Time Jump, Time Jump, Time Jump;
2nd Tailwind (H+1), Revealing Light, Revealing Light;
1st ;
Cantrips Electric Arc, Frostbite, Light, Message, Warp Step, Telekinetic ProjectileThis is a good spell list. Maybe it needs another reaction spell option. But is is also a good example of why Wizards and prepared casters are not as strong as you might think.
There are 5 spells here that you have taken duplicates of. The equivalent Sorcerer will have 9 extra spells memorised. You have some other good spells in your book? Great but the sorcerer knows 9 of those now and can cast any of them 4 times. They will also be able to burn every level appropriate spell slot they have into Unspeakable Shadow or Chain Lightning and probably Force Barrage, Artic Rift, Fireball and more besides. That still gives the Sorcere heaps of space to have several control options as well.
A Sorcerer will also do more damage. They will have 2 blood magic effects from Crossblood Evolution and with Sorcerous Potency they are +2 damage per spell level on some spells. This would be Imperial plus Elemental Air. So their rank 8 Chain Lightning is at +16 damage and is doing more damage than the Wizards rank 9 Chain Lightning. To be fair this is the raison d'etre of the sorcerer, so I do expect them to win the damage comparison and they do absolutely crush it.
But with Tap into Blood (level 1 feat) they do just fine as a recall knowledge engine provided they take some Int. For sure that is not as good a roll as the Wizard would have with Unified...
Absolutly a sorcerer with a similar spell repertoire will just be better at it. I think the main give for the wizard and the only one is that the next day this list can be completely different or as much different as they feel they need to be. If we could say that there were even 3 or 4 different spell set ups that use many different spells that are each good set ups, then that is the wizard at their strength. Not as good with a single repertoire equivalent but they can be a different caster set up the next day. That makes sorcerer the specialist caster even if specialist is used loosely.
Logically if there are no other spell set ups that are good and can achieve things the other spell set ups cannot or at least are better at achieving certain needed things then there is no point to a wizard after all.
The new spell Spell Riposte is really good. Yes it is rank 7, but reaction counter spell that automatically bounces back at the caster if you succeed, without needing to know the spell or anything is very powerful. It is on the occult, divine and arcane lists.
Like it kind of compresses a pretty intense chain of wizard feats into one spell.
Make it so the Experimental Spellshaping thesis allows the wizard to poach spellshape feats from other classes in addition to its current effects. That would give them a very interesting leg up.
Make it so the Experimental Spellshaping thesis allows the wizard to poach spellshape feats from other classes in addition to its current effects. That would give them a very interesting leg up.
I would say, let you use the spellshape as a free action on curriculum spells or something like once every 10 minutes you can use a spellshape as a free action.
There are ways to activate your bloodline magic as a reaction eg Blood Rising and Blood Vendetta is a bloodline spell for some.I suspect that this feat is supposed to be a free action. Getting a Demoralize that uses Nature is terrible on a Sorcerer, so is the 5ft step that you could already do. If it was a free action to activate, it doesn't seem so bad.Tap into blood seems ok, but the “must have already cast a blood magic spell" means you are not learning anything actionable for your own character on the turn you recall knowledge. It also probably means needing to keep arcana as a maxed skill which is pretty costly for a sorcerer unless no one else in the party is keeping up with nature or religion.
They have thrown the imperial wizard a lot of treats, once I get the book I will look into making one, but I doubt it will come close to replacing a spell substitution wizard as my favorite class.
True, maybe making it a reaction would work too. It being an action though just makes some of the options pointless.
Make it so the Experimental Spellshaping thesis allows the wizard to poach spellshape feats from other classes in addition to its current effects. That would give them a very interesting leg up.As sad as it is to say, short of focus spell spellshapes, the wizard already gets most of the good ones (some through elementalism but still). The real problem is that spellshapes (and catalysts) are adding one more action to your 2 action spell for mediocre benefits, which is why you really only see Reach and Widen for the most part.
Forcible and Overwhelming Energy?
Make it so the Experimental Spellshaping thesis allows the wizard to poach spellshape feats from other classes in addition to its current effects. That would give them a very interesting leg up.As sad as it is to say, short of focus spell spellshapes, the wizard already gets most of the good ones (some through elementalism but still). The real problem is that spellshapes (and catalysts) are adding one more action to your 2 action spell for mediocre benefits, which is why you really only see Reach and Widen for the most part.
my wizard regularly uses conceal spell (probably the strongest spellshape), and nonlethal spell whenever I think my spell might finish an enemy off (so we can talk to them afterwards)
I don't really think the Experimental spellshape thesis needs anything but more options. Free action spellshapes changes a lot. It puts three action spells in the spellshape pool, which with things like conceal spell, are narratively game changing in ways that will have long term consequences, especially as new spells appear. I really don't think the invisible, silent summoner is supposed to be making a return in PF2.
What could happen, and would make it useful, is if a bunch of level 2 and 4 spellshape feats came into the game that were hyper-specific on what they do: Cast spells underwater, forest widen (like widen but a little bit more, but only works in forested, difficult terrain), Mountain Reach (doubles the distance of reach but only if the target is on or adjecent to stone), remove the manipulate trait from a spell, modify the shape of an area of effect by 1 square, move the target of the spell 10ft to the left, but only on tuesdays, etc.
Then, when there are 10 options that are useful in specific situations you can choose from every day, experimental spellshaping feels very prepared wizardy.
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More spellshapes, more free spellshape feats, and reflow elements for spellshapes (as in, being able to swap out two instead of one) would all go a long way.
I'm personally not against free action spellshape at once a day at high level, at least.
Experimental Spellshaping feels like a good wizard thesis for a wizard that wants to spend feats on archtyping and wont have enough left over for all the spell shapiing they would have wanted.
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There isn’t really enough worthwhile spellshapes to justify taking the Thesis. The Wizard isn’t exactly coming down with “must have” feats for most levels, so grabbing any Spellshape I’ve wanted has never been a big issue.
There would need to be a bunch of desirable feats, which competed with other desirable feats, all at relatively low levels, for the Thesis to be more valuable than the other options (bar familiar attunement)
Experimental Spellshaping feels like a good wizard thesis for a wizard that wants to spend feats on archtyping and wont have enough left over for all the spell shaping they would have wanted.
Well spellshaping thesis will give either reach or widen at level 1.
After that how many of these would a wizard want to get if they can prepare any of them on a daily bases along with their spell load out.level 1 feats
Reach Spell
Widen Spell
Level 2 feats
Conceal Spell
Nonlethal Spell
Energy Ablation
Level 6 feats
Explosive Arrival
Level 8 feats
Bond Conservation
Level 10 feats
Overwhelming Energy
Quickened Casting
level 12 feats
Forcible Energy
Level 14 feats
Secondary Detonation Array
Level 16 feats
Scintillating Spell
Well, on my guy, I've been using the Free feat to grab either Conceal Spell (there are several days we've needed to be sneaky, it's been great) or Energy Ablation (while he doesn't Blast a lot, he still Blasts on occasion.) I tried Widen Spell once or twice, it generally wasn't worth it with my play style.
I honestly forgot all about Nonlethal Spell. There've been a few missions we've been on where that would have been good to take.
Strongly considering grabbing Bond Conservation at L16 on those days he doesn't need to be sneaky. (He's 15th now.)
I took Reach Spell for him at 1st. That one has come in handy quite a few times.
It's more granular than that. Level 1 and 2 spells are more of an exception, but typically the damage dice are comparable and like heightened slow and heightened fear are spells I would consider as good as the levels they are heightened to for that heightened effectI'm still not seeing it.
For example, fear heightened is a great spell because of the multiple targets, but it's not really comparable in potency to a debuff like praralysis, blindness, or even agonizing despair which are all natively the level it needs to be heightened to to affect more targets. And if you go further heightened than that the comparison becomes even more obvious that heightening spells isn't given any special "needs to be roughly equal" consideration because it doesn't ever get better than 3rd rank and higher rank spells absolutely do keep getting better.
Similarly, heightened slow doesn't really stack up to something like petrify outside of the "but what if I need to debuff multiple targets?" question.
Both are basically in the same boat as comparing damage dice that do stack up pretty well to area/targeting that clearly doesn't, even though they go the other way around and have better targeting but a noticeably less potent effect upon those targets.
I rate incapacitation spells as inherently worse
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I feel like incapacitate was an overcorrect on debilitating spells.
Only because there is no way for teamwork to alleviate the limitation.
I wouldnt want it to be without a cost but something like
Magic aid another. Another player uses this version of an aid action allowing them to use a reaction to aid in the spellcasting of an ally.
When an ally casts a spell with the incapacitate trait the aiding character gives up a spell slot of at least -2 ranks of the allies spell. That spell treats its target as -2 levels when determining if incapacitate applies.
It wouldn't be allowed to lower the effective level by more than 2 so an +2 enemy can be affected with teamwork it would just take the turns and spell slots of two character to make it happen like it would on an on level foe.
It would never allow incapacitate spells to work on a +3 or higher boss.
And that would keep chapter ending bosses from getting trivialized but allow allot of use for incapacitate not just in harders fights but in less hard fights with less than the top slot being used as long as another character is willing to give up a weaker slot and some actions to help.
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I feel like incapacitate was an overcorrect on debilitating spells.
Only because there is no way for teamwork to alleviate the limitation.I wouldnt want it to be without a cost but something like
Magic aid another. Another player uses this version of an aid action allowing them to use a reaction to aid in the spellcasting of an ally.
When an ally casts a spell with the incapacitate trait the aiding character gives up a spell slot of at least -2 ranks of the allies spell. That spell treats its target as -2 levels when determining if incapacitate applies.It wouldn't be allowed to lower the effective level by more than 2 so an +2 enemy can be affected with teamwork it would just take the turns and spell slots of two character to make it happen like it would on an on level foe.
It would never allow incapacitate spells to work on a +3 or higher boss.
And that would keep chapter ending bosses from getting trivialized but allow allot of use for incapacitate not just in harders fights but in less hard fights with less than the top slot being used as long as another character is willing to give up a weaker slot and some actions to help.
The kind of effects given the incapacitation trait don't lead to fun or interesting gameplay and I appreciate how much the trait nerfs them
The kind of effects given the incapacitation trait don't lead to fun or interesting gameplay and I appreciate how much the trait nerfs themI feel like incapacitate was an overcorrect on debilitating spells.
Only because there is no way for teamwork to alleviate the limitation.I wouldnt want it to be without a cost but something like
Magic aid another. Another player uses this version of an aid action allowing them to use a reaction to aid in the spellcasting of an ally.
When an ally casts a spell with the incapacitate trait the aiding character gives up a spell slot of at least -2 ranks of the allies spell. That spell treats its target as -2 levels when determining if incapacitate applies.It wouldn't be allowed to lower the effective level by more than 2 so an +2 enemy can be affected with teamwork it would just take the turns and spell slots of two character to make it happen like it would on an on level foe.
It would never allow incapacitate spells to work on a +3 or higher boss.
And that would keep chapter ending bosses from getting trivialized but allow allot of use for incapacitate not just in harders fights but in less hard fights with less than the top slot being used as long as another character is willing to give up a weaker slot and some actions to help.
It also leads to the assessment of the spell being a worse choice than its non incapacitate peers and a non choice if fighting a level +1 or 2 creature. IMO it should remain an non choice for +3 or higher but +1 or +2 I think should be fair game with teamwork and an appropriate cost.
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A rank 2 incapacitation spell can be cast by a level 3 character against a level 4 target without incapacitation coming into play. So it works against level +1 creatures about half the time currently, already.
I rate incapacitation spells as inherently worseOkay... then it's pretty strange to also say;
The kind of effects given the incapacitation trait don't lead to fun or interesting gameplay and I appreciate how much the trait nerfs them.
The effects are good enough that you're happy to see them nerfed, and yet you're also holding the incapacitation trait against the spell. It's like having your cake and eating it too when it comes to trying to argue that heightened spells aren't obviously less potent than native spells of higher ranks.
Especially when delivered in such a "nah." <refuses to elaborate> fashion.
The kinds of effects in 1e that now have incapacitation needed to be nerfed, incapacitation does the job and nerfs them where it counts
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The kind of effects given the incapacitation trait don't lead to fun or interesting gameplay and I appreciate how much the trait nerfs them
What is fun or interesting is subjective; I for example, find solving encounters and defeating most boss encounters via smacking or blasting them until their hp drops to dead - unless i am doing so in an unconventional way (improvised weapons etc...) - to be the far more dull, boring and uninteresting type of gameplay to me. Yet, I have nothing against this style of play, nor do I think it should be nerfed into a non-option.
I also think that this kind of statement usually carries a double-standard connotation (I am not saying that is the case here), because usually the same people that complain about this, praise powerful critical or otherwise high damaging attack sequences that can either end or trivialize an encounter in one turn when they happen.
If wizards had a spellshape for heightening that couldnt be poached would they be considered the best casters in the game for that feature alone?
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The issue with save or die spells is that no one else is playing the same game. In a damage race, unless things have gotten horribly wrong, everyone has contributed something, and evenif you dont one shot you've still contributedto the next person's attempt. With save or die, one, maybe two people did a thing, and it's very binary if you fail (and wasted your turn) or succeed (and wasted everyone else's).At least with incap,now these spells functions best in tense combat with multiple enemies, where you can gamble on taking out large chunks but not the entire encounter.
That is a fairly one-sided way of looking at both playstyles and stating that one has a problem while the other doesn't. I could spin the argument and say that dealing damage doesn't contribute to debuffing or controlling effects, and it would be as true as your argument (if not more so, because a lot of debuffing, debilitating or SoS effects do help damage dealers deal damage, but dealing damage never helps them back); either way you see it, I don't think the solution is to nerf either style into near uselessness, instead interwine them in such a way that both feed and benefit from each other organically.
I am not suggesting we revert them back to their height of power they had in 1e, but there is a lot of middle ground between what they became in 2e and what they were there;
Plus, 2e being a system with such an elegantly designed degree of success resolution mechanic, that also puts a lot of emphasis on team work, it has a lot of design space available they could have explored to achieve a result that does not neuter them this much and isn't as cumbersome, inorganic and counterintuitive as I find incapacitation to be.
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If wizards had a spellshape for heightening that couldnt be poached would they be considered the best casters in the game for that feature alone?
This is the main way I would see this being implemented:
1) 1/day, 1A, heighten any prepared spell to your level/2 rounded up.
This is... strong, but the thing is, I think we're in diminishing returns on our top rank slots already. It does give the wizard additional versatility, but it's still worse in-day versatility than a sorc's signature spells. And it also doesn't do much about spells you want to cast a lot but would probably rather not prepare a lot if you could help it.
In current PF2E, I could see this being a L16-ish class feat. However, that's really too late to come online for it to affect my evaluation of the class very much.
Other ways I could see it being implemented:
2) 1A, heighten any spell +1 to a limit of your level/2 rounded up
I'm... not sure this is actually good action efficiency in many cases. Take a fireball. Is another 2d6 worth an action? I suppose it compares passably to casting a lower rank Force Barrage for one action, though it won't compare favorably to force bolt depending on your level. Losing a sustain, though? That's rough.
On the other hand, letting you get 6th rank slow out of a 5th rank slot -could- be worth the action, but at this point I feel like we're in uncertain and uncomfortable territory. How much worse is 6th rank slow when it costs 3 actions? It's still great, but... I feel a sort of lingering unease. This feels both too strong and too weak at the same time. 1.5x the action spend is bad; cheating your way into moving a bunch of slots up a rank sounds busted at first. Spells and the heightening system just aren't designed with this in mind. It doesn't feel like responsible design.
I guess I also fundamentally feel that heightening is supposed to make things more action efficient, so heightening them while making them less action efficient is... I don't know.
It's also way over the power budget of a class feat. It would further need to be a high level feat so other classes can't poach it, which means it wouldn't help wizard for most of the game.
I think this feels more like a thesis that needs more time in the oven; instead of trading two lower slots for a higher slot like spellblending, you trade a lower slot and an action for a higher slot. Actually, given that comparison...
3) 1A, heighten any spell +1 to a limit of your level/2 rounded up. Usable once at each rank of spells per day.
We're iterating on this as a thesis replacement now. Clunky, but I'm feeling better. Probably too strong since other theses force you to exchange your slots at the beginning of the day.
4) You gain an additional use of drain bonded item, usable only on spells at least two ranks lower than the highest rank you can cast. Once per day, when you use drain bonded item, you may spend 1A instead of a free action; if you do so, the spell is heightened to your level/2 rounded up.
Maybe we're cooking now? The need to already have spent the spell is a potent limiter on power, but it does start giving you a free heightened slow 1/day at level 11. That's not peanuts.
Still feels too much like an undercooked high level feat or something, though, and not much like a thesis, either.
5) 1A, heighten a spell by +1; only usable on spells slotted at a rank at least two lower than the highest rank you can cast.
I feel okay about this, oddly, even though it's worse than the most of the above. I think it's because it's more of a longevity booster for a lot of the game, and is no longer flirting with increasing your top slots. It does still have some uncomfortable effects with specific heighten breakpoints, but the restriction makes it feel more okay.
Still feels like an undercooked high level feat (Like, L18 territory), though, and not like a thesis.
6) 1A, heighten a spell by +1; only usable on spells slotted at a rank at least two lower than the highest rank you can cast. Once per day.
More comfortable as an early feat, but weaker. Probably the most usable iteration, but by far the least enticing.
HOWEVER, I think if you just flat gave Spellshape Thesis this ability once a day at level 7 or 8, and an additional use or two at level 15, it could work to bring spellshape thesis more in line with other theses. Maybe that's a good bit of homebrew to fix up Spellshape.
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The kind of effects given the incapacitation trait don't lead to fun or interesting gameplay and I appreciate how much the trait nerfs themWhat is fun or interesting is subjective; I for example, find solving encounters and defeating most boss encounters via smacking or blasting them until their hp drops to dead - unless i am doing so in an unconventional way (improvised weapons etc...) - to be the far more dull, boring and uninteresting type of gameplay to me. Yet, I have nothing against this style of play, nor do I think it should be nerfed into a non-option.
I also think that this kind of statement usually carries a double-standard connotation (I am not saying that is the case here), because usually the same people that complain about this, praise powerful critical or otherwise high damaging attack sequences that can either end or trivialize an encounter in one turn when they happen.
Effects that were given the incapacitation trait, which is a nerf to those effects, were single action one spell answers to a combat. You cast the spell and it is over. This is identical to instantly killing an enemy with overwhelming damage. For combat to be engaging a back and forth has to happen. Slow and similar effects are not incapacitation and contribute to fights in a non-damage dealing fashion and play to the playstyle you like and this is good. Paralysis which makes an enemy just lose on the spot is just as bad as too much damage if not worse
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Effects that were given the incapacitation trait, which is a nerf to those effects, were single action one spell answers to a combat. You cast the spell and it is over. This is identical to instantly killing an enemy with overwhelming damage. For combat to be engaging a back and forth has to happen. Slow and similar effects are not incapacitation and contribute to fights in a non-damage dealing fashion and play to the playstyle you like and this is good. Paralysis which makes an enemy just lose on the spot is just as bad as too much damage if not worseThe kind of effects given the incapacitation trait don't lead to fun or interesting gameplay and I appreciate how much the trait nerfs themWhat is fun or interesting is subjective; I for example, find solving encounters and defeating most boss encounters via smacking or blasting them until their hp drops to dead - unless i am doing so in an unconventional way (improvised weapons etc...) - to be the far more dull, boring and uninteresting type of gameplay to me. Yet, I have nothing against this style of play, nor do I think it should be nerfed into a non-option.
I also think that this kind of statement usually carries a double-standard connotation (I am not saying that is the case here), because usually the same people that complain about this, praise powerful critical or otherwise high damaging attack sequences that can either end or trivialize an encounter in one turn when they happen.
This is where I think they double solved that problem. look at paralyze.
Lets take this spell at the first level ists available and some +2 creatures at that level. being that an at level creature is going to be affected like normal. Its really only crit success that makes this ability harsh but even a creature with a low will save is likely to get a next turn save to get out of it.Critical Success The target is unaffected.
Success The target is stunned 1.
Failure The target is paralyzed for 1 round.
Critical Failure The target is paralyzed for 4 rounds. At the end of each of its turns, it can attempt a new Will save to reduce the remaining duration by 1 round, or end it entirely on a critical success.
Wizard level 5 slots a paralyze. Spell DC is 19 with a +4 int.
Creatures. Here are some with varying weaknesses to be fair to the example. +2 is the example i think that matters here because +1 can be affected at certain levels anyway.
+2 group
Ogre Boss Saves 17 12 15
success on 4 or up
Succubus Saves 15 14 17 +1 saves to magic
success on 1 or up
Young Linworm Saves 18 15 12
success on 7 or up
Any of these creatures are likely to shrug off that level 5 wizards paralyze even without incapacitate. Perhaps what incapacitate should really do is just cancel out the possibility of critical fail on the save.
OH! Thats it! The wizard spell shape should simply change the incapacitate rule to change critical failures to normal ones but not change any other results. That ability could be given early enough to a wizard to matter too.
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the main problem with incapacitate is that even though the enemy is likely to get a success anyway instead of at least getting the stunned 1 you get nothing as that success is changed to a crit success.
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Effects that were given the incapacitation trait, which is a nerf to those effects, were single action one spell answers to a combat. You cast the spell and it is over. This is identical to instantly killing an enemy with overwhelming damage. For combat to be engaging a back and forth has to happen. Slow and similar effects are not incapacitation and contribute to fights in a non-damage dealing fashion and play to the playstyle you like and this is good. Paralysis which makes an enemy just lose on the spot is just as bad as too much damage if not worse
A large part of the issue is that most statuses are tied to a pass/fail system with discrete, unchanging tiers based on spell DC. The game uses the same levers to deliver fight-ending effects and reflex saves against fireball.
A spell that produced a poison cloud that said that something like "creatures that start their turn inside the cloud or move into it must make a flat check with a DC equal to 1+your KAS modifier; on a failure, they are paralyzed for one round" would be immensely more tolerable than "on failing a fortitude save, the enemy is paralyzed for one round."
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I hear that post level 10 incapacitate spells actually get better because the Creature Meta changes. As PCs get more and more abilities to compress actions and leverage teamwork solo bosses the ones functionally immune to incapactiation become much easier to deal with. By contrast creatures with weird esoteric abilities that don't interact with the system math much or poweful support abilities become more common. While HP inflation makes damage AOEs less reliable at clearing them out quickly. As such large numbers of lower level creatures are much more dangerous than they are at earlier levels. So having an incapacitation spell that can just take one or several of those especially dangerous "mooks," off the board in one turn can be encounter changing. To the point of turning a potential TPK into a cakewalk. When comparing a party that has access to such a spell to one that doesn't.
I like incapacitation, I certainly like it a lot more than legendary resistance bc of the degrees of success. A boss is a boss, it's something to be interfaced with, not trivialized. I, the dm, am playing the game too and would really like the big bad I spent an hour or two making a final encounter for not get paralyzed like a chump for rolling a 1. There could be better solutions, but the spirit of the rule is something I back fully. The suggestion for changing incapacitation to just being higher lvl enemies not crit failing sounds good to me
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I like incapacitation, I certainly like it a lot more than legendary resistance bc of the degrees of success. A boss is a boss, it's something to be interfaced with, not trivialized. I, the dm, am playing the game too and would really like the big bad I spent an hour or two making a final encounter for not get paralyzed like a chump for rolling a 1. There could be better solutions, but the spirit of the rule is something I back fully
But they would get paralyzed for 1 round on a 1.
i mean I get the meaning your going for still.
I think its only the critical fail that needs to be off limits. But making fail extremely rare likely only on a 1 and crit success extremely common 7 or up being the best case scenario for paralyze in the example i shared makes incapacitate spells fare a lot worse in these comparisons.
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I like incapacitation, I certainly like it a lot more than legendary resistance bc of the degrees of success. A boss is a boss, it's something to be interfaced with, not trivialized. I, the dm, am playing the game too and would really like the big bad I spent an hour or two making a final encounter for not get paralyzed like a chump for rolling a 1. There could be better solutions, but the spirit of the rule is something I back fully. The suggestion for changing incapacitation to just being higher lvl enemies not crit failing sounds good to me
Legendary Resistances is a much worse 'solution' to this issue, one that causes more problems than it solves, but that doesn't mean incapacitation is good enough of solution either (or that it isn't clunky)
As for big bad boss encounters... I am mostly a forever GM, and have been so for nearly 16 years now; I don't understand why some GMs feel bad when their one-shot or otherwise solve their boss encounter in a single turn, I have fun and enjoy the game when my players get to do so, I lobe to let them shine in those moments and while I hide it from them and even feign a bit of pain to enhance their accomplishment, I internally celebrate with them. But even if you don't enjoy these momments like that, you are not forced to making all your big bad boss encounters single-creature encounters and even then you are not forced to make your single creature encounters devoid of any other obstacles, challenges, enviromental hazards, or other complications instead of spending two hour to stat-up a single big bad boss.
If your final encounter is just one big bad guy with a super powerful statblock, it is going to be a boring encounter regardless of whether it is paralyzed or one-shoted on turn 1, or whether it takes 10 turns of playing the hp-race game, at least for me (either as a gm or as a player)
I also fail to see how is that any different from one-turning the big bad guy via critical hits (other than the fact, that you are more likely to crit than the big bad boss is to roll a 1, and that the big bad can save each turn to end the paralysis but it can't save each turn to come back to life)
That is a fairly one-sided way of looking at both playstyles and stating that one has a problem while the other doesn't.
Well yeah, because it is.
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Incapacitation was one of the most genius solutions employed in PF2 and the best way of creating clear lines of growth that get the world and players off of the “the treadmill” mentality. Since the beginning of this edition people have been convinced they can do better, but all the homebrew solutions I have seen have had major holes in them and I’ve never heard of anyone’s alternative ideas or homebrew for it having much traction or success in the years the game has been out. Here is why:
1. Incap is for players too, often times more. The odds of 4 PCs hitting an enemy with 4 incap effects in one round are slim. The odds of 4 ghouls or other creature with them hitting the same OC with 4 or more in the same round are significantly higher. You don’t fight 4+ ghouls per PC until their old incap effects are not a problem anymore.
2. Incap effects aren’t about the difference between failure and crit failures, they’re about success and failure. Failing a save vs Slow, synesthesia, or fear isn’t really result in that much different of an effect than success, just a matter of degree or duration. Incap effects take you out of the picture for at least a round on a failure. That is where the shift really matters. A boss monster getting taken out of combat for a round is fine on a crit fail, but there shouldn’t be anywhere near a 30 to 50 percent chance of it happening, or else 3 or more caster PCs would just easily shut them down.
3. Incap spells are a mixed bag, but generally excellent in play. Without incap, spells like calm are ever green from a level 2 slot in ways that just trivialize too many encounters in a day.
Incapacitation was one of the most genius solutions employed in PF2 and the best way of creating clear lines of growth that get the world and players off of the “the treadmill” mentality. Since the beginning of this edition people have been convinced they can do better, but all the homebrew solutions I have seen have had major holes in them and I’ve never heard of anyone’s alternative ideas or homebrew for it having much traction or success in the years the game has been out. Here is why:
1. Incap is for players too, often times more. The odds of 4 PCs hitting an enemy with 4 incap effects in one round are slim. The odds of 4 ghouls or other creature with them hitting the same OC with 4 or more in the same round are significantly higher. You don’t fight 4+ ghouls per PC until their old incap effects are not a problem anymore.
2. Incap effects aren’t about the difference between failure and crit failures, they’re about success and failure. Failing a save vs Slow, synesthesia, or fear isn’t really result in that much different of an effect than success, just a matter of degree or duration. Incap effects take you out of the picture for at least a round on a failure. That is where the shift really matters. A boss monster getting taken out of combat for a round is fine on a crit fail, but there shouldn’t be anywhere near a 30 to 50 percent chance of it happening, or else 3 or more caster PCs would just easily shut them down.
3. Incap spells are a mixed bag, but generally excellent in play. Without incap, spells like calm are ever green from a level 2 slot in ways that just trivialize too many encounters in a day.
Maybe your right. but something about it still feels off to me.
In the example with the lindworm and the level 5 wizard. And this is playing the save game and going for worst save.With incapacitate
1 - fail
2-6 - success
7-16 - crit success
17-20 crit success
if there was no incapacitate at all
1 - crit fail
2-6 - fail
7-16 - success
17- 20 crit success
This is why i say it was a overcorrect. The lindwurm is shrugging off your spell entirely that is targeting the lowest save unless it rolls a 6.
Maybe its that crit success is on 7 and up that actually bothers me.
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On side note can somebody explain why Wizard still get less basic trained skills than other intelligence casters even after Remastered.I fail to see any reason behind that