Let's say a four person level 7 party is facing a gang of four level 6 Vampire Counts that have teamed up for some nefarious purpose.
The vampires all have Dominate (divine, incapacitation, mental, visual), a two action activity in which they innately cast the spell of the same name at will, but it gains the visual trait and anyone who succeeds is immune.
One would think this ability would pose little threat to the PCs, since Dominate is an incapacitation ability and the vampires are all lower level. But the spell being cast is rank 6, so a target's level would have to be 13 or higher to benefit from incapacitation. Additionally, a rank 4 clear mind would struggle to counteract the effect and could likely only suppress it for 1 round if at all.
Stronger vampires seem to have the opposite problem. It looks like even this level 19 vampire is still casting rank 6 dominate.
The Dominate vampire ability and spell each have the incapacitation trait, but the trait doesn't mean anything for the former because the spell is a subordinate action, not taking the traits of the comprising action except as stated.
Despite this, I think the ability's incapacitation trait should be interpreted/ruled to override the spell's trait, such that the vampire's level is used instead of the spell's rank.
But what about the counteracting issue? I think perhaps this isn't as important since the spell didn't exist until the remaster (could have sworn there was another legacy spell to remove controlled though) and not everyone even prepares the spell.
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Using incapacitation based on the creature level makes sense, as the ability is part of the creatures stat-block and the spell is a result of that ability.
Regarding counteract, the DC is printed in the stat-block as well, i would use that together with the creature level.
My PFS character rolled two natural ones in a scenario and crit-failed, the DM let me attack my team mates without a new save each time (and i read the rules only afterwards). We still made it out alive though.
Using incapacitation based on the creature level makes sense, as the ability is part of the creatures stat-block and the spell is a result of that ability.
Regarding counteract, the DC is printed in the stat-block as well, i would use that together with the creature level.My PFS character rolled two natural ones in a scenario and crit-failed, the DM let me attack my team mates without a new save each time (and i read the rules only afterwards). We still made it out alive though.
The crit fail is a bit ambiguous. It's unclear if the "new order" is referring to each individual action you are forced to take or a general course of action you are forced to take. I'm in favor of the former since being dominated at all is already nasty, but I would still allow at most one save per turn. The crit fail adds another condition without changing when the repeat save happens.