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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8395403" data-attributes="member: 907">But I'm still worse at on-level challenges than I was at 1st level, except in those two areas I specialize in. I'm being funneled into being good at a small number of things. At 1st level, I was broadly competent, and at 8th level I'm less so.And I like my characters to be competent. 60% is a pretty good baseline for something that's moderately challenging, that I know some stuff about but isn't my specialty. In my specialty, I should be above 80% at mid levels.I think the best solution is the one that's used in some spells in 3e and 5e, but only used in a wider context in 13th age: hit point limits. Hit points are supposed to be your plot armor anyway, so it makes sense that incapacitating spells only work on enemies that are either weak to begin with or that you've beaten up first. It also lets you be more granular – for example, both confusion and hold monster are 3rd level daily wizard spells, but confusion affects a target with up to 100 hp and hold monster up to 60 hp. Since hold monster is a stronger effect, the targets it can affect are more limited. 13th age also has the escalation die mechanic, where PCs add a stacking +1 bonus to their attacks (and since it uses the 4e method where spells use attack rolls vs various defenses instead of having the defender roll a save, that's effectively the same as +1 to save DCs as well) for each round after the first. This gives you an incentive to hold back your more powerful abilities until later, when they are more likely to hit.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 8395403, member: 907"] But I'm still [B]worse at on-level challenges than I was at 1st level[/B], except in those two areas I specialize in. I'm being funneled into being good at a small number of things. At 1st level, I was broadly competent, and at 8th level I'm less so. And I like my characters to be competent. 60% is a pretty good baseline for something that's moderately challenging, that I know some stuff about but isn't my specialty. In my specialty, I should be above 80% at mid levels. I think the best solution is the one that's used in some spells in 3e and 5e, but only used in a wider context in 13th age: hit point limits. Hit points are supposed to be your plot armor anyway, so it makes sense that incapacitating spells only work on enemies that are either weak to begin with or that you've beaten up first. It also lets you be more granular – for example, both [I]confusion[/I] and [I]hold monster[/I] are 3rd level daily wizard spells, but [I]confusion[/I] affects a target with up to 100 hp and [I]hold monster[/I] up to 60 hp. Since [I]hold monster[/I] is a stronger effect, the targets it can affect are more limited. 13th age also has the escalation die mechanic, where PCs add a stacking +1 bonus to their attacks (and since it uses the 4e method where spells use attack rolls vs various defenses instead of having the defender roll a save, that's effectively the same as +1 to save DCs as well) for each round after the first. This gives you an incentive to hold back your more powerful abilities until later, when they are more likely to hit. [/QUOTE]

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