I’m sure I’m missing something obvious, bur I’ve spent a lot of time fiddling around and don’t get any further. I’ve created a paragraph style to use for expression texts (as there seems to be no special expression text function). It stands too far above the stave, making for ackward spacing in the layout. (Here the word norm.) 
A few times I could manually lower it, and when I go into the paragraph stlye font and adjust “Bassline shift”, it just goes farther up and away from the stave, whether I use a plus or minus value. What am I missing here?
Maybe use a Playing Technique instead?
Jesper
A quick test here indicates that in a new project with default Engraving Options, the functionality works as expected: text responds to settings at Engraving Options > Text, and also to the baseline settings within the text editing toolbar.
What are those things set to? Has the text been moved manually in Engrave mode? Is there a redundant line break at the start of the text object (e.g. did you hit Enter too many times before you started typing)?
It might be easiest if you can upload a project that demonstrates the problem.
Thanks pianoleo, it looks like I can adjust things the right way with the setting you suggested in Engraving Options. (Edit) Or at least I thought so. But whether I set “Default distance from staff” to 1/4 or 1/8, it looks the same.
I think the easiest would be if you could just overwrite a playing technique. With that the spacing is always good.
Text objects avoid collisions by default (assuming you’ve not adjusted that Engraving Option) so either the object’s been moved manually or there’s a redundant line break or there’s something weird going on with the baseline setting. It could also be that the font metrics could be weird.
Again, the functionality seems to work fine in a new project, so for more specific answers you’d need to upload the project (or a cutdown version of it).
As to Playing Techniques, you can customise them (and make new ones) to your heart’s content.
Aha, that I didn’t know. Just created a few expression markings there, and bingo…thanks, pianoleo!