Can we use hold monster as a paralysis model wrt. poison?
Can we use deep slumber as a catatonia model wrt. poison?
It looks like the kernel of
hold monster is 6SP effect that paralyzes a creature for one round (will save negates). That's assuming that
mass hold monster is really a 9th level spell (54SP). If it's not, then lower the kernel a bit. The kernel analysis would be
Hold monster: 6 +10 repeated next round +8 repeated indefinitely + 8 medium range + 2 dispellable = 34. A strong 5th level spell.
Mass hold monster: Hold monster +8 heighten +6 burst +6 selective = 34 + 20 = 54
Incidentally, a close range spell that holds a monster for a single round should be 1st level (counting "reverse heighten" as -2). It would have an SP of exactly 6.
Two issues are raised: The first is how do we extend the base duration of the kernel to something longer than one round? There didn't use to be a save every round; that's something that was changed from 3.0 to 3.5. The kernel analysis for the 3.0 spell would be that the kernel was 24SP, but that it had a base duration of 1 round/level. In 3.5 the kernel used is much cheaper, but very much weaker. In seed design you could extend the base effect by +2/round to get a longer duration without allowing saves. The +18 spent on the "repeated indefinitely" factors could be converted, via multiple Extends, to a neat 1 minute duration. Or you could use an exponential factor; deciding whether to do so is a tricky one.
The second issue is regarding narrowly focussed spells.
Hold monster is 5th, but
hold person is only 3rd. Counting -4 for "reverse heighten" that means the focus is worth a 8SP mitigation.
Hold animal is probably a 3rd level spell as well, but is further reduced due to special expertise. Or it could be that the utility of an animal affecting spell is less than for a broad group like humanoids or undead, and so the mitigation is correspondingly greater. The level difference due to focus occurs elsewhere, too: e.g. the difference between the 4th level
charm monster spell and the 2nd level
command undead. Can this mitigation factor be generalized? Can you research a spell that compels only outsiders and include a -8 mitigation factor?
Sleep is an interesting spell. With medium range (+8), a 10-ft. radius burst (+5) and a 1 min/level duration (+2) it has +15 in factors without counting the sleep kernel. I don't like negative kernels, but they turn up all the time in low level spells.
Deep slumber is, I find, a weak 3rd level spell (at most 18SP). Implicit heightening is worth +4SP over
sleep, and maybe +6SP for the 6 additional HD. (+2HD = +1CR and +1CR = +2SP would yield this result).
So the sleep kernel is negative; -12SP + 2SP/CR would mean that
sleep is really SP 7 and
deep slumber is SP 17. Maybe a little higher; if
deep slumber actually is a worthwhile 3rd level spell, then there should be a -11 or -10 rather than a -12. If I understood the workings of the
symbol spells I could probably get a better answer.
My suspicion is not that the sleep kernel is actually negative, but that the HD limitation provides a strong mitigation. This kind of HD limitation reminds me of the
blasphemy suite which, unfortunately, I don't understand either. Probably
sleep is a removable paralysis condition (by shaking, etc.), not that this helps much.
Clearly it should be difficult to impose the helpless condition on an opponent.
Hold monster does this by using a very abbreviated seed;
sleep does it with a very strict HD limit. I don't at this point know how to price a loosening of these restrictions.
I wish I knew how to translate the poison table into SP terms. I.e. how to have a spell that sprays nitharit poison over a group of creatures. A direction for further research, perhaps. Does the gp value assigned to poisons accurately reflect the utility of the poisons?
