Entangle?

Has anyone attempted (or would anyone like to attempt) to build the entangle spell using the spell creation rules in the Player's Companion? Restraining a target/hampering movement in that way isn't covered by any of the effects as far I can see and I'm trying to figure out a good baseline cost for such an ability so that I can recreate the entangle spell for ACKS.

Entangle feels to me like a weaker version of a paralysis or hold effect.

Target held for duration of spell is 36 points, but that obviously being significantly better than an entangle, I think I’d eyeball ‘target immobilized for duration of spell’ at 15 points. I’d then be inclined to build it as a wall spell, since it fills in the zone like that;

Causes entangle on creatures that pass - 15
Affected as wood by physical/magical effects - x.4
500 square feet - x.75
Wall must always be in contact with ground - x.75
Range 120’ - x1
Duration 1 turn - x.75
Save negates - x.5
May be evoked where creatures already are - x2
Divine - x1.5 (I’m assuming divine since entangle was a druid spell)

Total 3.79. If entangle costs 20 points instead of 15, that brings the cost up to 5.06. A full hold would cost 9.1. So in my opinion, the summoning of magical vines that restrict movement but not actions, which you can chop your way out of in one round, with a 500 square foot area and a 1 turn duration, definitely qualifies as a first level spell.

Work it. That looks great. Thanks!

Oh. That's a much better way to do it - I didn't think about using Wall. (that's a sneaky spell category)

I'd gone with Transmogrification - did the 3Ksqft of unintelligent plants (.3), then used "grows to giant size (25)" to emulate the tangling effect - essentially a lower-level (via duration/range) Growth of Plants - but that doesn't mechanically (only descriptively) impose an entangle effect, so my version is inferior.

 

Wall is my go-to anytime I want to generate a persistent nondamaging effect in an immobile (or very limited-mobility) area.

Since ‘disintegrated on entering’ (or mortal wound or killed) costs the same as the individual effects (disintegrate/death/etc) in the Death category, I tend to assume that nondamaging Wall effects cost, at least, a similar amount to what they would cost in their appropriate category. (In this case, I assumed that a Wall Hold would cost similarly to what Enchantment Hold does.)

(Since damage costs 10 points per d6 in Wall, this tells me that damaging Wall effects are priced differently from their effects in any other school; if I want a persistent damaging effect, I’d probably calculate it twice, once as a Blast spell and once as a Wall spell, and compare the prices and eyeball what’s going on there.)

Ah, good point.

Eyeballing Blast and Wall, it looks like Blast may be a bit cheaper (for a volume and die of damage - capping Blast at non-scaling XdX levels reduces the cost quite a bit) - but Wall assumes area of effect and a longer duration, so that makes some sense. Wall's durations are generally better than Blast as well.

There may be some interesting cases where a horizontal Wall doing damage over time is a more compelling choice than a volumetric Blast that's wasting space exploding where creatures ain't, given most targets have legs.

Plus, if you rebuild all Blast spells as Wall spells, you can create Drusus Achamanian’s Gnostic geometries.

That series was a huge inspiration for ACKS.

There was a point when I was first reading the Player’s Companion, got the mystic, and said “…this is Kellhus”.

So I flipped back to the “Appendix N” of ACKS Core and saw Prince of Nothing listed there, and then said “ok, this checks out”.