Circle of Death

So here's my gripe. Circle of Death is a 6th circle spell that slays 1d4 Hit Dice / caster level of creatures in the AoE if they fail the fortitude save. That part is wonderful. Affects only creatures with 9 Hit Dice or less. That part kills the spell. I do think the spell needs the Hit Dice cap upped or removed. Perhaps something along the lines of the following.

1d3 (1d2 if that's too high) Hit Dice worth of creatures within the area of effect must make a fortitude save or die. This spell affects creatues with the lowest hit dice first.

At most you could kill 180/120 Hit Dice worth of creature at this point, all of which must make the Fortitude save. I'd venture to guess that a good portion of the enemies you are fighting by this point (levle 40) have 25+ Hit Dice, making you hit ~7/~5 or so enemies. (Staff of Empowerment / Fulfilment with the other metamagic feat) Base spell alone, you are hitting an average of ~75/~60 Hit Dice of enemies, fairly reasonable at caster level 40.

Compared to Finger of Death, Finger of Death is a single target spell and is a level higher than Circle of Death, but it also does damage on a successful save and/or if the target is immune to Death Magic. Circle of death does nothing to targets that make the save, but yet still wastes that enemy's portion of the total Hit Dice of creatures that are forced to make a save.

Compared to Wail of the Banshee, which hits an infinite amount of targets in a much larger radius with a DC 3 higher than Circle of Death, I find that Circle of Death having such a limited number of targets, a drastically smaller effect range and a lower DC makes it balanced as well.

Well, Wail has a maximum # of targets... 1 creature per level within a colossal area. So maximum of 40, but still...

I agree the HD limit on circle of death makes it not worth a 6th level spell slot. If it was 4th level, maybe.... but even then probably not.

9 HD creatures arent that tough to take out by other means, and those other means either do not allow a save, or will still net a benefit even if the targets make their saves.

Removing the HD cap completely might be going farther than necessary. I could see the cap being raised to 20 HD. That would make it worthwhile.

Mainly I just wouldnt be so thrilled about a 6th level spell being an AOE save or die even for 40 HD creatures. If it were single target I wouldn't see any issue with cap removal. Its the AOE part combined with the rest that I think makes a small issue.

I would be happy in either case, however, as long as the HD cap were vastly improved.