What level should Enlarge Warforged be?

Question

As a follow up to How can I make a Warforged large, I try to find out the right level for a researched Enlarge Warforged spell.

My estimate is level 1 or 2

Based on the table below, animals and humanoids seem to be the easiest targets.
However, I think [Verb] Monster spells have higher level not because aberrations or dragons are harder to influence, but because these spells affect a wider type range.

If they are valid for only one type, the level should hardly incrase.
The best example is Halt Undead, which is extremely similar to Hold Person, but stops a monster type that is normally immune to such spells, and 3 times as many for 1 level incrase.

\begin{array}{|l|l|l|l|l|} \hline \textbf{Spell} & \textbf{Person} & \textbf{Monster} & \textbf{Animal} & \textbf{Undead} \\ \hline \textit{Dominate} & 5 & 9 & 3 & \\ \hline \textit{Charm} & 1 & 4 & 1 & \\ \hline \textit{Hold} & 2 & 5 & 2 & 3 \\ \hline \textit{Beckon} & 1 & 4 & & \\ \hline \textit{Daze} & 0 & 2 & & \\ \hline \end{array}

As Warforged are a smaller group than Humanoids, the level should be the same or probably one higher, as the difference between the original and the new target group is quite big.

Is there a mistake in this reasoning?

Answer 1

An enlarge warforged spell is vastly more specific than enlarge person, and while warforged is a relatively high-power race, it’s not the most powerful—that crown would probably go to human or some variant thereof, which thus would be a humanoid. In fact, being a construct type creature is usually considered one of warforged’s advantages, even if in a few cases it is inconvenient.

Having to prepare, or learn, enlarge warforged separately from enlarge person is still very inconvenient. There is nothing about warforged that makes enlarging them more powerful than enlarging a humanoid.

As for the other spells you are discussing, beckon, charm, daze, dominate and hold are all offensive spells: they allow you to target more powerful targets (in theory, anyway). But for friendly spells, that concern isn’t nearly so strong, and in any event, as established, warforged aren’t more powerful.

All in all, there is absolutely zero justification for enlarge warforged being higher level than enlarge person. So my answer is 1st.

Bear in mind, though, that enlarge person is not a good spell. The 1-round casting time is extremely debilitating. Preparing or learning either enlarge person or enlarge warforged is therefore fairly dubious.

An enlarge warforged infusion, on the other hand, would be pretty usable—artificers are already used to dealing with long casting times, and have some means of dealing with them, and in any event wouldn’t have to learn the infusion separately (since artificers know every infusion on their list). This is still probably fine, however, since it makes sense for artificers to be good at this kind of thing. Ultimately, the artificer is so powerful that they almost-certainly have better uses of their actions and infusions per day than this anyway...

Finally, with thanks to gatherer818 for pointing it out, targeting “one living construct” is the better way to write this spell.