Bite of the king good or bad?

[player4flavor]

Level: Hunger 8,
Components: V,
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Living creature whose size does not exceed caster's
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

On your successful melee touch attack, a target that fails its saving throw is subject to being swallowed whole.
To the observer, it appears as if your maw suddenly opens many times its normal size, after which the victim is engulfed.
Your maw immediately returns to its natural size.
Of the victim, there is no visible sign—the swallowed subject exists in a temporary "stomach" dimension.
The swallowed victim takes 2d8+12 points of bludgeoning damage plus 12 points of acid damage per round while in the stomach dimension.
A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 35 points of damage to the stomach dimension (AC 21).
A creature that successfully exits appears to cut its way free from thin air, appearing in a space adjacent to the caster.
Each time you cast this spell, you create a separate temporary stomach dimension.


So when I first read Bite of the king I assumed it was similar to maze, and it appears it is, however, it is slightly better at controlling the mage players as int doesn't help u escape. from what It reads to me the only way to escape is with a slashing or piercing weapon, and thus spells do not work to damage the stomach dimension. it also says that it can be cut out by a light slashing weapon, meaning that if I could get "barbarian X" to be swallowed, and he has no light weapon he would essentially not be able to escape correct?

at any I am planning to play a character who is going to poison people to lower their stats in order to swallow devour them. so far I am planning to use the scorpion claws from sandstorm to increase my grapple, and hopefully using a animated scorpion tail whip as well as poison on the claws to lower stats. I plan on playing a vermin lord to also get the mandibles which also let me drain stats.

[eggs]

Bite of the King is much worse than Maze, due to its range and saving throw. But much cooler.

If a character doesn't have a light slashing or piercing weapon, that character is going to have to count down the duration.

But be aware that at the level this comes into play, poison immunity is commonplace and Fort saves are high. You might want to toss some no-save debuffing auras or negative level effects into the mix, just to play it safe.

[ericgrau]

It would be hard to make a direct comparison to maze because like you said you want to use other things against high intelligence foes. But there are other spells like baleful polymorph or slay living that are lower level and fort negates. What's worse is that while the drawback of those spells is that certain foes are immune, bite of the king likewise has the drawback that both nonliving foes and large foes are immune.