"Harm" is a sweet offensive spell, but personally I kind of like the feel of rolling a pile of dice and I think elemental damage would better fit a character I am currently playing. Here are two variants that I think would be roughly equivalent to "Harm":
(A) [(2d8 fire +1 holy)/level] and the target catches on fire (6 dmg/round until extinguished). If they save, half damage and don't catch on fire.
(B) [(2d8 cold +1 holy)/level] per level and the target is entangled for 6 rounds. If they save, half damage and aren't entangled.
As part of this, I was hoping to get opinions on the relative power and usefulness of elemental and negative energy. I am of the opinion that negative energy is slightly more useful & powerful:
Negative energy
Pros:
-All living creatures take full damage from it.
-Very few spells or abilities protect against it.
-Can be used to heal undead (if you swing that way).
Cons:
-Cannot damage objects or constructs
-Nothing is particularly weak to it
-Not useful as an attack for undead.
(Most players and characters know to use different tactics and spells against undead and can often prepare ahead.)
Elemental
Pros:
-Most creatures & objects take damage from it.
-Some creatures are weak against specific elements
Cons:
-Many creatures of many types of creatures are immune or resistant to any given element.
-Numerous spells (in most spell lists) offer protection from elemental damage.
(Just about any combat could involve creatures resistant to any given element. This makes it much harder to prepare ahead.)
What do you think?
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Why not just flavor it more like Flame Strike.
Alternatively, 3.5 Had two metamagic Feats that should cross over without any trouble
Energy Substitution: +0 Spell Level, change energy spells to a type of energy (needed the Feat for each energy type). So a Cold "Fireball" or a Sonic "Lightningbolt".
The other was Energy Adminixture: which either added a second type of energy damage (similar to Flame strike) or doubled it, sort of. I can't remember.
Pathfinder already has a feat "Elemental Spell" that does this, but for some reason it uses a spell slot 1 level higher.