Definitely designed to be easy. There are multiple extra plots that make killing children easier, and it's very obvious from how they're placed. The idea is that the children are exposed to more servants that are more easily bribeable and able to kill them easily. While the opinion modifiers are a possible concern, and we'll think about it more, we have no plans to change it at the moment. As for the spymaster, we have arrived at the same conclusion, and are looking to mass throttle landless courtier schemes.
Okay, just crawled through the vanilla murder plot events to check that. Learned a lot about murder plot mechanics that I didn't know before, and also I'm almost certain that's not the case.
To start a murder event chain from a plot backer, there are 6 events for only adults (7 if including only adult+ruler event), 3 for only children (age 5-16), 1 for infants only (age 0-5), and 1 each for prisoner or incapable only (age 5+ on both).
Every event has the exact same modifiers for MTTH (one exception: Boating Accident for children lacks MTTH reduction for plot power 100% or greater, making it
much less likely to fire. I think that's an unintended omission, see note).
Every event has the same triggers for plot power/stats required (with variation on which stat allows for <100% plot power murders).
MTTH varies by category (all adult plots at 8400 months except Poisoned Wine at 4200, child plots at 3600 months, and infant/prisoner/incapable plots at 1200).
Assuming I'm doing my math right (and that I understand MTTH appropriately; each unique event should each have a chance to fire every tick, meaning the higher MTTH of Adult plots is offset, in a way, by their greater number, right?), in a "control plot" identical across all cases, the chance in total for a murder plot event chain to fire for any plot backer(/plot head if applicable) should be identical for each category: Adult*, Children**, Infants, Prisoners, and Incapable.
With the actual murder events themselves, the trait specific chance reduction to avoid death is again identical in format and value for each event (one exception, again: Falling Accident for Children is missing the "random = 50 + trait" clause that every other event has).
I just don't see how "easy to kill children" is intended, here. It's driven only by low court opinion (lack of traits/stats means almost blanket negative opinion, AI disregards parent opinion) and low intrigue (lack of traits/education, again, although this is likely intended). The events themselves seem to be purpose built to deal with each group equally.
* - This does not include the one Adult event for rulers only; including that an Adult murder event chain is actually significantly more likely to fire in any given month
** - This ignores the Boating Accident omission of MTTH reductions; including that a Child murder event chain is actually significantly less likely to fire in any given month
As for spymasters, I think I've found the issue in specific, event 20290 in job_spymaster. If Scheme job_action catches a plotter, they get a chance to assassinate the spymaster from the event chain (flat 50/50 chance, always public knowledge on success) with the AI very likely to try it if they dislike the spymaster (which explains why it was always wrong religion/culture characters killing my spymasters off, and me knowing it was them). I do not know why this does not flag the killer for imprisonment, though. Guess I should stop using that mission as an "idle" for spymasters in my capitol.
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