I've been suspecting this for a long time, but I finally got it pinned down: <effect type="paralyze" turns="X"> always paralyzes it's target for 1 turn less than "X", and X=1 has no effect. Thus, the edges of Thor's Fulminaric Bolt don't ever paralyze targets; Spirit Conduit only paralyzes for one turn; Robo Bolts never paralyze the player (holy shit, they're supposed to paralyze the player?!?), and so on.
Actually, it's just subtracting from the counter at the beginning of the monsters' (or player's, if you are the paralysed one) turns, and thus with it being equal to 1 it immediately gets changed to 0 (which nulls its effect). Not really a bug, at most an oversight.
