So this is based on something that recently happened to me as a player, but I also want to note that I have DMed to tier 3 for players.
The context is that my party is level 9, group of 7 (with a couple flaky people so tends to be around 5-6) that was exploring a formerly flying city that fell into an ocean that has had a giant magic bubble manage to hold the water away. The campaign has shifted into a heavily religious focus, in that there is a large pantheon of gods that are about to have a big old holy war.
So with that out of the way, the scenario was that we were walking along a road and we encounter some random tiefling sitting over a very dead dwarf. The tiefling begs us to revive his friend. Kenku bard who is all good aligned begs me to go over to heal him (at this point I note we ought to have made insight rolls, but nobody remembered). After getting guilt tripped by said bard, I go over and make to heal him (Admittedly I was gonna be all dickish, and only make a sleight of hand to pretend to make him move for a moment and fail, its not a very good aligned party). The tiefling then, I kid you not, Subtle Spell Power Word Kill on me, having identified me as the dude that can revive people.
I'm not here to argue about whether or not this was a good decision on the dm's part, that's not constructive as a whole. The point of this post is for me to complain about one of the worst things designed in the phb, up there with the wild magic sorcerer and the lucky feat.
There are quite a few issues with the spell, that I think are worthy of breakdown. The first is that in the design space, it is meant as a instant kill button using up a notable resource, but this suffers from being very overshadowed by other options. Anything with hit point low enough to actually die to the spell is likely to just die anyway within a few turns, and that it is using a 9th level slot, which is literally the most costly resource any caster that can use the spell can pay. These factors make the spell functionally useless for any player who might be tempted into this pitfall of a spell.
It gets worse on the dm side however, mostly because it is again either useless, or it just feels like a cheat. In any campaign, a party will almost always have a positive kill/death ratio, it will mean a lot more to players when a friendly character dies, than the twenty seventh goblin. Power word kill has nearly no counter in 5e, save someone always using a death ward on everyone in the group. If the party lacks someone with the spell, your out of luck, all you can do is pray you never go below 100 health against any caster who might use it. The spell either never works, or delivers a very unsatisfying experience of "Suddenly, you drop down face first into the floor, dead". This feels close to the classic meme of "Rocks fall everyone dies".
The spell is a hold over from previous editions, which doesn't make it a bad thing, but the problem is the roll it played then as well. In 3.5/pathfinder, and other editions, magic items played a more varied and core role in the experience. A big standout in the magic item list, is death immunity. The issue comes from that there is no such items in 5e, meaning that save a death ward preemptively cast, your screwed.
This rant might just be me being annoyed at this happening, but I hope it turns into something positive as a discussion on what we rarely see mostly because players rarely will ever see a ninth level spell cast.
Power Word Kill doesn’t work if you have 101 hit points or more. I’m not sure how the tiefling sorcerer knew for certain that you would be affected. The DM knew, so it seems to be a bit of metagaming on their part.
My take on Power Word Kill is that it’s a 9th level spell that only works on one opponent with 100 HP or less. When you prepare it you’re gambling that you’ll get an opportunity to use it at all and when you cast it you’re either depending on someone else using a class ability to tell you that your opponent is “weak” enough to be affected by it or you’re hoping that you didn’t just waste your 9th level spell for the day when you cast it. It’s very low on my list of spellls that I like s so easy to cast it without it doing anything and I prefer spells that are guaranteed to have at least some effect, even if it’s a small one.
Been there. Luckily my DM used it just once on us as a way to show that insta-kills are a possibility, and that we need to keep that in mind. In one of the games I run, a shadow dragon took out 2 PCs with it's insta-death breath weapon (if it takes hp to zero). They were a little miffed at first, but came to almost like the fact that there is stuff like that out there. Adds a sense of danger of the unknown.
But with that said, hopefully it's just a thing that gets pulled out once, maybe twice over the course of the adventure. To your point, a constant threat of PW kill can be a resource burner with buffing against it. Especially if it's just the healer getting hit exactly when the hp threshold is hit.
So... the Teifling was a level 17 NPC bad guy? Deadly encounter, then? That bites.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
There are quite a few issues with the spell, that I think are worthy of breakdown. The first is that in the design space, it is meant as a instant kill button using up a notable resource, but this suffers from being very overshadowed by other options. Anything with hit point low enough to actually die to the spell is likely to just die anyway within a few turns, and that it is using a 9th level slot, which is literally the most costly resource any caster that can use the spell can pay. These factors make the spell functionally useless for any player who might be tempted into this pitfall of a spell.
I'd argue that you explicitly witnesses the intended and advantageous use of this spell: No fight, no roll, no nothing, the opponent just dies. You're right that it is not that useful and overshadowed in many other cases. But the PCs can have an audience with the king, assassinate him in 5 seconds and be gone. No time to interfere for anybody. It can make for great storytelling and is a, albeit very specific, tool for the players.
It gets worse on the dm side however, mostly because it is again either useless, or it just feels like a cheat. In any campaign, a party will almost always have a positive kill/death ratio, it will mean a lot more to players when a friendly character dies, than the twenty seventh goblin. Power word kill has nearly no counter in 5e, save someone always using a death ward on everyone in the group. If the party lacks someone with the spell, your out of luck, all you can do is pray you never go below 100 health against any caster who might use it. The spell either never works, or delivers a very unsatisfying experience of "Suddenly, you drop down face first into the floor, dead". This feels close to the classic meme of "Rocks fall everyone dies".
This is absolutely correct. A DM should only use this spell if he gave the players a fair chance of anticipating it. Everything else feels like DM fiat and makes the play experience less enjoyable. Killing a PC without any warning will make your players leave your group very quickly. I know that I would be very annoyed.
So long story short: I think this spell is completely alright, but your DM isn't. You should talk to him and tell him that this event was not enjoyable for you.
The only creature in the monster manual that comes equipped with power word kill is a Lich at CR21 though your DM could create any 17th+ level sorcerer that could potentially have it. The Archmage NPC is CR12 and comes with Time Stop though that could be swapped for power word kill and also swapped to sorcerer if desired.
However, personally, I would just consider this one bad DMing. The role of the DM, in my opinion, is to create a setting and set of interactions that feels real, feels challenging and is fun for the characters. This usually requires both risk and reward. Even if the party used insight and was a bit suspicious of the Tiefling, they would not expect them to subtly cast power word kill and eliminate a character.
Let's look at this from the Tiefling's perspective ... there is a party of 7 adventurers coming. Does he just want to kill them? Has he been caught having just killed the dwarf? If so ... how did the dwarf die? Are there any markings on him? The dwarf could not have been killed by power word kill since the caster has only one 9th level spell slot (unless he is overly powerful by DM fiat). In either case if the goal is to eliminate the party then engaging at range from cover would make much more sense for a low hit point sorcerer.
So, let's assume the Tiefling was caught ... why does he want to kill the party rather than just escape? He can probably convince the party he just found the dwarf's body. If the dwarf is actually dead .. it is going to take raise dead or better to bring him back ... healing spells won't cut it. The Tiefling doesn't know the composition of the party or their abilities. Is the party a high enough level to bring back the dwarf? Clerics and bards can have the spell at 9th level. Are any of the adventurers even high enough to cast it? The Tiefling can't tell by looking. So the bard gets someone else in the party to cast a heal - the bard almost certainly has healing word and likely other healing spells. The bard could be just as much of a threat in terms of healing the dwarf. A druid could even reincarnate him. The party could have raise dead scrolls.
Why does the Tiefling choose to kill the creature that comes over to examine the dwarf? Just to reduce the opposition by one? How does the Tiefling know the spell even has a chance of working ... the target has to have less than 100 hit points and hit points are not something you can determine just by chatting to a character for a minute. You might not even be able to figure out class never mind what level they might be.
So, basically, the Tiefling causes the character who comes to look at the dwarf to keel over dead. He becomes the instant center of attention with combat being a likely outcome. Unless the Tiefling was certain he could deal with the rest of the adventurers (and since the OP never mentioned a TPK ... I assume he wasn't), this had to be a high risk and stupid move on the part of the Tiefling (though maybe he has 8 int :) ). On the other hand, if the PWK had failed, no one would have been the wiser that it had been cast. However, the Tiefling ends up blowing a 9th level spell slot that could have been spent on Wish or any number of other very good 9th level spells that would be much more useful.
The DM set up an encounter where an NPC sacrifices themselves to kill a player character for no obvious reason that would appear to make sense (at least based on the information from the OP). The player whose character died is likely not very happy with the arbitrary nature of the situation. The rest of the party aren't happy with losing a team mate. Depending on the world the players can just take the body to a large temple and get the character raised.
On the other hand, perhaps the DM plans that the character is going to hear the voice of one of the gods in the afterlife with an offer of return to life in exchange for service in the coming war ... though since it sounds like the PC is already a cleric I am not sure this would work anyway.
To expand on the situation based on what my DM told me after the fact. This is apparently a guy we had somehow managed to piss off from previous quests.
The dead dwarf bit and other things was actually just a setup to draw in a healer to PWK, he ended up teleporting out and left a boneclaw for the encounter.
I still maintain it was a shitty plan and any caster worth their salt, especially a sorcerer, wouldn't take power word kill if only from it's inefficiency. On top of the idea of just doing a greater invis and spamming various ranged spells to wear us down.
Fact this high powered sorcerer apparently couldn't be bothered to do some divination spying on a party that apparently pissed him off confuses me.
Overall it was just a dumb encounter which he mentally justified from us not making insight checks or the rogue apparently not acting on information he gleaned from his passives. Still doesn't make sense but whatev.
There are quite a few issues with the spell, that I think are worthy of breakdown. The first is that in the design space, it is meant as a instant kill button using up a notable resource, but this suffers from being very overshadowed by other options. ...
It gets worse on the dm side however, mostly because it is again either useless, or it just feels like a cheat.
Counterpoint: spells aren't just for playing the game; their existence is an act of worldbuilding. A spell like Mighty Fortress might never be used in a game by the players or the DM but the fact that it exists says something about how wars might be fought in D&D's worlds and might inspire someone to write an adventure that could feature it.
The ability to kill someone on command is iconic enough to warrant the spell's existence, and it's the sort of thing you'd expect the avatar of a deity to be able to do. Spells also aren't tied to the context of a spellcaster choosing their toolset; it could even be part of a monster's innate spellcasting or something built into a magic item or trap. David42 also brought up the lich and that's another good example of worldbuilding; you see that on their stat block and it tells you liches don't mess around.
Power word kill has nearly no counter in 5e, save someone always using a death ward on everyone in the group.
Anything that deprives the caster of the ability to see its target is a hard counter to PWK - even the humble Fog Cloud. There's also Darkness, Hunger of Hadar, Blindness/Deafness, Greater Invisibility, Shadow of Moil, Mental Prison, various wall spells, turning off the lights, and good old-fashioned hiding. Of course when the DM isn't giving Subtle Spell to NPCs just to sucker punch you, the standard defense of counterspell also applies, even if it's not guaranteed.
If the players are given the chance to anticipate, it's easy to work around but still adds tension: did the enemy prepare Gust of Wind to counter Fog Cloud?
The issue here is how the DM chose to wield it against the players. Sucker punching you was bad enough; using Subtle Spell was also bad form because it completely removed the possibility of anyone countering the spell or ever confirming that it was PWK that killed you. Taking a player out of the game is rarely enjoyable unless handled very carefully; even stun and paralysis need to be used sparingly when a player is going to be on the receiving end.
Villains "monologuing" their entire plans to their enemies, also, doesn't make sense. It happens in stories all the time.
Your DM should have given some verbiage to hint at some kind of check, though....
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
That said, I could see Power Word Kill being reworked to just be a massive DPS button, but not something that kills if below 100 HP. If that aspect were to be kept, I could see it being for when the target is below a certain % HP, but the idea of having to stay above a static amount of hitpoints or risk instantly dying is kinda ridiculous, especially considering the disparity in how many hitpoints each class can end up getting
Power Word Kill is a 9th level spell. It's supposed to be ridiculous; like Wish or Meteor Swarm. Both, of which, could have TPK'd the party.
That being said: The DM should have taken into account your levels and HP and made sure to not include anything/spells that could one shot you (as is recommended/mentioned in the DMG). The DM should have used a different spell. PWK doesn't need to be reworked, the DM needs to rework how he sets encounters up and/or creates NPCs.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
As other said it's not an issue with PWK but an issue with the DM's usage of it. I don't think it's okay at any level to suddenly kill off a PC especially with a subtle spell and no chance to counter it. It's just bad practice on all levels. Looks like that DM was reading from "How to anger your players and get them to leave the group" 101. I know one-shots and instant kills are a thing but usually not together in one spell that can be cast under subtle for one action and has an instant effect. PWK design is fine, it's just that DM's shouldn't be using on a PC in that manner imo.
The only counter I would have to that situation is having two clerics or a cleric and a paladin. I feel that the spell isn’t broken, The reason I feel it seems this way is because your DM knew your hit points while the Tiefling wouldn’t, so your DM knowing this fact metagamed
Wow, I just wanted to come in and also chime in on how bad of an encounter that was.
I often think of D&D in terms of "what if this was a book or a show"? You want to have satisfying set ups and payoffs. This feels like when a character in a TV show is callously killed off in some stupid or convoluted way just to get rid of them when the actor playing them said something mean about the writer in an interview or something.
Wow. Aside from the fact that 9th level spells shouldn't really be getting tossed around at a group of level 9 PCs, my biggest issue with what the DM did is using Subtle Spell. There is no challenge/tension/intrigue involved when there is literally no counter to the action. Your DM straight up just wanted to kill you, and made absolutely sure that they would.
Unless the DM had a good reason for you to die--that actually advances a plot and results in your return to life in the same session--I'd be done with that table.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
So this is based on something that recently happened to me as a player, but I also want to note that I have DMed to tier 3 for players.
The context is that my party is level 9, group of 7 (with a couple flaky people so tends to be around 5-6) that was exploring a formerly flying city that fell into an ocean that has had a giant magic bubble manage to hold the water away. The campaign has shifted into a heavily religious focus, in that there is a large pantheon of gods that are about to have a big old holy war.
So with that out of the way, the scenario was that we were walking along a road and we encounter some random tiefling sitting over a very dead dwarf. The tiefling begs us to revive his friend. Kenku bard who is all good aligned begs me to go over to heal him (at this point I note we ought to have made insight rolls, but nobody remembered). After getting guilt tripped by said bard, I go over and make to heal him (Admittedly I was gonna be all dickish, and only make a sleight of hand to pretend to make him move for a moment and fail, its not a very good aligned party). The tiefling then, I kid you not, Subtle Spell Power Word Kill on me, having identified me as the dude that can revive people.
I'm not here to argue about whether or not this was a good decision on the dm's part, that's not constructive as a whole. The point of this post is for me to complain about one of the worst things designed in the phb, up there with the wild magic sorcerer and the lucky feat.
There are quite a few issues with the spell, that I think are worthy of breakdown. The first is that in the design space, it is meant as a instant kill button using up a notable resource, but this suffers from being very overshadowed by other options. Anything with hit point low enough to actually die to the spell is likely to just die anyway within a few turns, and that it is using a 9th level slot, which is literally the most costly resource any caster that can use the spell can pay. These factors make the spell functionally useless for any player who might be tempted into this pitfall of a spell.
It gets worse on the dm side however, mostly because it is again either useless, or it just feels like a cheat. In any campaign, a party will almost always have a positive kill/death ratio, it will mean a lot more to players when a friendly character dies, than the twenty seventh goblin. Power word kill has nearly no counter in 5e, save someone always using a death ward on everyone in the group. If the party lacks someone with the spell, your out of luck, all you can do is pray you never go below 100 health against any caster who might use it. The spell either never works, or delivers a very unsatisfying experience of "Suddenly, you drop down face first into the floor, dead". This feels close to the classic meme of "Rocks fall everyone dies".
The spell is a hold over from previous editions, which doesn't make it a bad thing, but the problem is the roll it played then as well. In 3.5/pathfinder, and other editions, magic items played a more varied and core role in the experience. A big standout in the magic item list, is death immunity. The issue comes from that there is no such items in 5e, meaning that save a death ward preemptively cast, your screwed.
This rant might just be me being annoyed at this happening, but I hope it turns into something positive as a discussion on what we rarely see mostly because players rarely will ever see a ninth level spell cast.
Power Word Kill doesn’t work if you have 101 hit points or more. I’m not sure how the tiefling sorcerer knew for certain that you would be affected. The DM knew, so it seems to be a bit of metagaming on their part.
My take on Power Word Kill is that it’s a 9th level spell that only works on one opponent with 100 HP or less. When you prepare it you’re gambling that you’ll get an opportunity to use it at all and when you cast it you’re either depending on someone else using a class ability to tell you that your opponent is “weak” enough to be affected by it or you’re hoping that you didn’t just waste your 9th level spell for the day when you cast it. It’s very low on my list of spellls that I like s so easy to cast it without it doing anything and I prefer spells that are guaranteed to have at least some effect, even if it’s a small one.
Its balanced, but it’s not a spell that I like.
Professional computer geek
Been there. Luckily my DM used it just once on us as a way to show that insta-kills are a possibility, and that we need to keep that in mind. In one of the games I run, a shadow dragon took out 2 PCs with it's insta-death breath weapon (if it takes hp to zero). They were a little miffed at first, but came to almost like the fact that there is stuff like that out there. Adds a sense of danger of the unknown.
But with that said, hopefully it's just a thing that gets pulled out once, maybe twice over the course of the adventure. To your point, a constant threat of PW kill can be a resource burner with buffing against it. Especially if it's just the healer getting hit exactly when the hp threshold is hit.
So... the Teifling was a level 17 NPC bad guy? Deadly encounter, then? That bites.
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
I'd argue that you explicitly witnesses the intended and advantageous use of this spell: No fight, no roll, no nothing, the opponent just dies. You're right that it is not that useful and overshadowed in many other cases. But the PCs can have an audience with the king, assassinate him in 5 seconds and be gone. No time to interfere for anybody. It can make for great storytelling and is a, albeit very specific, tool for the players.
This is absolutely correct. A DM should only use this spell if he gave the players a fair chance of anticipating it. Everything else feels like DM fiat and makes the play experience less enjoyable. Killing a PC without any warning will make your players leave your group very quickly. I know that I would be very annoyed.
So long story short: I think this spell is completely alright, but your DM isn't. You should talk to him and tell him that this event was not enjoyable for you.
The only creature in the monster manual that comes equipped with power word kill is a Lich at CR21 though your DM could create any 17th+ level sorcerer that could potentially have it. The Archmage NPC is CR12 and comes with Time Stop though that could be swapped for power word kill and also swapped to sorcerer if desired.
However, personally, I would just consider this one bad DMing. The role of the DM, in my opinion, is to create a setting and set of interactions that feels real, feels challenging and is fun for the characters. This usually requires both risk and reward. Even if the party used insight and was a bit suspicious of the Tiefling, they would not expect them to subtly cast power word kill and eliminate a character.
Let's look at this from the Tiefling's perspective ... there is a party of 7 adventurers coming. Does he just want to kill them? Has he been caught having just killed the dwarf? If so ... how did the dwarf die? Are there any markings on him? The dwarf could not have been killed by power word kill since the caster has only one 9th level spell slot (unless he is overly powerful by DM fiat). In either case if the goal is to eliminate the party then engaging at range from cover would make much more sense for a low hit point sorcerer.
So, let's assume the Tiefling was caught ... why does he want to kill the party rather than just escape? He can probably convince the party he just found the dwarf's body. If the dwarf is actually dead .. it is going to take raise dead or better to bring him back ... healing spells won't cut it. The Tiefling doesn't know the composition of the party or their abilities. Is the party a high enough level to bring back the dwarf? Clerics and bards can have the spell at 9th level. Are any of the adventurers even high enough to cast it? The Tiefling can't tell by looking. So the bard gets someone else in the party to cast a heal - the bard almost certainly has healing word and likely other healing spells. The bard could be just as much of a threat in terms of healing the dwarf. A druid could even reincarnate him. The party could have raise dead scrolls.
Why does the Tiefling choose to kill the creature that comes over to examine the dwarf? Just to reduce the opposition by one? How does the Tiefling know the spell even has a chance of working ... the target has to have less than 100 hit points and hit points are not something you can determine just by chatting to a character for a minute. You might not even be able to figure out class never mind what level they might be.
So, basically, the Tiefling causes the character who comes to look at the dwarf to keel over dead. He becomes the instant center of attention with combat being a likely outcome. Unless the Tiefling was certain he could deal with the rest of the adventurers (and since the OP never mentioned a TPK ... I assume he wasn't), this had to be a high risk and stupid move on the part of the Tiefling (though maybe he has 8 int :) ). On the other hand, if the PWK had failed, no one would have been the wiser that it had been cast. However, the Tiefling ends up blowing a 9th level spell slot that could have been spent on Wish or any number of other very good 9th level spells that would be much more useful.
The DM set up an encounter where an NPC sacrifices themselves to kill a player character for no obvious reason that would appear to make sense (at least based on the information from the OP). The player whose character died is likely not very happy with the arbitrary nature of the situation. The rest of the party aren't happy with losing a team mate. Depending on the world the players can just take the body to a large temple and get the character raised.
On the other hand, perhaps the DM plans that the character is going to hear the voice of one of the gods in the afterlife with an offer of return to life in exchange for service in the coming war ... though since it sounds like the PC is already a cleric I am not sure this would work anyway.
To expand on the situation based on what my DM told me after the fact. This is apparently a guy we had somehow managed to piss off from previous quests.
The dead dwarf bit and other things was actually just a setup to draw in a healer to PWK, he ended up teleporting out and left a boneclaw for the encounter.
I still maintain it was a shitty plan and any caster worth their salt, especially a sorcerer, wouldn't take power word kill if only from it's inefficiency. On top of the idea of just doing a greater invis and spamming various ranged spells to wear us down.
Fact this high powered sorcerer apparently couldn't be bothered to do some divination spying on a party that apparently pissed him off confuses me.
Overall it was just a dumb encounter which he mentally justified from us not making insight checks or the rogue apparently not acting on information he gleaned from his passives. Still doesn't make sense but whatev.
Counterpoint: spells aren't just for playing the game; their existence is an act of worldbuilding. A spell like Mighty Fortress might never be used in a game by the players or the DM but the fact that it exists says something about how wars might be fought in D&D's worlds and might inspire someone to write an adventure that could feature it.
The ability to kill someone on command is iconic enough to warrant the spell's existence, and it's the sort of thing you'd expect the avatar of a deity to be able to do. Spells also aren't tied to the context of a spellcaster choosing their toolset; it could even be part of a monster's innate spellcasting or something built into a magic item or trap. David42 also brought up the lich and that's another good example of worldbuilding; you see that on their stat block and it tells you liches don't mess around.
Anything that deprives the caster of the ability to see its target is a hard counter to PWK - even the humble Fog Cloud. There's also Darkness, Hunger of Hadar, Blindness/Deafness, Greater Invisibility, Shadow of Moil, Mental Prison, various wall spells, turning off the lights, and good old-fashioned hiding. Of course when the DM isn't giving Subtle Spell to NPCs just to sucker punch you, the standard defense of counterspell also applies, even if it's not guaranteed.
If the players are given the chance to anticipate, it's easy to work around but still adds tension: did the enemy prepare Gust of Wind to counter Fog Cloud?
The issue here is how the DM chose to wield it against the players. Sucker punching you was bad enough; using Subtle Spell was also bad form because it completely removed the possibility of anyone countering the spell or ever confirming that it was PWK that killed you. Taking a player out of the game is rarely enjoyable unless handled very carefully; even stun and paralysis need to be used sparingly when a player is going to be on the receiving end.
Villains "monologuing" their entire plans to their enemies, also, doesn't make sense. It happens in stories all the time.
Your DM should have given some verbiage to hint at some kind of check, though....
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
It just sounds like a dumb encounter.
Really bad encounter design, IMO
That said, I could see Power Word Kill being reworked to just be a massive DPS button, but not something that kills if below 100 HP. If that aspect were to be kept, I could see it being for when the target is below a certain % HP, but the idea of having to stay above a static amount of hitpoints or risk instantly dying is kinda ridiculous, especially considering the disparity in how many hitpoints each class can end up getting
Power Word Kill is a 9th level spell. It's supposed to be ridiculous; like Wish or Meteor Swarm. Both, of which, could have TPK'd the party.
That being said: The DM should have taken into account your levels and HP and made sure to not include anything/spells that could one shot you (as is recommended/mentioned in the DMG). The DM should have used a different spell. PWK doesn't need to be reworked, the DM needs to rework how he sets encounters up and/or creates NPCs.
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
As other said it's not an issue with PWK but an issue with the DM's usage of it. I don't think it's okay at any level to suddenly kill off a PC especially with a subtle spell and no chance to counter it. It's just bad practice on all levels. Looks like that DM was reading from "How to anger your players and get them to leave the group" 101. I know one-shots and instant kills are a thing but usually not together in one spell that can be cast under subtle for one action and has an instant effect. PWK design is fine, it's just that DM's shouldn't be using on a PC in that manner imo.
The only counter I would have to that situation is having two clerics or a cleric and a paladin. I feel that the spell isn’t broken, The reason I feel it seems this way is because your DM knew your hit points while the Tiefling wouldn’t, so your DM knowing this fact metagamed
Wow, I just wanted to come in and also chime in on how bad of an encounter that was.
I often think of D&D in terms of "what if this was a book or a show"? You want to have satisfying set ups and payoffs. This feels like when a character in a TV show is callously killed off in some stupid or convoluted way just to get rid of them when the actor playing them said something mean about the writer in an interview or something.
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Wow. Aside from the fact that 9th level spells shouldn't really be getting tossed around at a group of level 9 PCs, my biggest issue with what the DM did is using Subtle Spell. There is no challenge/tension/intrigue involved when there is literally no counter to the action. Your DM straight up just wanted to kill you, and made absolutely sure that they would.
Unless the DM had a good reason for you to die--that actually advances a plot and results in your return to life in the same session--I'd be done with that table.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Tangent question: Does the "100 hit points or fewer" for PWK refer to a creature's maximum hit points or current hit points?
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Not to sound dickish, but how do we know? (I have some players who can be pretty lawyerly in the approach to rules reading. :))