That's okay, you missed every single one of my points and the dozens of points made repeatedly throughout this thread, so I hardly feel guilty about missing yours.
Well, that would be against the rules; this DM did not break any rules.
This DM didn't break the rules eh? See, what's curious about your statement is that of course it is true. True but meaningless entirely. Since it is true no matter what the DM did, in fact. That's because in D&D, the DM makes the rules. It's like watching a referee hack off a players leg and claiming that's perfectly valid by saying "All fair since there wasn't a foul called by the ref!".
One aspect of your response that I think is an important consideration is that you think what the DM did was so unfair that it is tantamount to breaking the rules. While I very strongly disagree, particularly since we don't have sufficient context here, I do agree that the players must have a certain level of trust in the content generated by the DM and there was definitely a disconnect between this player's expectations and the DM's actions. As such, I respect your opinion that others might also consider this tantamount to breaking the rules.
You're too fixated on "breaking the rules". 'Rules' isn't the issue. The issue is that the DM violated "the social contract" of D&D groups. A social contract is an agreement (either spoken or unspoken) about the dynamics within a group, what everyone is expected from and for the others. I'm firmly in the 'you should probably actually discuss this in session zero' camp, but even if you do not formally verbalize your group's social contract... there still is one.
This DM violated what this player believed was the social contract. That's where the anger is coming from. It is a sense of betrayal. The OP aimed that emotion at the game rules, specifically at the spell their DM used. But it is clear that the issue was that the social contract wasn't either agreed to by both parties, suffered some type of misunderstanding on, or was just straight up violated and broken with malice by the DM.
I think a lot of this comes down to previous communication and agreement between DM and players about the game environment. I don't get the impression that this was a world in which the DM had previously communicated that they would try to protect the party from potentially lethal encounters. If it was, then my opinion would have to be that the DM was completely out of line. But again, to me, with the very little context we have, it seems to me the party was practically lucky only one of them was killed when they chose to feud with somebody who could destroy them all with a single spell.
This is reasonable. Yeah. We don't know what was agreed upon by their group and really only have one side of the story, from several years ago... so we're not going to be able to make any conclusive assessments. We can really only rely on the testimony provided and take it at face value.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I will echo what several others have said, in that I don’t feel like the issue was the particular spell...which has been clearly reiterated, it both 9th Level and only effects creatures with 100 HP or less(and I agree, not a very fun or useful spell, and one that I would never take as a character). The real issue for me is that the Tiefling NPC was at minimum a 17th Level Sorcerer being put up against a 9th Level party...in a seemingly minor, random encounter no less, not even the final epic bad guy fight. He could have likely just as easily killed you with an empowered Magic Missle spell cast with his 9th level slot...well, maybe not Magic Missle, but any number of upcast/empowered lower level spells.
The written rules really can't help you determine how the players at your table will react if and when you light up a character with an instakill spell. It's the DM's decision whether they want to swat a fly with a sledgehammer.
a) Seems like PWK should be written more like "the spell inflicts 100 necrotic damage; if the target is reduced to 0hp by this damage, it is instantly killed. The spell death ward and similar instant-death immunity completely negates this damage. " Now the spell always has *some* effect, isn't all or nothing, could be resisted (necrotic), etc. [In fact, I think I just convinced myself that's how it will work in my 5e games from now on!]
b) The tiefling used Subtle Spell. Why did *ANYONE* know he cast it? The OP's character walked over to the dwarf, bent over to check him out, and died. "OMG? What happened?" should have been the result, not "Kill the tiefling sorcerer!"
c) Having said "b"... that was a dick move from the DM. No two ways around that. Even if the 9th level PCs *have* (probably unknowingly) ticked off this powerful BBEG... the DM-player "Social Contract" says the BBEG shows up, postures, does something showy ("Before I kill you, Mr. Bond..."), leaves, and the PCs somehow survive/recover. It's a story and a game, not a real-world "A hired sniper kills the meddling investigator. The End."
Subtle-spelling PWK is such a dirty move on the DM's part. In my campaign, the 10th-level party is being hunted by a lich who has spent centuries accumulating an army of simulacrums to do his bidding; they all have power-word kill, which makes them extra terrifying, because they can just suicide in and take out anyone they want. However, the party now knows exactly what they're up against, so you can bet that they take every measure possible. I even warned them ahead of time to have backup characters ready, because things would very likely get messy. Amazingly, no one lost their characters, as the monk who'd been entrusted with revivify scrolls managed to raise the cleric with it the next turn while the party's paladin and fighter ripped the simulacrums to shreds. One of the simulacrums tried to cast their PWK on the party's warlock (the lich's actual target, since he possessed the Book of Vile Darkness, which the lich wanted back very badly. Long story), but he pulled off the DC 19 save to counterspell it. That said, the encounter could have gone extremely badly for them, especially if I had been completely ruthless and had the second simulacrum target the monk instead of the warlock with PWK , or (even more of a dick move) had him counterspell the revivify.
I was looking for some stuff on power word kill but I didn't expect it to be so pessimistic. As currently written, I could see power word kill being really good for tension and mixing up combat if players know it's there. It changes the fight mechanic to be " stay above 100 HP" as opposed to stay above 0. It also has some unique interactions with regeneration and polymorphing which are interesting.
It is very counterable but I understand that it can be a bit of an anti climactic death for a player
Some confusion about this spell. What you think are flaws are features. This is why the spell does what it does:
1) You do not cast it at the beginning of the battle. Instead you cast it in the middle. After the bad guy has taken significant damage, but before he a) heals or b) retreats. You are not looking for the weak enemy, you take a strong one and make them weak. Looking for the weak guy to take out in the first round is a bad use of this spell.
2) This spell uses a specific wording in order to defeat abilities like Death Ward, Relentless Endurance, etc. You want to do damage, lots of other spells do that. Meteor Swarm does 40d6, save for half. Average of 140, saving for half means 70. You pick Power Word Kill not to do massive damage but instead to kill someone regardless of their other protections.
As for the abusive situation you mentioned, the real problem is not Power Word Kill, but that you have only one person that can raise the dead.
Have someone that is not the Revivify guy buy a Ring of Spell Storing. Fill the ring with a Revivify or Raise Dead. Or if you have a Bard or Paladin, buy some scrolls of Raise Dead/Revivify. They may not be high enough to memorize, but they are high enough to read.
2) This spell uses a specific wording in order to defeat abilities like Death Ward, Relentless Endurance, etc. You want to do damage, lots of other spells do that. Meteor Swarm does 40d6, save for half. Average of 140, saving for half means 70. You pick Power Word Kill not to do massive damage but instead to kill someone regardless of their other protections.
Death ward has specific wording to counter power word kill:
"If the spell is still in effect when the target is subjected to an effect that would kill it instantaneously without dealing damage, that effect is instead negated against the target, and the spell ends."
I agree that this spell is broken. I have a character that is level 19 and shy of the 100 hit point threshold, and we have a party member that "out of character" has already threatened to kill everyone one. The fact that I could take that time to build up a character to have them offed without a save at that level is kind or ridiculous. And because his intentions have not been expressed as their character, preemptively killing them is against my alignment.
I agree that this spell is broken. I have a character that is level 19 and shy of the 100 hit point threshold, and we have a party member that "out of character" has already threatened to kill everyone one. The fact that I could take that time to build up a character to have them offed without a save at that level is kind or ridiculous. And because his intentions have not been expressed as their character, preemptively killing them is against my alignment.
This is the wrong forum for a balance discussion, but I'm frankly amazed you're still alive with, one presumes, d6 hit dice and dump-statted Constitution. A single Goristro should be a routine part of the adventuring day for you but would have an incredibly good chance of one-shotting you. How did you survive to level 19???
I agree that this spell is broken. I have a character that is level 19 and shy of the 100 hit point threshold, and we have a party member that "out of character" has already threatened to kill everyone one. The fact that I could take that time to build up a character to have them offed without a save at that level is kind or ridiculous. And because his intentions have not been expressed as their character, preemptively killing them is against my alignment.
That sounds like a pretty toxic player. The DM should squash that.
As for power word kill. PVP is generally terrible in dnd and often comes down to who wins initiative so PWK is not unique in that aspect. Trust me, you could pretty much as easily be disintegrated, turned into a zombie, imprisoned in the center of the earth or permanently turned into bunny rabbit. It's really just about who gets that first spell in wizard duels.
Power Word Kill is by and large a weak 9th level spell. It has its uses in specific situations but its weaker than most other 9th level spells. In 1e/2e its hit point threshold to expected hit point of enemies ratio was the same but it had one big perk a cast time of 1. So yeah it was weaker than meteor swarm but it was a incredibly powerful spell for its cast time. and cast times mattered a lot in those editions. Now its the same hit point threshold relatively but thats it. If this was a video game where you knew a enemies hit points or if the DM has some method of indicating their rough current hit points it would be decent for the reasons stated above, but with the extra gamble angle its a bit of a dud.
As an aside power word pain and stun can end up being really dark spells. If your save DC is really high, boosted from items or whatever and the target does not have a bonus in that save it will never end. Dispel Magic has no spell to dispel, greater restoration etc does not cover it, you are just stunned or in agony forever. Maybe a paladin may come by and boost your saves enough...
Aside number 2; As for the first part of this thread 2 years ago, I actually like the DM there. Ambushes happen, if i use a wide range of enemies and their stealth is higher than the players passive perception(pretty easy to secure as well with the right spell) and they focus on one player,(the players do it why wont the enemies) that player is likely going down. There are dangerous traps you might miss, that can remove or kill a player in the opening of a encounter. Here he gave a scenario and the players did have the options to think something fishy was going on, but instead walked right into it. If it was massively out of tone for the campaign or something it could be a issue, but the player did not seem upset with the DM so I don't think ambushes were out of tone.
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Hm. I think you literally missed every single one of my points. All good, though. Happy DM-ing, friend :)
That's okay, you missed every single one of my points and the dozens of points made repeatedly throughout this thread, so I hardly feel guilty about missing yours.
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This DM didn't break the rules eh? See, what's curious about your statement is that of course it is true. True but meaningless entirely. Since it is true no matter what the DM did, in fact. That's because in D&D, the DM makes the rules. It's like watching a referee hack off a players leg and claiming that's perfectly valid by saying "All fair since there wasn't a foul called by the ref!".
You're too fixated on "breaking the rules". 'Rules' isn't the issue. The issue is that the DM violated "the social contract" of D&D groups. A social contract is an agreement (either spoken or unspoken) about the dynamics within a group, what everyone is expected from and for the others. I'm firmly in the 'you should probably actually discuss this in session zero' camp, but even if you do not formally verbalize your group's social contract... there still is one.
This DM violated what this player believed was the social contract. That's where the anger is coming from. It is a sense of betrayal. The OP aimed that emotion at the game rules, specifically at the spell their DM used. But it is clear that the issue was that the social contract wasn't either agreed to by both parties, suffered some type of misunderstanding on, or was just straight up violated and broken with malice by the DM.
This is reasonable. Yeah. We don't know what was agreed upon by their group and really only have one side of the story, from several years ago... so we're not going to be able to make any conclusive assessments. We can really only rely on the testimony provided and take it at face value.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I will echo what several others have said, in that I don’t feel like the issue was the particular spell...which has been clearly reiterated, it both 9th Level and only effects creatures with 100 HP or less(and I agree, not a very fun or useful spell, and one that I would never take as a character). The real issue for me is that the Tiefling NPC was at minimum a 17th Level Sorcerer being put up against a 9th Level party...in a seemingly minor, random encounter no less, not even the final epic bad guy fight. He could have likely just as easily killed you with an empowered Magic Missle spell cast with his 9th level slot...well, maybe not Magic Missle, but any number of upcast/empowered lower level spells.
The written rules really can't help you determine how the players at your table will react if and when you light up a character with an instakill spell. It's the DM's decision whether they want to swat a fly with a sledgehammer.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
a) Seems like PWK should be written more like "the spell inflicts 100 necrotic damage; if the target is reduced to 0hp by this damage, it is instantly killed. The spell death ward and similar instant-death immunity completely negates this damage. " Now the spell always has *some* effect, isn't all or nothing, could be resisted (necrotic), etc. [In fact, I think I just convinced myself that's how it will work in my 5e games from now on!]
b) The tiefling used Subtle Spell. Why did *ANYONE* know he cast it? The OP's character walked over to the dwarf, bent over to check him out, and died. "OMG? What happened?" should have been the result, not "Kill the tiefling sorcerer!"
c) Having said "b"... that was a dick move from the DM. No two ways around that. Even if the 9th level PCs *have* (probably unknowingly) ticked off this powerful BBEG... the DM-player "Social Contract" says the BBEG shows up, postures, does something showy ("Before I kill you, Mr. Bond..."), leaves, and the PCs somehow survive/recover. It's a story and a game, not a real-world "A hired sniper kills the meddling investigator. The End."
Subtle-spelling PWK is such a dirty move on the DM's part. In my campaign, the 10th-level party is being hunted by a lich who has spent centuries accumulating an army of simulacrums to do his bidding; they all have power-word kill, which makes them extra terrifying, because they can just suicide in and take out anyone they want. However, the party now knows exactly what they're up against, so you can bet that they take every measure possible. I even warned them ahead of time to have backup characters ready, because things would very likely get messy. Amazingly, no one lost their characters, as the monk who'd been entrusted with revivify scrolls managed to raise the cleric with it the next turn while the party's paladin and fighter ripped the simulacrums to shreds. One of the simulacrums tried to cast their PWK on the party's warlock (the lich's actual target, since he possessed the Book of Vile Darkness, which the lich wanted back very badly. Long story), but he pulled off the DC 19 save to counterspell it. That said, the encounter could have gone extremely badly for them, especially if I had been completely ruthless and had the second simulacrum target the monk instead of the warlock with PWK , or (even more of a dick move) had him counterspell the revivify.
I was looking for some stuff on power word kill but I didn't expect it to be so pessimistic. As currently written, I could see power word kill being really good for tension and mixing up combat if players know it's there. It changes the fight mechanic to be " stay above 100 HP" as opposed to stay above 0. It also has some unique interactions with regeneration and polymorphing which are interesting.
It is very counterable but I understand that it can be a bit of an anti climactic death for a player
As for counters to pwk:
counterspell
death ward or similar effect
antimagic field
silence
revivify or similar effects
invisibility or staying out of sight
Some confusion about this spell. What you think are flaws are features. This is why the spell does what it does:
1) You do not cast it at the beginning of the battle. Instead you cast it in the middle. After the bad guy has taken significant damage, but before he a) heals or b) retreats. You are not looking for the weak enemy, you take a strong one and make them weak. Looking for the weak guy to take out in the first round is a bad use of this spell.
2) This spell uses a specific wording in order to defeat abilities like Death Ward, Relentless Endurance, etc. You want to do damage, lots of other spells do that. Meteor Swarm does 40d6, save for half. Average of 140, saving for half means 70. You pick Power Word Kill not to do massive damage but instead to kill someone regardless of their other protections.
As for the abusive situation you mentioned, the real problem is not Power Word Kill, but that you have only one person that can raise the dead.
Have someone that is not the Revivify guy buy a Ring of Spell Storing. Fill the ring with a Revivify or Raise Dead. Or if you have a Bard or Paladin, buy some scrolls of Raise Dead/Revivify. They may not be high enough to memorize, but they are high enough to read.
Death ward has specific wording to counter power word kill:
"If the spell is still in effect when the target is subjected to an effect that would kill it instantaneously without dealing damage, that effect is instead negated against the target, and the spell ends."
I did not realize that solarsyphon. Thanks for the info. But the principle still applies to other protections.
I agree that this spell is broken. I have a character that is level 19 and shy of the 100 hit point threshold, and we have a party member that "out of character" has already threatened to kill everyone one. The fact that I could take that time to build up a character to have them offed without a save at that level is kind or ridiculous. And because his intentions have not been expressed as their character, preemptively killing them is against my alignment.
This is the wrong forum for a balance discussion, but I'm frankly amazed you're still alive with, one presumes, d6 hit dice and dump-statted Constitution. A single Goristro should be a routine part of the adventuring day for you but would have an incredibly good chance of one-shotting you. How did you survive to level 19???
That sounds like a pretty toxic player. The DM should squash that.
As for power word kill. PVP is generally terrible in dnd and often comes down to who wins initiative so PWK is not unique in that aspect. Trust me, you could pretty much as easily be disintegrated, turned into a zombie, imprisoned in the center of the earth or permanently turned into bunny rabbit. It's really just about who gets that first spell in wizard duels.
Power Word Kill is by and large a weak 9th level spell. It has its uses in specific situations but its weaker than most other 9th level spells. In 1e/2e its hit point threshold to expected hit point of enemies ratio was the same but it had one big perk a cast time of 1. So yeah it was weaker than meteor swarm but it was a incredibly powerful spell for its cast time. and cast times mattered a lot in those editions. Now its the same hit point threshold relatively but thats it. If this was a video game where you knew a enemies hit points or if the DM has some method of indicating their rough current hit points it would be decent for the reasons stated above, but with the extra gamble angle its a bit of a dud.
As an aside power word pain and stun can end up being really dark spells. If your save DC is really high, boosted from items or whatever and the target does not have a bonus in that save it will never end. Dispel Magic has no spell to dispel, greater restoration etc does not cover it, you are just stunned or in agony forever. Maybe a paladin may come by and boost your saves enough...
Aside number 2; As for the first part of this thread 2 years ago, I actually like the DM there. Ambushes happen, if i use a wide range of enemies and their stealth is higher than the players passive perception(pretty easy to secure as well with the right spell) and they focus on one player,(the players do it why wont the enemies) that player is likely going down. There are dangerous traps you might miss, that can remove or kill a player in the opening of a encounter. Here he gave a scenario and the players did have the options to think something fishy was going on, but instead walked right into it. If it was massively out of tone for the campaign or something it could be a issue, but the player did not seem upset with the DM so I don't think ambushes were out of tone.