Can you guess the words for Power Word Kill?

 AVADA KEDAVRA!

No saves, no rolls, just your body turns cold and you hit the floor.

It said nothing about max hp. I think they meant 100 current hp 

Would this kill a Raging Beyond Death zealot barbarian who was under 100 hp?

consider a lich, very powerful and common BBEG has 135 hitpoints. you only have to do 35 points of damage to it to get in range of this spell. Ignores legendary resistances damage resistances, everything. If your spellcaster goes towards the end of initiative they could kill them on first round

why can warlocks learn this if they never get 9th level spell slots?

Mystic Arcanum allows them to select one 9th-level spell, and this spell is on the list they can choose from

it means if there current hit points are 100 or lower

Quote from Tamakins >>

Does this mean you can use it on a creature whose hit points have dropped to 100 or below?  Or can you only use it on creatures with a max HP of 100 or below?

 As stated, if a creature has more than 100 hit points, such as a kraken, it will be unaffected. If it has 100 hit points or less, the die

Quote from MerithTK >>

the way its worded implies that its a "roll a new PC" situation

 True, unless,  somehow, you happen to have over 100 hit points, which is quite impressive

Possible Casting Word:

”AMONGUS”

if the targeted creature can’t take the Among Us posts anymore.

Quote from Trewill91 >>

why polymorph -> Power Word Kill when you can polymorph -> Divine Word and save a 9th level slot?

 Difference of 80 HP, and Divine Word gives a Cha Save.

Quote from Thir_the_Commoner >>

If a character is deaf would the spell work on them as they can not hear the somatic component?

I expect that the Power Word and Divine Word spells are supposed to be Words of Creation (or maybe Dark Speech); words so powerful and fundamental that they can shape or unmake reality. It's not the act of hearing the word that kills you, it's the act of it being spoken.

Just in case anyone wants a side order of lore to go along with their main course of suddenly dead character.

Quote from BarnabusBonecrusher >>

consider a lich, very powerful and common BBEG has 135 hitpoints. you only have to do 35 points of damage to it to get in range of this spell. Ignores legendary resistances damage resistances, everything. If your spellcaster goes towards the end of initiative they could kill them on first round

 

 

Beyond 20

 

 

 

 

 

 Dodging legendary resistances is its only real perk. But you have spells that get close to 100 damage even when they save. It is a pretty weak spell for 9th level. Its a spell that never translated well from 1e/2e where they had casting times. The very large perk of power word spells in 1/2e is they had a casting time of 1, most spells had a casting time of their spell level.  Which meant most 6+ level spells were going to be the last thing happening in the round giving your enemies a pretty big window to interrupt you. And in a world where 1 hp of damage automatically disrupted the casting of a spell thats pretty big.

I guess at least for enchanters it isn't that bad.Still I kind of feel if they weren't going to make the HP window higher than the average damage from a meteor swarm they should have given it a perk like its a bonus action cast, heck reaction maybe.

"simp" - last thing tiamat heard before death

Quote from Westonard >

 If you are throwing 9th level spells around, the players will have Raise Dead, Revivify, Resurrection, it isn't OP.

 Not necessarily true.  Our L4 party with zero of those spells stumbled into a lich in POTA that is legit in the book in the place where you are supposed to be, but you're just supposed to somehow know it's a lich (which a L4 party wouldn't) and not mess with him.  He of course had PWK.  DM had to roll that one back real fast.

So, can this spell only be used once in total, or does it have a charge/limit per day?

You can use it as long as you have a spell slot to do it. However even at level 20 you only have one ninth level spell slot so it is only a once per day/rest thing.

Avada Kadavra!

Quote from Casual_Cornflakes1 >>

Quote from MerithTK >>

the way its worded implies that its a "roll a new PC" situation

 True, unless,  somehow, you happen to have over 100 hit points, which is quite impressive

 Or your party somehow happens to have an artificer, a cleric, a druid, a paladin, or a ranger with a 3rd level spell slot and some precious gems to burn 🤷‍♀️