Power Word spells and balance points

[Tanarii]

Worth noting that Power Word: Kill one-shot NPCs using the Archmage statblock.

Yes but a level 17 PC is supposed to eat an Archmage for dinner. (They're a bit big for breakfast.)

(I forget how crazy the high level CR system is sometimes. A single Archmage is Hard for a party of 4 10s. A pair is Hard for a party of 4 18s. It works pretty well in Tier 1 and Tier 2, but whenever I look at the two endgame Tiers I see why people complain.)

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The important thing here is PW:K is a primary a DM spell. All high level spells are. DMs are using them on BBEGs when the party just got access to level 6 spells! For PCs, they're endgame spells, either never seen because the campaign ends first, or only used a little before the campaign is over. They need to be balanced appropriately for that.

[stoutstien]

Yes but a level 17 PC is supposed to eat an Archmage for dinner. (They're a bit big for breakfast.)

(I forget how crazy the high level CR system is sometimes. A single Archmage is Hard for a party of 4 10s. A pair is Hard for a party of 4 18s. It works pretty well in Tier 1 and Tier 2, but whenever I look at the two endgame Tiers I see why people complain.)

Not to mention they are glass cannons. ~100 HP with low AC is something most party can chew through with little effort. You really have to customize their spell list to include stuff like contingency.

[HappyDaze]

You really have to customize their spell list to include stuff like contingency.

Do they still hold that customizing the spells known/prepared for monsters/NPCs doesn't impact their CR? I know a few players got mighty pissed at an Arcanaloth with a customized/optimized list of spells prepared.

[Eldariel]

@Eldariel

Oh damn, I hadn't thought about the magic weapon problem with Marilith. I'll need to recalibrate :p .I recently started exploring the 9th level transformation spells and they are pretty fun. Changing into a dragon is effectively a 120 range aoe fear. Marilith has all these attacks.

Pit Fiend is probably the best bruiser and Bladesinger abilities scale so well with it. Basically you become end game boss. Running around with 19 Natural AC + 5 (bladesong) + 5 (shield spell) = 29 and resistance to non magical attacks is fun. Add foresights etc and an enlarge to avoid shallow (although I'm not sure if there any point to it anymore), song of victory (all attacks are considered melee weapon attacks) and you can beat the tarrasque senseless by yourself. You kill it in ~8 turns while it needs 12 to kill you, dealing a mere ~25 dpr against foresight + resistance while you do ~85

I think Marilith might just win quicker just because it has so many more attacks. While your hit rate is worse, if you have EA and constant advantage, that's pretty minor. And again, you can make significant use of Belt of Giant Strength while Pit Fiend doesn't, really (at best +1). And Reactive means you can cast Shield on your turn and still have a Reaction open the next turn to e.g. Parry an attack (28 AC and Parry means Big T has significant trouble landing hits at Disadvantage). Of course, this is a lot of resources to beat a glorified dinosaur (two 9th level spells! You'll have to make a new Simulacrum afterwards...though I guess you might get some money for killing Big T if you play your cards right) but at least it's stylish to do it in melee. You do have your Bonus Action open to e.g. Misty Step if you do get grappled at an inopportune time; even Disadvantage and AC 33 isn't a guarantee vs. +19 attacks by any means.

But yeah, 7 EA attacks at +12 with Advantage gives you a solid 78,4% hit rate and while your damage without Tenser's isn't all that, with Belt of Fire Giant Strength you're still looking at 2d8+12 and 2d10+12 for the tail with a total of (0,6414 * 21 + 0,1426 * 30) * 6 + (0,6414 * 23 + 0,1426 * 34) = 126,085. That's of course just Foresight + Shapechange + Bladesong. You've got Action Surge to savage it for ~226 on the first round meaning you need about 5 rounds to kill it again and you're pretty well off defensively as well (you're resistant to its attacks, have nice AC and it has Disadvantage).

[stoutstien]

Do they still hold that customizing the spells known/prepared for monsters/NPCs doesn't impact their CR? I know a few players got mighty pissed at an Arcanaloth with a customized/optimized list of spells prepared.

CR is pretty haphazard to being with.
As far as changing spells in NPC blocks as long as the DM isn't just grabbing the perfect spells to counter the party why would it matter? They have a pretty good list as printed.

[MaxWilson]

Death of a PC often has a domino effect. If one drops at the beginning of the fight everything gets harder.

Not to mention the stakes get higher because death is only reversed if the PCs win.

But you can Revivify with a single action, during a fight.

[Valmark]

New sage advice compendium:

[NEW] What happens if I’m polymorphed or Wild Shaped into a creature with fewer than 100 hit points and then I’m targeted by power word kill?

You die

Yes, I've seen that one. But I don't follow- Polymorph already says that the spell ends early if the target goes to 0 or dies- the result is that you go back to normal with the hp you had, unless you reverted because you went to 0 in which case carryover damage.

Doesn't the Sage Advice just confirm what Polymorph already says?

[Tanarii]

Yes, I've seen that one. But I don't follow- Polymorph already says that the spell ends early if the target goes to 0 or dies- the result is that you go back to normal with the hp you had, unless you reverted because you went to 0 in which case carryover damage.

Doesn't the Sage Advice just confirm what Polymorph already says?

So you're dead with whatever hit points you had before you cast the spell, right?

[Gtdead]

-snip-

Averaging the tarrasque's attacks (along with the legendary action), it deals 19.6+mod per attack at +19. With disadvantage that's 10.66 against 28 AC and 3.63 against 33 AC. Parry works against a single attack, so it's 5x10.66+3.63=56.64 average, half against resistance (28.32)

So the marilith shapechange is expected to last (189/28.32 = 6.67 rounded up) 7 turns.

Depending on what you use parry on, it may change the results a bit, but won't be anything drastic statistically.

You are right, Marilith makes shorter work of the encounter.

[Unoriginal]

Yes, I've seen that one. But I don't follow- Polymorph already says that the spell ends early if the target goes to 0 or dies- the result is that you go back to normal with the hp you had, unless you reverted because you went to 0 in which case carryover damage.

Doesn't the Sage Advice just confirm what Polymorph already says?

Some people ask questions the game already answer.

In the case of Polymorph, dying or getting to 0 HPs result in the same (so you can't ust Polymorph an enemy into a chicken then drown them). This isn't true for all of the shape-changing effects.

[Valmark]

So you're dead with whatever hit points you had before you cast the spell, right?

Logically you'd be alive. I don't think the spell makes you an undead.

Some people ask questions the game already answer.

In the case of Polymorph, dying or getting to 0 HPs result in the same (so you can't ust Polymorph an enemy into a chicken then drown them). This isn't true for all of the shape-changing effects.

Yeah, I didn't mean that it's universally true- just in the scope of Polymorph which I saw referenced.

[LordCdrMilitant]

How would you make it work against PCs?

In my opinion, this is a spell that you should never use on a NPC. it's obviously most powerful on an NPC, but using it as a GM is basically just doing a "rocks fall, you die" on a party member.

It doesn't matter what kind of game you're running, as a GM you're not in competition with the players. This is almost exclusively a mechanism to re-fluff a rocks fall you die.

[Tanarii]

Logically you'd be alive. I don't think the spell makes you an undead.

Whats undead got to do with the price of milk?

Having hit points doesn't make you ambulatory, conscious, and powered by negative energy just because you're also dead.

[MaxWilson]

In the case of Polymorph, dying or getting to 0 HPs result in the same (so you can't ust Polymorph an enemy into a chicken then drown them).

As far as I can tell from the PHB rules, you _can_ do the drowning trick in deep water because when you've drowned you can't regain HP until you can breathe again. If they're still underwater once they return to normal form, and they can't breathe underwater, then they're still drowned.

You can't drown the chicken in a fishbowl and expect that to work on a huge demon, but you could drown it in a lake.

In my opinion, this is a spell that you should never use on a NPC. it's obviously most powerful on an NPC, but using it as a GM is basically just doing a "rocks fall, you die" on a party member.

It doesn't matter what kind of game you're running, as a GM you're not in competition with the players. This is almost exclusively a mechanism to re-fluff a rocks fall you die.

I think if you telegraph it as part of the monster lore, it's fine (e.g. Orcus). Unlike Rocks Fall there is still counterplay possible (Revivify, Counterspell, Death Ward, illusions/decoys). It's still weak but that's okay as long as it fits the monster lore instead of being a spell that a wizard NPC deliberately learned on purpose in place of something good. If Orcus doesn't even have the OPTION to know Invulnerability instead, then PWK has no opportunity cost for him.

[x3n0n]

Yes, I've seen that one. But I don't follow- Polymorph already says that the spell ends early if the target goes to 0 or dies- the result is that you go back to normal with the hp you had, unless you reverted because you went to 0 in which case carryover damage.

Doesn't the Sage Advice just confirm what Polymorph already says?

So you're dead with whatever hit points you had before you cast the spell, right?

Some people ask questions the game already answer.

In the case of Polymorph, dying or getting to 0 HPs result in the same (so you can't ust Polymorph an enemy into a chicken then drown them). This isn't true for all of the shape-changing effects.

Based on the SAC ruling, I assumed something like: you die and revert to your native form, but you're dead in that form (as described in Tanarii's post).

[Valmark]

Whats undead got to do with the price of milk?

Having hit points doesn't make you ambulatory, conscious, and powered by negative energy just because you're also dead.

Which is... What I said. With less words.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Based on the SAC ruling, I assumed something like: you die and revert to your native form, but you're dead in that form (as described in Tanarii's post).

Yeah. Being brought to 0HP is the most common way of getting dead, but not the only one. You can be dead at full HP.

[Eldariel]

Yes but a level 17 PC is supposed to eat an Archmage for dinner. (They're a bit big for breakfast.)

(I forget how crazy the high level CR system is sometimes. A single Archmage is Hard for a party of 4 10s. A pair is Hard for a party of 4 18s. It works pretty well in Tier 1 and Tier 2, but whenever I look at the two endgame Tiers I see why people complain.)

Yeah, if an Archmage can't wipe the floor with a level 10 party, the DM is playing them far under their potential or the party is obscenely lucky. Of course, their statblock doesn't include any longterm defenses (they should at the very least have their Contingency active and preferably some stuff from Wish like Greater Steed and some such) and their spell loadout is highly suspect. Simple Meteor Swarm from above 60' away is extremely hard for a 10th level party to even survive; a 10th level Hill Dwarf Barbarian with 16 Con has 115 HP so on average they barely survive while raging with 10 HP (Totem Barb would do better of course) but basically everyone else autodies if they fail the save (even with Absorb Elements) and some might drop even on a successful save. So it's straight-up DC 17 Dex-or-die for basically the whole party to start off the fight and it's not getting much easier from there.

[Sindeloke]

Most of the big carryover spells from older editions were taken down a few notches. Look what they did to my holy/divine word.

Shifting effects based on HD to HP just didn't work all that well. I think CR would be a better approach. PW: kill being able to instantly kill any CR X and lower feels better IMO.

I've kicked around the idea of "target's [target attribute] < caster's [casting attribute]" (say, con < int when wizard casts PW:K), but with bounded accuracy and the attribute range being what they are, that swings too far in the other direction.

I wonder if the problem isn't just that it's aiming at the wrong use case? What if it weren't a single-target nuke, but a chaff-clearing spell that just kills everything that hears it up to a certain power threshold? Makes it much easier to balance for NPC use, as a threat against mounts, familiars, minions, but not an unfair oneshot on the PCs themselves, and it can be tweaked stronger for PC use until its actually competitive with a Marilith blender.

[Unoriginal]

How about this: turn Power Word: Kill into "if the target's is lower than your casting stat, they die".

[Samayu]

PWK is a tough spell. Definitely unfun. At a boss battle at 16th level, I was killed with one of those. The DM says, "he casts Power Word Kill. You're dead. I was like "wait, what? Oh. OK, I guess I'll just go sit down over there, until it's time to leave." We'd spent quite a while learning how to balance healing magic, but as the cleric, I was the only one with revivify and whatnot.

[MaxWilson]

PWK is a tough spell. Definitely unfun. At a boss battle at 16th level, I was killed with one of those. The DM says, "he casts Power Word Kill. You're dead. I was like "wait, what? Oh. OK, I guess I'll just go sit down over there, until it's time to leave." We'd spent quite a while learning how to balance healing magic, but as the cleric, I was the only one with revivify and whatnot.

Heh. If I were the DM it would be, "You're dead." (Hands you a character sheet.) "This is the guy who killed you. You're now playing him, and your job is to kill everyone else."

[Tanarii]

Heh. If I were the DM it would be, "You're dead." (Hands you a character sheet.) "This is the guy who killed you. You're now playing him, and your job is to kill everyone else."

Yeah I've done that too. It's amazing how much better players can be at trying to kill their teammates with an enemy than I am.

[Thunderous Mojo]

PWK is a tough spell. Definitely unfun. At a boss battle at 16th level, I was killed with one of those. The DM says, "he casts Power Word Kill. You're dead. I was like "wait, what? Oh. OK, I guess I'll just go sit down over there, until it's time to leave." We'd spent quite a while learning how to balance healing magic, but as the cleric, I was the only one with revivify and whatnot.

*Emphasis Added*

Not to diminish at all the dismay at being killed early in a session, but being at 100 HP or under puts you in danger of being dusted by a lucky damage roll of an 7th level Disintegrate spell.

I'm with Max Wilson here...as the DM I'm going to let you, (or whomever else died first to PWK), play the Creature.

I'd also allow you to spend Inspiration and have "Advantage" on the Divine Intervention roll. My grognard heart misses percentile dice.

[Dark.Revenant]

*Emphasis Added*

Not to diminish at all the dismay at being killed early in a session, but being at 100 HP or under puts you in danger of being dusted by a lucky damage roll of an 7th level Disintegrate spell.

I'm with Max Wilson here...as the DM I'm going to let you, (or whomever else died first to PWK), play the Creature.

I'd also allow you to spend Inspiration and have "Advantage" on the Divine Intervention roll. My grognard heart misses percentile dice.

A 16th level Cleric with 12-13 Con (not unreasonable if you're a healer/blaster type) will have 99 HP.

[Eldariel]

A 16th level Cleric with 12-13 Con (not unreasonable if you're a healer/blaster type) will have 99 HP.

I'd never play a caster with under 14 Con, not primarily for HP but rather Concentration checks and Con-saves, both of which are fairly huge. 16 Con is generally the target for baseline.

Of course, characters do often take damage so that's no safeguard.

[HappyDaze]

PWK is a tough spell. Definitely unfun. At a boss battle at 16th level, I was killed with one of those. The DM says, "he casts Power Word Kill. You're dead. I was like "wait, what? Oh. OK, I guess I'll just go sit down over there, until it's time to leave." We'd spent quite a while learning how to balance healing magic, but as the cleric, I was the only one with revivify and whatnot.

After one game ended in a TPK, my players make sure every character can lend in some healing. Last party was bard, cleric, druid, and paladin. Three of four had healing word, and taking anyone out for more than a round was unlikely unless everyone went down. It really changes the challenge of the game from easy to very easy.

[Tanarii]

I'd never play a caster with under 14 Con, not primarily for HP but rather Concentration checks and Con-saves, both of which are fairly huge. 16 Con is generally the target for baseline.

So Con is either your secondary stat, or you secondary stat raised by at least one ASI?

What happens when you play a Medium armor wearer (like 4/9 of Cleric domains) as well. Dex 12-13?

[x3n0n]

After one game ended in a TPK, my players make sure every character can lend in some healing. Last party was bard, cleric, druid, and paladin. Three of four had healing word, and taking anyone out for more than a round was unlikely unless everyone went down. It really changes the challenge of the game from easy to very easy.

Just to make sure I follow: that shouldn't be relevant here, right? The thread topic spell kills (not just KOs) so traditional pop-up healing doesn't fix it.

[Eldariel]

So Con is either your secondary stat, or you secondary stat raised by at least one ASI?

What happens when you play a Medium armor wearer (like 4/9 of Cleric domains) as well. Dex 12-13?

Point buy does allow 16/15-16/13-14/etc. Use Res: Con to reach 16/16/14.