Power Word Pain: Painfully Terrible

Usable By: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

Spell Level: 7

School: Enchantment

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Duration: Instantaneous

Components: V

You speak a word of power that causes waves of intense pain to assail one creature you can see within range. If the target has 100 hit points or fewer, it is subject to crippling pain. Otherwise, the spell has no effect on it. A target is also unaffected if it is immune to being charmed.

While the target is affected by crippling pain, any speed it has can be no higher than 10 feet. The target also has disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, other than Constitution saving throws. Finally, if the target tries to cast a spell, it must first succeed on a Constitution saving throw, or the casting fails and the spell is wasted.

A target suffering this pain can make a Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a successful save, the pain ends.

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

There are a suite of spells from the PHB that invoke the name Power Word, and by all accounts, they are as far from power as you can really get. Power Word Kill is in the running for the worst spell of its level, as it basically functions as a single target 30d6 damage for a 9th level spell, but only if the creature has 100 HP or less. Power Word Stun is a level lower, has a higher HP threshold, but deals no damage and instead stuns the target. Better, for sure, but compared to nearly all the other save or die options I’m not impressed. Power Word Heal is worse in every measurable metric to nearly all other comparable healing options for its level, as restoring one creature to full HP is nearly always worse, plus its range is touch for some outrageous reason.

Power Word: Pain enters as the lowest level Power Word, but a far weaker effect than most other forms of save or dies. It lands as the second best of them, only slightly worse than Power Word: Stun, and that’s not an endorsement. With features like Dominate Person, Polymorph, and Banishment, this kind of conditional weakening that doesn’t really help you kill the creature just seems pointless. Sure, disadvantage on five save types can help other casters the turn you use it, but is imposing disadvantage on what likely results in at most a single extra save worth it over removing the creature entirely?

Forcecage is the same level as this, has a wider array of applications, and always works. There doesn’t have to be meta knowledge or high risk for you to get the most out of Forcecage; with Power Word: Pain, you REALLY need that creature to be at 100 hit points for this to be close to worth the cast. If it doesn’t, and the spell does nothing, well, that’s a real bummer.

I wouldn’t recommend taking any of the Power Word spells, and that includes the newest addition. The kind of awkward all or nothing effect that ends up being way worse than the majority of damage spells when you know it WOULD work just leaves it in this nebulous incredibly high risk low reward space. Don’t try this one out; there’s way better effects out there.

5e Spells

Power Word Pain: Painfully Terrible