Power Word Stun: Not All That Stunning
Usable By: Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Spell Level: 8
School: Enchantment
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
Components: V
You speak a word of power that can overwhelm the mind of one creature you can see within range, leaving it dumbfounded. If the target has 150 hit points or fewer, it is stunned. Otherwise, the spell has no effect.
The stunned target must make a Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a successful save, this stunning effect ends.
Review by Samuel West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
In the family of conditions, some are better than others. Stunned, for example, is the little brother of paralyzed. Both incapacitate the target, both cause the target to auto fail Strength and Dex saves, but where a stunned creature takes hits normally, a Paralyzed creature gets critically hit. The difference here is gargantuan; one locks an enemy out of actions, the other locks an enemy out of actions and makes EVERYTHING crit them.
So when we look at Power Word Stun, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. Hold Monster can work on anything that doesn’t have legendary resistance; Power Word Stun works on anything with 150 or less hit points. In both cases, you probably aren’t locking down the big bad. If you’re hitting another high priority minion, Hold Monster still offers a save, making the spell potentially fail to do anything. In the instance your target fails a Wisdom save (which is an incredible save type against big dumb monsters you’d want to paralyze), the advantage you gain is leagues higher than the advantage stunning the same creature would offer.
In the cases where you want to stun out something in the back line like a wizard or cleric type monster, a range of 60 feet is narrow, especially when we’re looking at encounters balanced for 8th level slots. Having an extra 30 feet on Hold Monster is a genuinely important feature. Still, Power Word Stun always works if you are certain you’re targeting something under 151 hit points, making it so you never waste a turn.
Unfortunately, other spells also do that better. Maze shunts away anything, with the same range and no HP restrictions, and bypasses further legendary resistances with an Intelligence check over a save at the end of turn. If your aim is to simply remove a creature and need to get around legendary resistance, this does it. If you don’t need to get around legendary resistance, Maze isn’t even worth it; fire off any number of 2nd through 7th level spells that transform, banish, paralyze, frightened, or otherwise incapacitate a target on a failed save. There are a ton of options available to you by this point; you don’t need this spell.
Still, Power Word Stun is one of those effects that can warp an encounter if you have no other spell that does it. Guaranteeing at least 1 round of reprieve from a single entity is massive, and while this spell isn’t the best at getting you that, it still does it. You’ll still get something out of Power Word Stun so long as you’re never pointing it at a healthy ancient dragon or storm giant.
Thank you for visiting!
If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
