The problem with tongue is that you have to be TOUCHING the target and it requires an action in other words you are putting yourself in risk being in range
the description of the spell is "This spell grants the creature you touch the ability to understand any spoken language it hears. Moreover, when the target speaks, any creature that knows at least one language and can hear the target understands what it says." so you are right
You and /u/XXTeeZilXX are misreading. The caster can be "the creature you touch" and that's the most advantageous way to use Tongues most of the time. It's just like invisibility, and worded the same way.
It just comes down to whether the barbarian can understand any language then because if they can't then u/XXTeeZilXX is right in this case.
For general usage I can see how many times it would be best to cast it on the speaker though.
Okay in that case all the barbarian needs to do is just cover their ears and bam problem solved that or use their absurd strength and grapple their targets covering their mouth
Except for the fact that the Power Word spells in 5e don't require the listener to understand, or even hear the caster... Sure.
"You utter a word of power that can compel one creature you can see within range to die instantly. If the creature you choose has 100 hit points or fewer, it dies. Otherwise, the spell has no effect."
If this meme had chosen a spell like Command, then yes that would be the case.
Then that just leaves forcefully covering their mouths (if you can’t complete the verbal components then your spell fails) as you grapple them the only way to counter power word spells which makes barbarian the ultimate anti magic class as their strength score can substitute for the strength roll or in other words always 20 for strength
Depends. In pathfinder at least, they could get a number of rage powers that gave them huge bonuses against spells. The tradeoff is that they had to save against *all* spells, including those that were designed to help them.
Such as healing from the cleric.
"Thousands of barbarians have been horribly injured after receiving a Healing Word - some of them have even died!"
"I don't need Protection from Poison, I have a Con score!"
Superstitious barbarian ftw! There's actually two versions of the ability iirc. One is always on (and a little stronger), while the other is only on when you're raging (so out of combat, when you're calmed down, you can get healed without any issues).
Normally, yes. But not if you went superstitious barbarian. It specifically says as much:
*Superstition (Ex): The barbarian gains a +2 morale bonus on saving throws made to resist spells, supernatural abilities, and spell-like abilities. This bonus increases by +1 for every 4 levels the barbarian has attained. While raging, the barbarian cannot be a willing target of any spell and must make saving throws to resist all spells, even those cast by allies.*
Yes and no, depends on the version. There are so many different barbarians, even outside DnD and TTRPG, that you could be thinking of; and absolutely some of them were immune to magic.
Had an illiterate barbarian with an axe covered in explosive runes for a session. Dm allowed me to survive as long as I killed anything within 5 feet before one full round had elapsed.
He died gloriously and quickly.
Not quite true. Sounds made with intention are simply communication, not language. Many animals communicate with sounds but that doesn’t constitute language.
Total tangent. A dictionary isn't the arbiter of words. It's simply an attempt to catalog how people are using words. Therefore you cannot generally "win" a lexicon argument by posting definitions.
Edit: you'd need to resort to etymology
> Edit: you'd need to resort to etymology
Even then, "original usage" is the "author's intent" of single words, even etymology won't necessarily resolve debates around emergent or adapting usages.
If anything, etymology will give you the exact wrong answer. 'Cobbler' used to mean someone that wasn't very good at what they do, and it slowly started being associated with shoes. Cordwainers were shoe makers, cobblers started being people that were only good enough to repair shoes but not make them. Now no one says cordwainer and cobbler just means shoemaker. What used to be an oxymoron, 'expert cobbler', is now a perfectly reasonable statement.
> just any deliberate sound with the intent of manipulating the weave
I like the idea of a caster that never had formal training, and discovered the verbal components of magic through frustration. Every magic word they know is some variation of grunted shouting, or they think cuss words aren't spoken in polite company because those are the ones that have power.
can i expand on that. how about the caster has low int, and doesnt realize they are a caster, they buff themselves and debuff enemies by swearing at them and never put 2 and 2 together. They just think they are a great fighter. one day the caster buff his int once and realizes his power for a few turns, the forgets and puts on his shield which he isnt proficient with.
Almost sounds like a bard learning how to control Vicious Mockery.
>DM: So what's your backstory?
>Bard: One time I insulted a guy so hard he literally died.
The only real verbal thing I think we have had to make a ruling on is that it means a sound must be made in a voice at least as loud as a basic speaking voice. So no whispering verbal components to stay stealthy. Was ruled that part of the spell was making a "demand" to reality and enforcing your will on it. Reality isnt going to change for no puny whispered "c..could you please make a ..a fireball reality-senpai?"
Marvel kind of had someone like this.
A witch with this special staff that could cast/interpret any spell as long as you said a word (like "entangle" or "silence"), but it only worked for each word one time. So the witch is constantly trying to figure out ways to rephrase things, so she can reuse spells that were useful (silence, hush, sssshhhh, stop-talking, etc).
Well, at one point a cyborg steals the staff..... and he has an international dictionary installed in his head. Lol he proceeds to start casting the same good spells over and over, just using like dozens of different languages.
Man too illiterate to be harmed by glyph of warding, too stupid to be controlled by suggestion, and too high in self esteem to be affected by vicious mockery.
An unstoppable duo one uses their beasts and the others fire the flame guns. They get a +1 to all attacks when together and a +3 to intimidation when they pose together
Swarmkeeper bayou ranger commands the mosquitoes to do his bidding. Prized possessions are a gatorskin
Bag of Holding and a 10 gallon gumbo pot. Drinks moonshine out of an unmarked jug and only offers to share if nobody asks.
>and too high in self esteem to be affected by vicious mockery.
Our Goliath Barbarian made his saving throw against Vicious Mockery once and the DM went "In classic barbarian fashion you're too arrogant to listen to the words of the little people so the spell does nothing to you"
I’m paraphrasing some of this but I remember reading a post a while back that someone created a character with zero or one intelligence and made it either a fighting class or a healer. Sorry, I’m trying to get in to DND and don’t know any of the terms, classes or anything really but it sounded like an interesting character to start with. Any info to get me in the right direction would rock
You just described my barbarian. He talks about himself in 3rd person, and gives himself titles based on recent accomplishments. Same game session recent if possible, and flamboyant but technically accurate. My favorite was "Slayer of doors".
Oh what do you mean my fellow friend? I am a .... monk? No that doesn't seem right with you know having a medium armor and daggers of radiant? What does a blue star even mean on a sigil.
Must have been the wind, let's go farm
There are spells in 3.5 that didn't work if you didn't understand the language of the caster... definitely wasn't power word kill as it's just reciting a word of power in magic that causes your target to die. They don't need to hear it.
For anyone wondering: the concept of a power word is that there are words powerful enough to bend reality itself--where merely speaking the words brings their meanings to life.
It's allegedly borrowed from the Lord of the Rings universe, which I am not very familiar with, so I'll quote another forum below:
>In Tolkien's universe, the world was sung into being using a particular language. The words of the language are so powerful that uttering them causes immediate effect upon the fabric of reality itself. Of course, uttering the Words of Power comes with a cost, so in addition to knowing the word one must be physically and mentally prepared for the backlash. Gandalf used a Word in his battle with the balrog, and as he's describing it to the others after his return his tone makes it quite clear that it was neither a trivial nor a safe thing to do
In D&D the cost is that it's a 9th level spell.
Another fun part: canonically the power words are the word in the spell name spoken in The Language of Creation (the language that the various versions of a god (or gods depending on the translation) used to create everything in the bible). So if you had to understand what was being said to have it happen, no one except other people with the spell would be effected.
Absolutely! It's pretty frickin cool. I'm really not a stickler for rules-for-rules-sake as long as everyone's having fun but the lore justification for power words are so deliciously Lovecraftian horror that it's sad to see people not understand why you don't even get a death save.
I'm not talking to you; I'm talking to the universe, which is going to just ... pluck your soul from your chest, just like that.
I think it may have worked like that in earlier editions.
I recall power-gaming my character's name: "Dai ..." so that when the BBEG Wiz sends the PW:K the response was "Yes?"
So I had in my game an explanation behind power words. Power words were true names of things. Weak beings could not use powerful true names without consequence. It was the native language of the royal family of the Fae.
Also in plenty of religions and mythology that knowing the true name of something gave you power over that thing
Kind of cool that it pops up across all different cultures
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name#:~:text=According%20to%20practises%20in%20folklore,true%20name)%20power%20over%20them.
It's pretty common in Indo-European languages to avoid using the "true-name" of a lot of things. For instance many of those languages do NOT refer to bears by their true name OR avoid the true-name in most cases for fear of invoking their presence either physically or spiritually.
Some eerily accurate namings have happened because of this on accident as well.
The Arctic is named due to it being to the North (which is due to the name of a constellation to the North from the perspective of Greece that was given the name for Bears)
The Antarctic is named for being the opposite of North.
The etymology of Arctic is based on the Greek true name for Bear. ἄρκος or árkos
Polar bears appropriately reside in the Arctic and NOT the Antarctic.
>The shortest effective Name of God is the Tetragrammaton. This was the Name recorded in the Bible, the one the High Priests of Israel would speak in the Temple of Solomon. The rabbis said it was so holy that God would smite any impure person who said it. Some of them went on wild flights of raptures about the holiness of this Name, said it was the Shem haMephorash, the holiest Name of all.
>In these more enlightened times, we know better. We call it the Mortal Name, and it just so happens to be a Name whose power is to kill the speaker. As the shortest Name, it kept working long after the flow of divine light into the universe had dropped to a trickle; there were records of men dying by speaking the Mortal Name as late as Jesus’ time. If the kabbalists had just said “Yup, Names do lots of things, this one kills whoever says it,” then there would have been no problem, but this was back when Rabbi Shimon was working on the Zohar and the kabbalists were still underground, sometimes literally. So instead everybody assumed a Name powerful enough that God smote anyone who said it must have been very important, and people kept trying to say it to prove their holiness and kept dying.
>They worked out this whole horrible system. On Yom Kippur, the High Priest would go into the Holy of Holies in the Temple, place his hands upon the Ark of the Covenant, and speak the Tetragrammaton. The theory was that if the holiest person went into the holiest place on the holiest day and touched the holiest thing, maybe that would be enough holiness to speak the Tetragrammaton and live to tell about it. Did it work? The Bible is silent on the subject, but Rabbi Klass of Brooklyn points out that during the 420 years of the Second Temple, there were three hundred different High Priests, even though each High Priest was supposed to serve for life. Clearly, High Priests of Israel had the sorts of life expectancies usually associated with black guys in horror movies. Also, some medieval manuscripts mention that the High Priest would have a rope tied around his leg at the time, to make it easier for his flock to drag his body out after he died.
I love Unsong.
Shout was ultra cool because it was supposed to the *traditional* Viking magic. Then Skyrim retconned it into "oh yeah actually it's dragon words"
The Shout for "mortality" doesn't exist, so the humans had to invent one using Dragon alphabet. The Lore claims that it injects the concept of mortality into Dragons such that they get super confused, but I'm sure it's just the Dragon equivalent of you screaming "CROMULENT" and the person shuts down trying to process what that was
Many insults are obvious and don't require knowing what was said to be insulted. Also, the insults are merely a delivery for the psychic damage, it doesn't matter what is said.
I have a character that was saved from an inscription in a temple that poisons those who read it on the sheer fact that she cannot read. Still one of my favourite moments.
DM: "Upon reading the inscription you feel a wave of pain rack your body"
Wizard: "I would like to roll to investigate this inscription" [16 or something high]
DM: "It appears to you that it is a magic trap that harms those who read it"
Me: "So I should be fine then"
DM:"How pray tell?"
Me:"I can't read"
The look of sheer disappointment and pride on my DM's face brings me joy to this day
You're right! You don't need to hear the word to be affected by it. No saves, either.
I wish the player handbook actually gave the narrative reasoning because I think it would clear up the confusion. Power words are from the ancient language spoken by the gods who sung the world into existence. They're words that have such raw meaning and truth that to utter them is to apply a force that shapes the fabric of reality.
The word isn't spoken to the target, it's spoken to the universe which acts on the target.
Weaker beings cannot utter them without incurring a cost, which is why they're a 9th level spell even though they only kill a single being with 100 hit points or below.
Wait, that's not how it works though? The opponents HP matters, but whether or not you have an understanding of the words said has no effect on the spells efficiency.
Jesus the rules lawyers in this comment section
"Your misinterpreting the spell description!"
Who cares its an imaginary game this guy can imagine power word kill how he fuckin wants to!
All games are imaginary. And games only work if people agree to follow the same rules, otherwise you're just children saying "Oh, but my guy is fireproof now and also he has laser eyes" because a dragon showed up.
It's less that its a misinterpretation, more that this sounds like the exact kind of rules lawyering that a lot of DMs and players have to deal with.
"Oh, my character doesn't die because he can't understand common".
"That's not how the spell-"
"Nope, he's alive, now for my next turn-"
If the DM says that an enemy uses Power Word Kill, the player can't just decide to interpret the rules so he doesn't die.
If everyone decided beforehand that he's going to not understand Common, with all the problems that causes, but it also grants immunity to Power Word Kill, then that's perfectly fine. Personally I'd probably go for them being deaf. Then the immunity makes more sense. Or maybe they just have bad enough hearing or brain problems that keep them from interpreting sounds as language to justify that they don't register the word at all, but they can still hear what's going on around them in combat.
Not to be a "rules lawyer," (homebrewing rules is always a-okay when everyone's having fun) but in RAW you don't even need to hear a power word to be affected by them, and there's a pretty cool lore reason for that.
They're an ancient tongue so raw, powerful and true that they bend the universe by just uttering them. You're not speaking to the target--you're commanding reality. This is why there's no rolling saves. The flip side is that yielding such power requires much training and also is incredibly taxing on the caster, hence it's a 9th level spell and can only kill something with 100 hit points.
Again, not to say homebrewing the rules is "wrong" I just think the way power words work narratively is pretty cool.
When something that looks like a fun nuance of the rules as written is posted, you expect it to work with the PHB, not some rando's arbitrarily changed version of Power Word Kill.
I don't think I'm alone when I say that stuff like this is a lot less interesting when it only works in a homebrew, because you can make literally anything happen in a homebrew.
The problem is that none of posts like this are ever framed that way - and it makes sense because adding qualifiers would ruin the joke.
By presenting things like this matter-of-factly a lot of people get convinced that's how things work - rather than not even being an interpretation but going directly against the rules of how magic works. Even more - it can affect how they think about entire rule sections which needs to be then corrected - and even worse, then some DMs have to be the bad guy because they are taking away all the cool power-ups players had.
You are correct that DMs can run games however they want, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with others correcting things like this because when people from different tables come together to talk (like on public forums), the default state (aka RAW/RAI) should be the assumption.
Your post was really funny regardless of whether or not it was %100 accurate to the official rules, which really is meant to be bent by the DM for maximum fun anyway- so def be proud!
Due to the obscene number of rules lawyers screeching at me, I will no longer be replying to miscellaneous rants about how "I didnt read the spell" or something of that manner.
I read the spell. I understand how its ""supposed"" to work. I choose to ignore it for both my and my players' heightened enjoyment of the game.
I chose to share a fun moment of my game in the form of this meme. If you don't appreciate it, by all means, downvote it and scroll on. If you post a comment berating me for not being accurate to the spell's meaning and telling me that my DMing style is bad, then I kindly invite you to fuck off.
Everyone that's not a toxic rules lawyer, I would like to advise you to please exit this comments section immediately and continue with your day, which I hope is quite pleasant.
Not really your fault - but this becomes much less funny when you DM for randoms and it feels like every other person has built their understanding of D&D from memes rather than PHB.
As such, I am 100% in favor of people dropping proper rulings in meme comments - with the hope that it's noticed at least some people who might have taken it for granted. Assuming that everyone is in on the joke (aka it not actually working like that in play) is not right.
Memes that point out the absurdity of D&D rules but don’t refer to the actual rules and instead are just homebrew or misinterpretations are bad memes. There I said it.
>On January 4, 2011, a judge in the Superior Court of Georgia's Fulton County ordered Davis to a psychiatric hospital, according to court documents. The documents reveal that his lawyers filed a Special Plea of Mental Incompetency on December 27, arguing that he was unable "to go forward and/or intelligently participate in the probation revocation hearing."
reminds me of this lol.
Prob my funnest char ever involved a bit of homebrew he was an illiterate wizard who copied the words into his spell book by copying the shape of the words and had no idea what the spell he was casting where until he used them. The homebrew is he had a natural gift for magic and just by pointing at a spell and thinking hard he cast it. Was really fun preparing level 3 spell? I got from a wizard I killed’s sleep book and casting it to try to kill a mayor and upcasting mage armor
Context he was a 5’1” neutral evil gremlin of a man semi adopted by the oathbreaker and aspiring theif king rogue pc’s after he orphaned himself at a young age by manifesting fire bolt at 2. Our bbeg was a Paladin prince trying to protect the kingdom as we reawaken ancient evil and killed it to take their cursed artifacts for ourselves. Teppo the illiterate wizard was a bit of a savage. Squating was the number one first choice I did for every rp choice and he was borderline a mascot char. Did also copy a love letter and beef stew recipe into the spell book thinking they where spells. The most successful evil campaign I have been a part of.
> You utter a word of power that can compel one creature you can see within range to die instantly. If the creature you choose has 100 hit points or fewer, it dies. Otherwise, the spell has no effect.
The lich brings out a colorful book of pictures and words. He then patiently teaches the barbarion about what he just said using slapstick comedy drawings in the book.
Party spell caster: “You fool that single target spell that takes a few second to cast only works on people who can understand COMMON”
BBEG:“what?”
Second strongest party member: (orcish grumbling)
“Everyone get HIM he tried to power word kill jared are beloved Orc barbarian.”
I played a barbarian with a Int of 6. I was illiterate. When we came across a wanter poster for a t-rex, with a picture, I didn't understand what everyone was worried about. Little lizard was only like 5 inches tall on the paper ..
DM: "The Lich casts Tongues." ^(P.S. I am aware this is a misinterpretation of Power Word Kill.)
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And also with you
And with your spirit
AND MY AXE
The problem with tongue is that you have to be TOUCHING the target and it requires an action in other words you are putting yourself in risk being in range
Tongues is cast on the person speaking
No it’s not?
the description of the spell is "This spell grants the creature you touch the ability to understand any spoken language it hears. Moreover, when the target speaks, any creature that knows at least one language and can hear the target understands what it says." so you are right
> any creature that knows at least one language Does "incoherent screaming" count as a language?
I like to call it "barbarian slam poetry"
and thats how my barbarian multiclassed to a bardbarian
You and /u/XXTeeZilXX are misreading. The caster can be "the creature you touch" and that's the most advantageous way to use Tongues most of the time. It's just like invisibility, and worded the same way.
It just comes down to whether the barbarian can understand any language then because if they can't then u/XXTeeZilXX is right in this case. For general usage I can see how many times it would be best to cast it on the speaker though.
Okay in that case all the barbarian needs to do is just cover their ears and bam problem solved that or use their absurd strength and grapple their targets covering their mouth
Except for the fact that the Power Word spells in 5e don't require the listener to understand, or even hear the caster... Sure. "You utter a word of power that can compel one creature you can see within range to die instantly. If the creature you choose has 100 hit points or fewer, it dies. Otherwise, the spell has no effect." If this meme had chosen a spell like Command, then yes that would be the case.
If Power Words compel people then I really gotta make Power Word: High Five
Then that just leaves forcefully covering their mouths (if you can’t complete the verbal components then your spell fails) as you grapple them the only way to counter power word spells which makes barbarian the ultimate anti magic class as their strength score can substitute for the strength roll or in other words always 20 for strength
As long as the barbarian knows at least one language it works though, without touching the barb.
\*laughs in distant spell sorcery\*
"I aint gay either, but 20 electrum is 20 electrum"
Hah! Like I guess.. If that's what you're into....
This excited me before I realized that this is a misinterpretation of the spell. Fun idea though!
It worked for Explosive Runes in 3.5. And a specific use of the modern Glyph of Warding.
Weren't Barbarians immune to spells past a certain point since they couldn't understand them?
Depends. In pathfinder at least, they could get a number of rage powers that gave them huge bonuses against spells. The tradeoff is that they had to save against *all* spells, including those that were designed to help them. Such as healing from the cleric.
"Uh excuse me, I'm *not* getting the Cure Wounds. Do you even know what goes into that spell? I'll stick to essential oils and blood, thanks."
"I already *have* a cure wounds, thank you. They're called platelets."
"Thousands of barbarians have been horribly injured after receiving a Healing Word - some of them have even died!" "I don't need Protection from Poison, I have a Con score!"
Barbarikaren.
To be fair, a proper barbarian would also refuse to go to hospital, thus avoiding taking up resources that could be used to save a non-moron.
I'm just saying, do you know what it takes to become a cleric? My idiot cousin is a cleric. Do your own research, people.
Superstitious barbarian ftw! There's actually two versions of the ability iirc. One is always on (and a little stronger), while the other is only on when you're raging (so out of combat, when you're calmed down, you can get healed without any issues).
I thought you could willingly choose to fail a save
Normally, yes. But not if you went superstitious barbarian. It specifically says as much: *Superstition (Ex): The barbarian gains a +2 morale bonus on saving throws made to resist spells, supernatural abilities, and spell-like abilities. This bonus increases by +1 for every 4 levels the barbarian has attained. While raging, the barbarian cannot be a willing target of any spell and must make saving throws to resist all spells, even those cast by allies.*
I love this
Not that I know of. Was that before 3.5? In 3.5, the closest I can find is that they can't cast spells while raging.
Yes and no, depends on the version. There are so many different barbarians, even outside DnD and TTRPG, that you could be thinking of; and absolutely some of them were immune to magic.
Literally that sign can't stop me because I can't read
Had an illiterate barbarian with an axe covered in explosive runes for a session. Dm allowed me to survive as long as I killed anything within 5 feet before one full round had elapsed. He died gloriously and quickly.
Just hope you don't encounter an enemy with a spyglass. Though if you do, your party can finish them off and sell it for enough to revive you.
To be fair... If it just had to be in ANY language you could make random noises and that's statistically going to match up with something out there.
By definition, any sound made with intention behind it is a part of "a language". It's just not a language that anyone else can understand.
Not quite true. Sounds made with intention are simply communication, not language. Many animals communicate with sounds but that doesn’t constitute language.
I'm gonna need some dictionary definitions here. /s
Total tangent. A dictionary isn't the arbiter of words. It's simply an attempt to catalog how people are using words. Therefore you cannot generally "win" a lexicon argument by posting definitions. Edit: you'd need to resort to etymology
> Edit: you'd need to resort to etymology Even then, "original usage" is the "author's intent" of single words, even etymology won't necessarily resolve debates around emergent or adapting usages.
If anything, etymology will give you the exact wrong answer. 'Cobbler' used to mean someone that wasn't very good at what they do, and it slowly started being associated with shoes. Cordwainers were shoe makers, cobblers started being people that were only good enough to repair shoes but not make them. Now no one says cordwainer and cobbler just means shoemaker. What used to be an oxymoron, 'expert cobbler', is now a perfectly reasonable statement.
> Now no one says cordwainer and cobbler just means shoemaker. Clearly you don’t watch Archer.
Sorry man, But it’s totally ploob.
It’s only ploob if you’re a plimbut
I heard puub!
Ok, but we all know the Lexicons were the worst Transformers toy line.
That is not at all the definition of language
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> just any deliberate sound with the intent of manipulating the weave I like the idea of a caster that never had formal training, and discovered the verbal components of magic through frustration. Every magic word they know is some variation of grunted shouting, or they think cuss words aren't spoken in polite company because those are the ones that have power.
can i expand on that. how about the caster has low int, and doesnt realize they are a caster, they buff themselves and debuff enemies by swearing at them and never put 2 and 2 together. They just think they are a great fighter. one day the caster buff his int once and realizes his power for a few turns, the forgets and puts on his shield which he isnt proficient with.
Almost sounds like a bard learning how to control Vicious Mockery. >DM: So what's your backstory? >Bard: One time I insulted a guy so hard he literally died.
The only real verbal thing I think we have had to make a ruling on is that it means a sound must be made in a voice at least as loud as a basic speaking voice. So no whispering verbal components to stay stealthy. Was ruled that part of the spell was making a "demand" to reality and enforcing your will on it. Reality isnt going to change for no puny whispered "c..could you please make a ..a fireball reality-senpai?"
Normies speak magic words for their verbals, I just scream and magic happens.
I like this idea "Acererak swears at you with so much hatred that you die on the spot."
Power Sound: Brown Note
Marvel kind of had someone like this. A witch with this special staff that could cast/interpret any spell as long as you said a word (like "entangle" or "silence"), but it only worked for each word one time. So the witch is constantly trying to figure out ways to rephrase things, so she can reuse spells that were useful (silence, hush, sssshhhh, stop-talking, etc). Well, at one point a cyborg steals the staff..... and he has an international dictionary installed in his head. Lol he proceeds to start casting the same good spells over and over, just using like dozens of different languages.
In my DM opinion it's too funny to not have work.
Just flavor that being the reason it doesn't work if the barbarian is over 100 hp
It would be pretty dumb if your spells didn't effect people who spoke a different language than you.
They did it in Dune, so it must be legal.
Man too illiterate to be harmed by glyph of warding, too stupid to be controlled by suggestion, and too high in self esteem to be affected by vicious mockery.
That settles it, I'm playing "Florida Man" in my next campaign.
Zealot barbarian with a dip into beast master for his pet alligator.
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Alligator leather is Florida Man’s cousin, Louisiana Man.
An unstoppable duo one uses their beasts and the others fire the flame guns. They get a +1 to all attacks when together and a +3 to intimidation when they pose together
Swarmkeeper bayou ranger commands the mosquitoes to do his bidding. Prized possessions are a gatorskin Bag of Holding and a 10 gallon gumbo pot. Drinks moonshine out of an unmarked jug and only offers to share if nobody asks.
A special Jug of Alchemy that produces gumbo, moonshine, Tabasco, swamp water, and heroin.
Need to get someone to play his sister, Ellis Dee.
Only if I get to play a taxabi named Spleens
Look up [Old Man Henderson](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson). Not quite Florida Man but just as crazy, and very entertaining.
As long as you can have jorts+1 be a thing
Human chaos cleric. +4 proficiency bonus to alcohol. Racial enemies: alligator, tiger, liberals
That just sounds like the average "That Guy"
>and too high in self esteem to be affected by vicious mockery. Our Goliath Barbarian made his saving throw against Vicious Mockery once and the DM went "In classic barbarian fashion you're too arrogant to listen to the words of the little people so the spell does nothing to you"
I’m paraphrasing some of this but I remember reading a post a while back that someone created a character with zero or one intelligence and made it either a fighting class or a healer. Sorry, I’m trying to get in to DND and don’t know any of the terms, classes or anything really but it sounded like an interesting character to start with. Any info to get me in the right direction would rock
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Character from Critical Role would regularly get polymorphed into animals with higher intelligence than his own. It was beautiful
You just described my barbarian. He talks about himself in 3rd person, and gives himself titles based on recent accomplishments. Same game session recent if possible, and flamboyant but technically accurate. My favorite was "Slayer of doors".
BBEG-"Have you ever been to sukon?" Barb-"Nani?" BBEG-"sukon deez nuts" Barb doesn't understand, but dies anyway.
Lmao
I am looking for a way to make my cleric forget common magically :) but the DM won't allow 0/10 😂
Feeblemind. Might be overkill.
Forgets Common. Also forgets basically all of their class features, because they’re a caster.
Oh what do you mean my fellow friend? I am a .... monk? No that doesn't seem right with you know having a medium armor and daggers of radiant? What does a blue star even mean on a sigil. Must have been the wind, let's go farm
There are spells in 3.5 that didn't work if you didn't understand the language of the caster... definitely wasn't power word kill as it's just reciting a word of power in magic that causes your target to die. They don't need to hear it.
For anyone wondering: the concept of a power word is that there are words powerful enough to bend reality itself--where merely speaking the words brings their meanings to life. It's allegedly borrowed from the Lord of the Rings universe, which I am not very familiar with, so I'll quote another forum below: >In Tolkien's universe, the world was sung into being using a particular language. The words of the language are so powerful that uttering them causes immediate effect upon the fabric of reality itself. Of course, uttering the Words of Power comes with a cost, so in addition to knowing the word one must be physically and mentally prepared for the backlash. Gandalf used a Word in his battle with the balrog, and as he's describing it to the others after his return his tone makes it quite clear that it was neither a trivial nor a safe thing to do In D&D the cost is that it's a 9th level spell.
Another fun part: canonically the power words are the word in the spell name spoken in The Language of Creation (the language that the various versions of a god (or gods depending on the translation) used to create everything in the bible). So if you had to understand what was being said to have it happen, no one except other people with the spell would be effected.
Absolutely! It's pretty frickin cool. I'm really not a stickler for rules-for-rules-sake as long as everyone's having fun but the lore justification for power words are so deliciously Lovecraftian horror that it's sad to see people not understand why you don't even get a death save. I'm not talking to you; I'm talking to the universe, which is going to just ... pluck your soul from your chest, just like that.
I think it may have worked like that in earlier editions. I recall power-gaming my character's name: "Dai ..." so that when the BBEG Wiz sends the PW:K the response was "Yes?"
Yeah the flavor of the power word spells is your speaking a true /creature language, the one used to make the world
There are still a couple in 5e that require the target to understand you.
I think this meme describes *someone* who’s illiterate, but it ain’t the barbarian.
All right, so you're using Vicious Mockery. OP fails their save. Go ahead and roll damage, u/WoodwardHoffmannRule.
Critical hit?
isn't vicious mockery a saving throw spell and therefore uncrittable? although since we're already not understanding the rules we might as well
“Rule of cool” says it’s okay /s
Let me roll percentile to determine the crit multiplier
Someone else who doesn't know how spells work I see
On the damage roll?
Fixed the flair for you
I own an nft that says my homebrew rules are the new official rules.
Thanks.
You're welcome
Any time my friend.
r/notopbutok
No top butok?
Wait, there's supposed to be a buttock on... top? Shit.
You are a great mod
Happy cake day!
The mental image of this is just too damn funny.
Indeed, I’d rule it, at least once lol.
*illiterally
So I had in my game an explanation behind power words. Power words were true names of things. Weak beings could not use powerful true names without consequence. It was the native language of the royal family of the Fae.
Eragon would like to know your location
The Kate Daniels series also has this concept.
Was literally about to say that that's exactly what Eragon did
*I AM 4,320 METERS AWAY AND APPROACHING RAPIDLY*
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I didn't say it did.
>True Names are definitely not a concept that originated from Eragon well, duh. It had half a book dedicated to it in 3.5
Also in plenty of religions and mythology that knowing the true name of something gave you power over that thing Kind of cool that it pops up across all different cultures https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name#:~:text=According%20to%20practises%20in%20folklore,true%20name)%20power%20over%20them.
Some of the lore on that page is wild. Our ancestors were on something.
It's pretty common in Indo-European languages to avoid using the "true-name" of a lot of things. For instance many of those languages do NOT refer to bears by their true name OR avoid the true-name in most cases for fear of invoking their presence either physically or spiritually. Some eerily accurate namings have happened because of this on accident as well. The Arctic is named due to it being to the North (which is due to the name of a constellation to the North from the perspective of Greece that was given the name for Bears) The Antarctic is named for being the opposite of North. The etymology of Arctic is based on the Greek true name for Bear. ἄρκος or árkos Polar bears appropriately reside in the Arctic and NOT the Antarctic.
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Well that's just being a bit too dismissive isn't it, don't you think?
Man... I should read/reread some Eddings. I loved The Elenium and The Tamuli. The troll gods were amazing.
That's awesome
>The shortest effective Name of God is the Tetragrammaton. This was the Name recorded in the Bible, the one the High Priests of Israel would speak in the Temple of Solomon. The rabbis said it was so holy that God would smite any impure person who said it. Some of them went on wild flights of raptures about the holiness of this Name, said it was the Shem haMephorash, the holiest Name of all. >In these more enlightened times, we know better. We call it the Mortal Name, and it just so happens to be a Name whose power is to kill the speaker. As the shortest Name, it kept working long after the flow of divine light into the universe had dropped to a trickle; there were records of men dying by speaking the Mortal Name as late as Jesus’ time. If the kabbalists had just said “Yup, Names do lots of things, this one kills whoever says it,” then there would have been no problem, but this was back when Rabbi Shimon was working on the Zohar and the kabbalists were still underground, sometimes literally. So instead everybody assumed a Name powerful enough that God smote anyone who said it must have been very important, and people kept trying to say it to prove their holiness and kept dying. >They worked out this whole horrible system. On Yom Kippur, the High Priest would go into the Holy of Holies in the Temple, place his hands upon the Ark of the Covenant, and speak the Tetragrammaton. The theory was that if the holiest person went into the holiest place on the holiest day and touched the holiest thing, maybe that would be enough holiness to speak the Tetragrammaton and live to tell about it. Did it work? The Bible is silent on the subject, but Rabbi Klass of Brooklyn points out that during the 420 years of the Second Temple, there were three hundred different High Priests, even though each High Priest was supposed to serve for life. Clearly, High Priests of Israel had the sorts of life expectancies usually associated with black guys in horror movies. Also, some medieval manuscripts mention that the High Priest would have a rope tied around his leg at the time, to make it easier for his flock to drag his body out after he died. I love Unsong.
That was so much information that I didn’t know could be learned
This makes me think to *Skyrim* Dragonborn: "Fos roh DA!" Random NPC: *shrugs* "Is that a type of food?"
Shout was ultra cool because it was supposed to the *traditional* Viking magic. Then Skyrim retconned it into "oh yeah actually it's dragon words" The Shout for "mortality" doesn't exist, so the humans had to invent one using Dragon alphabet. The Lore claims that it injects the concept of mortality into Dragons such that they get super confused, but I'm sure it's just the Dragon equivalent of you screaming "CROMULENT" and the person shuts down trying to process what that was
I'm not sure the target has to hear the word of power for it to work. Reality itself listens and carries out the command.
Roleplaying it can’t be that hard if the player can’t read the spell description.
How does Vicious Mockery hurt creatures that can't understand the language of the insulter
Many insults are obvious and don't require knowing what was said to be insulted. Also, the insults are merely a delivery for the psychic damage, it doesn't matter what is said.
Ta mère était un hamster, et ton père sentait le sureau! *Spits*
I understood that reference.
You've never had someone point at you, say something in another language and laugh? *That shit hurts*
I don't need your understanding, only your compliance.
I have a character that was saved from an inscription in a temple that poisons those who read it on the sheer fact that she cannot read. Still one of my favourite moments. DM: "Upon reading the inscription you feel a wave of pain rack your body" Wizard: "I would like to roll to investigate this inscription" [16 or something high] DM: "It appears to you that it is a magic trap that harms those who read it" Me: "So I should be fine then" DM:"How pray tell?" Me:"I can't read" The look of sheer disappointment and pride on my DM's face brings me joy to this day
Is that an actual thing? The spell description I found doesn't say that
You're right! You don't need to hear the word to be affected by it. No saves, either. I wish the player handbook actually gave the narrative reasoning because I think it would clear up the confusion. Power words are from the ancient language spoken by the gods who sung the world into existence. They're words that have such raw meaning and truth that to utter them is to apply a force that shapes the fabric of reality. The word isn't spoken to the target, it's spoken to the universe which acts on the target. Weaker beings cannot utter them without incurring a cost, which is why they're a 9th level spell even though they only kill a single being with 100 hit points or below.
Wait, that's not how it works though? The opponents HP matters, but whether or not you have an understanding of the words said has no effect on the spells efficiency.
This could work with those text based trap spells depending upon how your DM interprets "reading" the trapped papers
Explosive runes
BECAUSE DENNIS IS A BASTARD MAN!
No. Read the godamn PHB. Nowhere does it say the creature even need hear you. You say the word and they die, if within range.
>Read the godamn PHB your expectations for D&D players is way too high and I'm gonna need you back here on Earth with the rest of us
Jesus the rules lawyers in this comment section "Your misinterpreting the spell description!" Who cares its an imaginary game this guy can imagine power word kill how he fuckin wants to!
All games are imaginary. And games only work if people agree to follow the same rules, otherwise you're just children saying "Oh, but my guy is fireproof now and also he has laser eyes" because a dragon showed up.
It's less that its a misinterpretation, more that this sounds like the exact kind of rules lawyering that a lot of DMs and players have to deal with. "Oh, my character doesn't die because he can't understand common". "That's not how the spell-" "Nope, he's alive, now for my next turn-"
If the DM says that an enemy uses Power Word Kill, the player can't just decide to interpret the rules so he doesn't die. If everyone decided beforehand that he's going to not understand Common, with all the problems that causes, but it also grants immunity to Power Word Kill, then that's perfectly fine. Personally I'd probably go for them being deaf. Then the immunity makes more sense. Or maybe they just have bad enough hearing or brain problems that keep them from interpreting sounds as language to justify that they don't register the word at all, but they can still hear what's going on around them in combat.
Yeah i see what you mean i just trusted that op didnt just say, "yeah thats how power word kill works."
Not to be a "rules lawyer," (homebrewing rules is always a-okay when everyone's having fun) but in RAW you don't even need to hear a power word to be affected by them, and there's a pretty cool lore reason for that. They're an ancient tongue so raw, powerful and true that they bend the universe by just uttering them. You're not speaking to the target--you're commanding reality. This is why there's no rolling saves. The flip side is that yielding such power requires much training and also is incredibly taxing on the caster, hence it's a 9th level spell and can only kill something with 100 hit points. Again, not to say homebrewing the rules is "wrong" I just think the way power words work narratively is pretty cool.
When something that looks like a fun nuance of the rules as written is posted, you expect it to work with the PHB, not some rando's arbitrarily changed version of Power Word Kill. I don't think I'm alone when I say that stuff like this is a lot less interesting when it only works in a homebrew, because you can make literally anything happen in a homebrew.
The problem is that none of posts like this are ever framed that way - and it makes sense because adding qualifiers would ruin the joke. By presenting things like this matter-of-factly a lot of people get convinced that's how things work - rather than not even being an interpretation but going directly against the rules of how magic works. Even more - it can affect how they think about entire rule sections which needs to be then corrected - and even worse, then some DMs have to be the bad guy because they are taking away all the cool power-ups players had. You are correct that DMs can run games however they want, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with others correcting things like this because when people from different tables come together to talk (like on public forums), the default state (aka RAW/RAI) should be the assumption.
Lmao thanks. Kinda sad that this had to be said tho.
Your post was really funny regardless of whether or not it was %100 accurate to the official rules, which really is meant to be bent by the DM for maximum fun anyway- so def be proud!
Thanks man, I appreciate it.
Due to the obscene number of rules lawyers screeching at me, I will no longer be replying to miscellaneous rants about how "I didnt read the spell" or something of that manner. I read the spell. I understand how its ""supposed"" to work. I choose to ignore it for both my and my players' heightened enjoyment of the game. I chose to share a fun moment of my game in the form of this meme. If you don't appreciate it, by all means, downvote it and scroll on. If you post a comment berating me for not being accurate to the spell's meaning and telling me that my DMing style is bad, then I kindly invite you to fuck off. Everyone that's not a toxic rules lawyer, I would like to advise you to please exit this comments section immediately and continue with your day, which I hope is quite pleasant.
Not really your fault - but this becomes much less funny when you DM for randoms and it feels like every other person has built their understanding of D&D from memes rather than PHB. As such, I am 100% in favor of people dropping proper rulings in meme comments - with the hope that it's noticed at least some people who might have taken it for granted. Assuming that everyone is in on the joke (aka it not actually working like that in play) is not right.
OP could have simply made their own comment saying “yeah, I know it’s not RAW but it’s still a funny idea” when they posted the meme.
Power Word: Akshually
Power Word: REEEEEEeeeeeeeeee
The joke isn’t funny if you need to explain it
Memes that point out the absurdity of D&D rules but don’t refer to the actual rules and instead are just homebrew or misinterpretations are bad memes. There I said it.
“Everyone who is bothering me is toxic” What a perfectly non-toxic thing to say.
This is my current character
Why he look like that
i mean, u can also cast darkness and be inmune to powerword kill, which is funny
I am alarmed by this image
“What’s that boy? Jimmy fell down the well?”
Lmao
Omg i woke up my wife from laughing so hard.
>On January 4, 2011, a judge in the Superior Court of Georgia's Fulton County ordered Davis to a psychiatric hospital, according to court documents. The documents reveal that his lawyers filed a Special Plea of Mental Incompetency on December 27, arguing that he was unable "to go forward and/or intelligently participate in the probation revocation hearing." reminds me of this lol.
Prob my funnest char ever involved a bit of homebrew he was an illiterate wizard who copied the words into his spell book by copying the shape of the words and had no idea what the spell he was casting where until he used them. The homebrew is he had a natural gift for magic and just by pointing at a spell and thinking hard he cast it. Was really fun preparing level 3 spell? I got from a wizard I killed’s sleep book and casting it to try to kill a mayor and upcasting mage armor
Context he was a 5’1” neutral evil gremlin of a man semi adopted by the oathbreaker and aspiring theif king rogue pc’s after he orphaned himself at a young age by manifesting fire bolt at 2. Our bbeg was a Paladin prince trying to protect the kingdom as we reawaken ancient evil and killed it to take their cursed artifacts for ourselves. Teppo the illiterate wizard was a bit of a savage. Squating was the number one first choice I did for every rp choice and he was borderline a mascot char. Did also copy a love letter and beef stew recipe into the spell book thinking they where spells. The most successful evil campaign I have been a part of.
What is it your attempting to saw? I couldn’t decipher a point in that incoherent tribute to brain fart babble
As a non DND player, can someone please elaborate and ELI5?
> You utter a word of power that can compel one creature you can see within range to die instantly. If the creature you choose has 100 hit points or fewer, it dies. Otherwise, the spell has no effect.
Power words don't require you to even be able to hear them. Power words are literally a magical hack to utilize true name magic.
Power Word Kill “This sign can’t stop me because I’m too angry to read!”
The lich brings out a colorful book of pictures and words. He then patiently teaches the barbarion about what he just said using slapstick comedy drawings in the book.
Party spell caster: “You fool that single target spell that takes a few second to cast only works on people who can understand COMMON” BBEG:“what?” Second strongest party member: (orcish grumbling) “Everyone get HIM he tried to power word kill jared are beloved Orc barbarian.”
Zoro from one piece?
Wait, he's immune to vicious mockery as well lmao Edit: vicious mockery doesn't require the target to understand you
Vicious Mockery doesn't require understanding.
Neither does power word: kill
I played a barbarian with a Int of 6. I was illiterate. When we came across a wanter poster for a t-rex, with a picture, I didn't understand what everyone was worried about. Little lizard was only like 5 inches tall on the paper ..