Magic Missile. How have you and how do you roll the damage.

Rya.Reisender · Oct 8, 2018

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION]
Well, I certainly would require my DM to follow Sage Advice. But I also haven't played D&D before 5e. I'm not sure if Sage Advice even existed before 5e.

At the very least in old times where not everybody had internet, it makes a lot more sense that you made your own rulings without consulting any "rules guy". Even 10 years ago, most people already had internet, but not everyone had a smartphone to look everything up on the fly, so even then it was still better to just make a ruling on the fly. So yeah, I guess it's reasonable that this is just a modern trend, mainly because it's easily possible to follow RAI now, while it used to be tedious before.

Ristamar · Oct 8, 2018

Rya.Reisender said:
[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION]
Well, I certainly would require my DM to follow Sage Advice. But I also haven't played D&D before 5e. I'm not sure if Sage Advice even existed before 5e.

At the very least in old times where not everybody had internet, it makes a lot more sense that you made your own rulings without consulting any "rules guy". Even 10 years ago, most people already had internet, but not everyone had a smartphone to look everything up on the fly, so even then it was still better to just make a ruling on the fly. So yeah, I guess it's reasonable that this is just a modern trend, mainly because it's easily possible to follow RAI now, while it used to be tedious before.

It's a modern trend due to the reach of social media platforms. The previous editions' sources of errata, rulings, and clarifications were mostly tucked away in a dark corner of the WotC website. Now the "Sage" and other designers are easily reachable on Twitter, and it's easy to find posts and discussions in massive communities (like Reddit) that link back to an official source.

Also, huge props to the guy who continues to compile stuff on the unofficial Sage Advice page. It's usually my first stop when I have a rules question.

delericho · Oct 8, 2018

Rya.Reisender said:
[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION]
Well, I certainly would require my DM to follow Sage Advice. But I also haven't played D&D before 5e. I'm not sure if Sage Advice even existed before 5e.

Sage Advice started in Dragon magazine decades ago in 1st Ed AD&D days (1987, to be precise). It was initially penned by Skip Williams, who held the role right through 2nd edition and part of 3e, before passing it to Andy Collins. And now it's Jeremy Crawford.

However, it is true what I said in my first post in this thread: Sage Advice has a long and glorious history of getting things wrong. Not everything, of course. But often enough that the very best advice that it can give is that the DM should make up his own mind. (And I should note that the current Sage does indeed give that advice.)

As for requiring your DM to follow Sage Advice: that's your prerogative. But it's probably worth bearing in mind that that is neither RAW nor RAI - one of the tenets of 5e is that it is for the DM to make his own rulings.

cbwjm · Oct 8, 2018

Caliban said:
Sure, that's entirely possible. But, like me, you don't really know for sure.

Send Crawford a tweet. Maybe he'll answer you.

I decided to see if I could find anything more on Crawford's ruling and found a 2016 tweet that I hadn't seen before. I guess even Crawford isn't too fussed on which method to use so really, much like any houserules, find out which method is used when you join a table.

"Magic missile. RAW: You roll 1 damage die (see "Damage Rolls," PH, 196). RAI: It doesn't matter; you choose."

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/10/17/magic-missile-do-you-roll-the-same-d4-for-all-darts/

cbwjm · Oct 8, 2018

Rya.Reisender said:
[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION]
Well, I certainly would require my DM to follow Sage Advice. But I also haven't played D&D before 5e. I'm not sure if Sage Advice even existed before 5e.

At the very least in old times where not everybody had internet, it makes a lot more sense that you made your own rulings without consulting any "rules guy". Even 10 years ago, most people already had internet, but not everyone had a smartphone to look everything up on the fly, so even then it was still better to just make a ruling on the fly. So yeah, I guess it's reasonable that this is just a modern trend, mainly because it's easily possible to follow RAI now, while it used to be tedious before.

Sage Advice definitely existed before 5e and people likely were disagreeing over Sage Advice rulings they read in Dragon magazine, they just didn't have the internet as a handy platform to voice that disagreement.

S'mon · Oct 8, 2018

Rya.Reisender said:
[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION]
Well, I certainly would require my DM to follow Sage Advice. But I also haven't played D&D before 5e. I'm not sure if Sage Advice even existed before 5e.

It was a 1e AD&D (& on) article series in Dragon Magazine. Not sure if they had it in the pre-1e era.

oreofox · Oct 9, 2018

I don't follow Sage Advice. I never have, and doubt I ever will. I do read it from time to time. I don't care what others do for rule interpretations. I don't play nor run Adventurer's League, though if I did I would probably go with whatever Sage Advice says. Though, as shown with Shield Master (I think it was), Sage Advice isn't always consistent with itself. If a DM ran it using SA, I would have no problem playing under them. If they didn't run it using SA, I would have no problem playing under that DM. I rule what is more fun for the players, and I am pretty sure rolling 1d4+1 5 times, whether it hit one enemy or 5, would be more satisfying than a single 1d4+1 and multiply it by 1. Not fun rolling a 1 and dealing 2 damage 5+ times.

Rya.Reisender · Oct 9, 2018

delericho said:
As for requiring your DM to follow Sage Advice: that's your prerogative. But it's probably worth bearing in mind that that is neither RAW nor RAI - one of the tenets of 5e is that it is for the DM to make his own rulings.

I think the conclusion is incorrect. Sage Advice is RAW/RAI. It's Jeremy explaining how he meant the rule he wrote to be interpreted.

At the same time Jeremy of course also said multiple times that the DM is free to rule otherwise. But not following Sage Advice is still house ruling. Whether house ruling is good or bad is a matter of taste. But not liking a clarification of how a rule was intended to interpreted is not making that clarification "wrong".

I found several of Jeremy's replies surprising myself (like this very reply on the handling of magic missile), but whenever I re-read the rules after that, I always came to the conclusion that it actually can be read that way.

delericho · Oct 9, 2018

Rya.Reisender said:
I think the conclusion is incorrect. Sage Advice is RAW/RAI. It's Jeremy explaining how he meant the rule he wrote to be interpreted.

Perhaps I should clarify what I meant: requiring your DM to follow Sage Advice is not RAW/RAI.

5ekyu · Oct 9, 2018

Rya.Reisender said:
I think the conclusion is incorrect. Sage Advice is RAW/RAI. It's Jeremy explaining how he meant the rule he wrote to be interpreted.

At the same time Jeremy of course also said multiple times that the DM is free to rule otherwise. But not following Sage Advice is still house ruling. Whether house ruling is good or bad is a matter of taste. But not liking a clarification of how a rule was intended to interpreted is not making that clarification "wrong".

I found several of Jeremy's replies surprising myself (like this very reply on the handling of magic missile), but whenever I re-read the rules after that, I always came to the conclusion that it actually can be read that way.

I agree that I have yet to see a JC ruling (except for those he noted as RAI with phrases like "a gm could" or "I would allow") where there wasnt a "can be read that way case, but there have been a few and this is one where there were other cases to be made that were imo more clearly and more consistent.

One of his go-to lines is "a game of exceptions" but sometimes it seems like more exceptions than consistency when you go so far.

I have played games before in systems before where "playing the rules not the game" basically took over and finding the exception in the rules that optimized this or that became what was called "tactics" over and above what makes sense in the game world.

5e is it seems to me becoming more like that with every new sage "game of exception" where he picks "simultaneous" as the keyword instead of picked targets vs aoe or instantaneous vs "on your turn" etc etc etc.

I mean in one game I remember you could move 7 squares with speed max 6 squares "character" due to playing the "speed chart" and 5e with its dropping weapons hands management gets a lot of that feel and every new exception instead of consistency that matters in power gets you further from what makes sense in play.

Imo.

Magic Missile. How have you and how do you roll the damage.

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