D&D General 0 HP Magic Missile = Death?

[Oofta]

I thought the difference was tridents are 3 times cooler than spears.

In one game I was in, a pc had each tip be a different metal: silver, cold iron, etc…

In 3E that actually may have made sense. But if a monster was only affected by silver would it only take 1/3 damage?

 

[Cadence]

A trident is just a fishing spear, I doubt it was ever used for actual warfare. If you actually want to kill someone, it would be significantly worse than a normal spear.

Maybe it is on the D&D list because of the meta-physics of death saves and wanting a martial magic missile equivalent?

 

[Aurel Guthrie]

While I understand why people interpret Magic Missile as making you do three concentration checks, or being three death failures (it makes sense, regardless of it hitting simultaneously it is still three pure bolts of magic), the spell is already one of the best 1st level damaging spells as it is, being a guaranteed source of damage and being able to hit multiple targets. Allowing the three checks is... Too much, I think.

I also question DMs who make the enemy wizard cast magic missile on downed PCs. Not only because it is kind of a dirty move, but because... Why would that wizard do that? They don't know if the PC is dead or unconscious. Would they really waste a spell on a body on the ground when they could instead target the people actively trying to kill them? You gotta take the personality of the npc in mind, and I can't really think of a character who would do that other than "Not even I know what my next move will be" types.

 

[James Gasik]

While I understand why people interpret Magic Missile as making you do three concentration checks, or being three death failures (it makes sense, regardless of it hitting simultaneously it is still three pure bolts of magic), the spell is already one of the best 1st level damaging spells as it is, being a guaranteed source of damage and being able to hit multiple targets. Allowing the three checks is... Too much, I think.

I also question DMs who make the enemy wizard cast magic missile on downed PCs. Not only because it is kind of a dirty move, but because... Why would that wizard do that? They don't know if the PC is dead or unconscious. Would they really waste a spell on a body on the ground when they could instead target the people actively trying to kill them? You gotta take the personality of the npc in mind, and I can't really think of a character who would do that other than "Not even I know what my next move will be" types.

It's also a bit meta for NPC's to know what "death saves" are, if you think about it, especially since most things rarely make them!

 

[Cadence]

While I understand why people interpret Magic Missile as making you do three concentration checks, or being three death failures (it makes sense, regardless of it hitting simultaneously it is still three pure bolts of magic), the spell is already one of the best 1st level damaging spells as it is, being a guaranteed source of damage and being able to hit multiple targets. Allowing the three checks is... Too much, I think.

I also question DMs who make the enemy wizard cast magic missile on downed PCs. Not only because it is kind of a dirty move, but because... Why would that wizard do that? They don't know if the PC is dead or unconscious. Would they really waste a spell on a body on the ground when they could instead target the people actively trying to kill them? You gotta take the personality of the npc in mind, and I can't really think of a character who would do that other than "Not even I know what my next move will be" types.

If they know that half the time they fought these stupid murder-hobo groups in the past the ones they downed popped up again like ground hogs out of holes... I assume the intelligent enemy wizard would plan ahead for that next time.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

During the thirty sessions of my current campaign I think I have had an enemy to attack a downed PC maybe once and that was because it was as a multi attack creature with no other targets available.

 

[nevin]

What about three hits from scorching ray, then? One spell, multiple rolls?

scorching ray would require 3 attack rolls, one for each ray by RAW.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Given that you could target three downed targets and make each one fail a death save (or target three casters and force each one to make a concentration check) it seems highly illogical (a.k.a. "nutso") to suggest that if you hit one target three times it's only one failed death save, or one concentration check.

EDIT: Nutso from a pure rules perspective. If a DM wanted to houserule otherwise because it doesn't feel right, that's totally fine. It's the idea of defending it as RAW that is crazy.

 

[Laurefindel]

I rule magic missile as a single instance of damage per target hit. The verbiage talking about individual missiles dealing 1d4+1 damage makes it easier to scale and divide among target, but I don't think they were meant to be individual instances of attacks causing multiple concentration checks or multiple death save's ticks.

The way I see it, magic missile is D&D's machine gun. A one-shot pistol might deal 1d4+1 damage, but this one fires in full-auto, with the possibility of accelerating the rate-of-fire by upcasting the spell or fanning the spray over several targets. If I could imagine a modern or sci-fi 5e, I wouldn't count each bullet as a single damage instance.

Ultimately, given the uniqueness of the spell and specific verbiage used in the description, both interpretations are defensible. I just choose to interpret it as a single damage instance per target, because doing otherwise gives the spell additional benefits that it doesn't need (and one of which - auto-killing a downed PC - would considered a "dick move" from the DM in my group).

 

[James Gasik]

If they know that half the time they fought these stupid murder-hobo groups in the past the ones they downed popped up again like ground hogs out of holes... I assume the intelligent enemy wizard would plan ahead for that next time.

Well earlier this year, I was involved in another thread where several people claimed that player characters should have no idea what death saves are, in order to grant allies bonuses to them...