D&D 5E Magic Missile and Death Saving Throws

clearstream said:

Also @Ristamar. At first I felt the same way. The reason I came to believe that RAW entails otherwise is the wording "If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure." It is clear that the missiles hit simultaneously, so if I ask the question "How many missiles caused damage while the character had 0 hit points remaining?" The answer is "None! The missiles all hit simultaneously, while the character had positive hit points remaining."

For a cast of the spell whose missiles hit a character simultaneously at a time when that character is already at 0 hit points, the situation is different. The missiles still hit simultaneously, still deal damage separately, but now they satisfy the RAW "while you have 0 hit points".

Taken together, those accurately satisfy both the RAW and the related Sage Advice. A hesitation is that it might seem more intuitive to treat the missiles as dealing damage one at a time... which has been clarified as not being the case: they're separate but simultaneous.

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Ristamar said:

I had considered that argument, though I could not logically reconcile why the missiles would force multiple Concentration checks yet only a single death save when both conditions involve simultaneous yet separate damage.

That being said, I wouldn't begrudge a DM for handling Magic Missile with either method as long as it's consistent.

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Yunru said:

Because the ruling of multiple concentration checks makes no sense.

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Ristamar said:

I don't have a problem with the concentration checks and I can understand the rationale. If that rationale is divorced from Death Saves, though, I start to get a bit lost. It's not worth any rage or bellyaching. I'll sleep on it after some amicable forum discussion and use whatever works best for my group.

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Yunru said:

Could you explain the rational to me, because I can't. If they hit simultaneously, why would it distract you multiple times?

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Ristamar said:

Because each one is a separate yet simultaneous distraction. Nothing states that the concentration checks have to occur sequentially.

As a crude example, I'd liken it to trying to ignore one large spider versus a cluster of small bugs simultaneously crawling on my arms, legs, neck, etc. The spider might be harder to ignore as singular annoyance, but any one of the small bugs simultaneously crawling across my person could potentially distract me.

In that light, I can see where [MENTION=71699]clearstream[/MENTION] is coming from with his logic. It just seems a little odd given the abstract nature of hit points, death saves, or the "massive damage" instant death rule.

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Yunru said:

But that would be represented by the higher Concentration check DC from the increased damage.

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Ristamar said:

There is an obvious difference between one shot, one kill and death by a thousand (simultaneous) cuts. However, I'm not going to try to convince you that you have to like or use the exception based mechanics of Magic Missile.

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Ristamar said:

I had considered that argument, though I could not logically reconcile why the missiles would force multiple Concentration checks yet only a single death save when both conditions involve simultaneous yet separate damage.

That being said, I wouldn't begrudge a DM for handling Magic Missile with either method as long as it's consistent.

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