D&D General 0 HP Magic Missile = Death?

[Cadence]

Please don't bring that awful movie into this LOL! Exceeding maximum hp is more a tier 1 thing, but can happen at higher levels if a PC gets to low on hp. I've only seen it once. A PC was at low hit points after failing a save vs. a dragon breath, and then again the next round, but the breath did enough more to exceed the PC's maximum hp... so toasty!


Huh?


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Yeah, I know it. But in this case the use of natural language supports one conclusion.


Well, I won't argue that--it's a key point to 5E in many cases. Just not this one IMO.

And now I want to do the survey to see if peoples' opinions on the movie relate to their ruling on MM and concentration/death saves.

 

[Maxperson]

No, it is a spell that makes no attacks. It just deals damage.

And if you target one creature, they all hit at the same time.

Just like two sword attacks from the same PC. Same time, different sources of damage.

Allowing MM to count as separate sources of damage would be like ruling a creature that falls takes more than one source of damage. Afterall, first its arm hits, then its head, then back, then legs. Obviously it is very likely that creature will suffer multiple sources of injury. But for the game, it is treated as one source of damage.

No, this isn't the same. Fall deals all of the damage as a single source. Impact. Magic missile explicitly creates separate missiles that deal separate damage, which is why they can be directed all over the place and don't all have to hit the same target.

 

[Maxperson]

How is it not clear? It says right in the spell description the missiles strike simultaneously against a single target.

They also strike simultaneously against separate targets. Each missile is therefore separate damage.

 

[Oofta]

Just like two sword attacks from the same PC. Same time, different sources of damage.

Or a monster that has multi-attack, especially things like bite and claw or a hydra that has multiple heads. If a hydra is chewing on a dead PC, there is no reason to state that each head is not attacking simultaneously.

 

[Guest 7037866]

Just like two sword attacks from the same PC. Same time, different sources of damage.

Who says they deal damage at the same time? The attacks are made separately. Unlike the spell, which specifies simultaneous.

No, this isn't the same. Fall deals all of the damage as a single source. Impact. Magic missile explicitly creates separate missiles that deal separate damage, which is why they can be directed all over the place and don't all have to hit the same target.

Yet when they all hit the same target, it takes the damage all at once, just like the fall.

They also strike simultaneously against separate targets. Each missile is therefore separate damage.

Sure, if they go against multiple targets.

Or a monster that has multi-attack, especially things like bite and claw or a hydra that has multiple heads. If a hydra is chewing on a dead PC, there is no reason to state that each head is not attacking simultaneously.

There is no reason to say it is, either. Unlike the spell, which specifies simultaneous.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Whether or not you should do this is really up to the DM and group and is something that should be discussed in a session 0. Whether you target dying PCs is a different issue on whether or not it works.

For sure, but I think this is more than a binary of "do you attack downed PCs or not?".

I think this crosses a line because it's an auto-kill with no warning if you treat it as three separate sources of damage (which WotC have wavered on).

A monster attacking a downed PC still makes attack rolls against their AC (with Advantage if they don't also have Disadvantage, and they auto-crit so it's really only two hits - the auto-crit removing two ticks is deeply bad rules design imho but that's a whole other discussion), and I think even if monsters can target downed PCs, as per your session zero, they often - it would often be unnatural for them to.

This is more like:

1) Never attacked downed PCs.

2) Only downed PCs when it makes in-character sense for the monster to do so and isn't a guaranteed one-round kill with no rolls.

3) Only downed PCs when it makes in-character sense for the monster to do so - differs from the above in that you don't pull punches but you do RP the monsters correctly (about 10-20% of DMs do not really RP monster behaviour in my experience).

4) Full Tactics RPG/boardgame approach, so RP/in-character behaviour is secondary to what makes tactical sense.

My feeling is most groups don't discuss this in session zero but are unconsciously operating on 1 or 2, and 3 would seem like a line cross. 4 is always going to be immediately obvious from the first session at least, even without a session zero - my experience type 4 games have about 5x as many arguments/"polite discussions" about the rules and their interpretation as other games and a lot more gritted teeth but YMMV. My personal experience is that they're weirdly popular with DMs who aren't very good at D&D's rules, which is um, vexing (I saw this a lot in 3.XE).

One other thing to consider is consistency. If you do treat this as three separate sources of damage in this very emotive situation, you have to be absolutely sure that in every other situation you count MM similarly, for better or worse.

 

[Oofta]

Who says they deal damage at the same time? The attacks are made separately. Unlike the spell, which specifies simultaneous.


Yet when they all hit the same target, it takes the damage all at once, just like the fall.


Sure, if they go against multiple targets.


There is no reason to say it is, either. Unlike the spell, which specifies simultaneous.

A fighter with two weapons could easily hit simultaneously just like the hydra. The main point is that each missile can damage different creatures. It is not one instance of damage, it's 3.

In any case, we're just never going to agree. Have a good one.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You could let the caster abort missiles if the target goes down.

 

[Guest 7037866]

A fighter with two weapons could easily hit simultaneously just like the hydra. The main point is that each missile can damage different creatures. It is not one instance of damage, it's 3.

Yes, the could but it is EXTREMELY unlikely, and doesn't specifiy they do.

In any case, we're just never going to agree. Have a good one.

True. You, too.

 

[MarkB]

You could let the caster abort missiles if the target goes down.

You can't, because of the whole "hit simultaneously" thing. There's no time between one hit and another in which to decide to abort, even if it were possible to abort an individual missile.