D&D General 0 HP Magic Missile = Death?

[Oofta]

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, and I think even if monsters can target downed PCs, as per your session 0, 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 0 - my experience type 4 games have about 5x as many arguments/"polite discussions" about the rules and their interpretation as other games. 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.

Personally my default is that death is never off the table while also recognizing that as DM I can always kill off PCs if I want to. Much more fun to have that animal that attacked the group to retreat with the unconscious PC in tow rather than killing them outright. Unpreventable and unavoidable death is rarely fun, although of course individual mileage may vary.

 

[Maxperson]

Unless the massive damage ends up exceeding your maximum hp after reducing you to 0, of course.


Nope, because you make three separate attack rolls and the rules do not specify that your mutliple attacks occur or hit simultaneously.

This is what you are missing. If they weren't separate sources of damage, the rules would not need to specify that they hit simultaneously. Fireball doesn't tell us to roll 8d6 with each die hitting simultaneously. It doesn't have to because it's all one source of damage.

 

[Reynard]

Much more fun to have that animal that attacked the group to retreat with the unconscious PC in tow rather than killing them outright.

Almost always much more fun, especially if that monster can really move. Now the rest of the CPs have a goal in the combat that is more that just "kill it."

More and more as time goes by I feel like that part -- the alternate goal -- is what makes combats worth having at all.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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

If the target goes down they won't die unless it's at least 4 missiles on them though (because Magic Missiles can't crit - 1 drops them to "downed", then if there are only two more, that's just two ticks of the deathometer, he said, seemingly using as many incorrect terms as possible), but yes I'd allow that.

Personally my default is that death is never off the table while also recognizing that as DM I can always kill off PCs if I want to. Much more fun to have that animal that attacked the group to retreat with the unconscious PC in tow rather than killing them outright. Unpreventable and unavoidable death is rarely fun, although of course individual mileage may vary.

As ever our actual at-the-table DMing style seems similar! I generally don't kill PCs unless it's going to be dramatic and they were kind of asking for it, and there's not something cooler to do (like have an animal drag them away as you say).

I do get irked by 5E's yoyoing sometimes, but such is 5E's design, so I try not to take it out on the players/PCs ("Hate the game not the players" doesn't just apply to dating lol).

 

[Guest 7037866]

Much more fun to have that animal that attacked the group to retreat with the unconscious PC in tow rather than killing them outright.

Yep, I love doing this! Of course, then you have to deal with the whole "I'm a player without a PC now" issue, which bothers some groups (not mine).

This is what you are missing. If they weren't separate sources of damage, the rules would not need to specify that they hit simultaneously. Fireball doesn't tell us to roll 8d6 with each die hitting simultaneously. It doesn't have to because it's all one source of damage.

I don't really care if they are one source or separate, the point is the damage (which is the important issue with auto failed death saves) is all taken at once, just like the fall, so would reduce a pc to 0 hp, but not cause a death save failure because the pc doesn't actually take any damage after being reduce to 0 hp.

 

[Maxperson]

What is the rule for massive damage if you are already at 0?

Same as any other time from what I can see. Instant death if the single attack exceeds your maximum hit points.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

The caster can react "simultaneously". This applies to dropping concentration, so I see no reason to suppose wizards can't do that.

 

[Guest 7037866]

The caster can react "simultaneously". This applies to dropping concentration, so I see no reason to suppose wizards can't do that.

If they abort one missile, they would have to abort them prior to damage being rolled, otherwise they all do damage at the same time and it's too late.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Separate is separate. You keep conflating simultaneous with being a single source and there is nothing to say or imply that. As I said, fireball doesn't specify that all of its dice hit simultaneously, because it's a single source of damage and doesn't have to. Your argument about it specifying simultaneous hits is stronger as an argument for what we are saying, than what you are saying.

Anyway, feel free to keep being the lone voice arguing against both RAW and everyone else, including the guy who designed the game.

 

[MarkB]

The caster can react "simultaneously". This applies to dropping concentration, so I see no reason to suppose wizards can't do that.

There's a difference between "instantaneously" and "simultaneously". In this case, by the time you see the result of your first missile hitting the target, the others have already done so.