With a lot of recent threads about worldbuilding and the effects of magic, I thought it would be fun to talk about the most deadly spell in all of dnd.... magic missle.
Now when players think of deadly spells, they often think of fireball, or power word kill, or something like that. And sure when you are thinking about high level characters and monsters, magic missile's damage just doesn't cut the mustard.
But consider your standard citizen of the world, with probably 4 hitpoints to their name. We have this spell that targets you from 40 yards away and WILL HIT YOU. You can't dodge it, you can't put armor on to stop it, you can't hide behind a table, you can't tough it out. If the wizard gets even a sliver of sight on you....you are dead. It takes only 8 damage to kill such a commoner outright (and there is only a 6% chance of rolling lower than that on 3d4+3, basically a nat 20 roll), and in that rare instance you are still unconscious and bleeding out. Lets also not forget the portability. For example a wizard peeks through a key hole and sees a target....boom dead. Cover doesn't matter to magic missile, if I can see you, and there is even a small hole to allow something through....the missiles do their dark work.
That is already super impressive...but what's moreso is....the wizard has this AT 1st level. A wizard just back from the academy....is given one of the most deadly weapons on the planet. They can kill almost anyone with a few words and a wave of their hand, and there is almost no defense against it. And they get 3 bullets in that gun every day.
There is a reason that wizard's are given such hushed respect, and its not fireball. Its the gun of inevitable death, magic missile.
Now when players think of deadly spells, they often think of fireball, or power word kill, or something like that. And sure when you are thinking about high level characters and monsters, magic missile's damage just doesn't cut the mustard.
But consider your standard citizen of the world, with probably 4 hitpoints to their name. We have this spell that targets you from 40 yards away and WILL HIT YOU. You can't dodge it, you can't put armor on to stop it, you can't hide behind a table, you can't tough it out. If the wizard gets even a sliver of sight on you....you are dead. It takes only 8 damage to kill such a commoner outright (and there is only a 6% chance of rolling lower than that on 3d4+3, basically a nat 20 roll), and in that rare instance you are still unconscious and bleeding out. Lets also not forget the portability. For example a wizard peeks through a key hole and sees a target....boom dead. Cover doesn't matter to magic missile, if I can see you, and there is even a small hole to allow something through....the missiles do their dark work.
That is already super impressive...but what's moreso is....the wizard has this AT 1st level. A wizard just back from the academy....is given one of the most deadly weapons on the planet. They can kill almost anyone with a few words and a wave of their hand, and there is almost no defense against it. And they get 3 bullets in that gun every day.
There is a reason that wizard's are given such hushed respect, and its not fireball. Its the gun of inevitable death, magic missile.
