D&D 5E Dnd's Most Deadly Spell - MAGIC MISSILE!

[Zubatcarteira]

This is why I just don’t listen to the official stats for commoners. Instead, 1st level PCs aren’t special when it comes to HP. (Well high con Barbarians still are way outside the norm)

Basically they all have d8 hit die starting HP, unless they’re noticeably frail.

The idea of almost anything having 1 HP is just silly to me. The cat can kill another cat with one non even especially precise strike? Really?

I assume you mean the max hp, since they already have a d8. That could help, but honestly, the issue is both having very weak stuff be able to do 1 damage (that's the power of a normal person's punch or kick, which is not too powerful, but still dangerous if it lands well), and things at different "tiers" dealing damage in the same manner, so a large number of weak things can kill something that they have no business hurting, like a commoner killing a dragon by just punching it in the nose a few thousand times.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I think the more relevant question is how many wizards casting magic missile would it take to kill a Great Wyrm dragon?

 

[Zubatcarteira]

With 958 HP including the Mythic part, then about 95 wizards if the spell does the 10 average damage. Which is not a lot, but I guess they can get fried beyond the missile range, or the dragon can be a spellcaster with Shield.

 

[Ancalagon]

As I recall, it was rarely taken in 1E in the groups I gamed with. D4+1 just didn’t cut it compared with sleep for example, which was almost a “save or die” situationally.
From 3e onwards, I’ve rarely known a mage not take it.

We took it a lot in 2nd ed to shut down enemy casters, due to the initiative structure. Basically every action would be declared at the start of the round, and initiative was rolled each round. Higher level spells (in general) took longer to cast. If you took damage before your turn, the spell was ruined.

So if your 4rth level wizard magic missiled the litch about to cast chain lightning, you interrupted their spell (unless they had shield).

 

[jgsugden]

A few crabs are a deadly fight to the average commoner, so they really ought to be terrified of all living things.

If you come home with crabs, you may very well find yourself deceased at your spouse's feet.

 

[Shiroiken]

Since you mention it, I always wonder why no wizard in an official D&D adventure ever seems to have shield prepared — or even in their spellbook. Seems like a pretty big oversight.

A fellow DM and I discussed it, and we've come to two possible conclusions. The first possibility is that they've deliberately chosen bad options to keep the game on "easy mode," assuming individual DMs will choose different spells as desired (which is what we both do). The other possibility is that the designers don't know what they're doing, such as when they suggested that fighters take weapon master. Given the recent discussion of changing the design of spellcasters, I'm leaning heavily towards the latter. We both hope that they continue to include "<name> is an x level caster," allowing us to reverse engineer them for our use, but I'm afraid they're not going to.

 

[Garthanos]

As I recall, it was rarely taken in 1E in the groups I gamed with. D4+1 just didn’t cut it compared with sleep for example, which was almost a “save or die” situationally.
From 3e onwards, I’ve rarely known a mage not take it.

Sleep I used to call in 1e era winning the spell lottery. (lower levels anyway)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well if you want the truly definitive answer.....

D&D 5E - (Fun) - Gravity Proves Standard Human has 9 HP

Disclaimer: This topic is completely silly and for fun. Lets keep it light, I know how serious some people like to take this stuff. Also, for my 4d6 statistics, I ran 4 million random number simulations to get the numbers. So the % should be very close, certainly close enough for this, but they...

www.enworld.org

Love it. Great stuff.

I assume you mean the max hp, since they already have a d8.

No, I mean all NPCs have a d8, even stuff like cats, and con bonuses depending on toughness. Especially tough creatures might have a higher HD, but there are no 1hp creatures.

That could help, but honestly, the issue is both having very weak stuff be able to do 1 damage (that's the power of a normal person's punch or kick, which is not too powerful, but still dangerous if it lands well), and things at different "tiers" dealing damage in the same manner, so a large number of weak things can kill something that they have no business hurting, like a commoner killing a dragon by just punching it in the nose a few thousand times.

I’m not too worried about the dragon example. It’s a thing that just won’t ever happen.

But the problem is simply that NPCs are on different HP and damage tracks, and PCs are treated as fundamentally different kinds of creatures from NPCs.

 

[Jmarso]

Think they were. We house ruled the choice.

Ditto. 1E mages are squishy enough as it is.

 

[cbwjm]

This is why I just don’t listen to the official stats for commoners. Instead, 1st level PCs aren’t special when it comes to HP. (Well high con Barbarians still are way outside the norm)

Basically they all have d8 hit die starting HP, unless they’re noticeably frail.

The idea of almost anything having 1 HP is just silly to me. The cat can kill another cat with one non even especially precise strike? Really?

Yeah, the system really does break down a bit with things like the classic situation of a house cat being able to kill a wizard. Sometimes you've just got to ignore the rules and say that a house cat is no threat to you and even if two cats are fighting each other, it's probably not instantly lethal.