D&D 5E Do magic missiles automatically hit

[David J. Sylvia]

I mean at least that's what your group does. I'm running a game for my step daughter, she's 9. She wanted to learn. Lol I've never DMed a gane just played. So I wanted to make sure the rules are right..for the most part.

I can't find a group anywhere unfortunately the person who dms is doing that thing called life... who does that?!

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Disagree. The DM's job is to set the tone, setting, narrate the story, describe the world, whatever, and challenge the characters. It's the player's job to keep their character alive. (Though granted in the above situation there wasn't really a chance in Hell of that happening it doesn't sound like.)

Agreed, though I would say it is the DM's job to give the players an enjoyable, interesting and challenging story. Slaughtering them for fun is counter to that in most cases.

 

[ThePolarBear]

[MENTION=13009]Paraxis[/MENTION] Just to put some logs on the fire:

Actually, for the purpose of Magic Missile, it's not the Assassin scoring the hit, it's the darts. The assassin is only casting the spell.

 

[Jer]

I once repackaged a beholder as nearly a dozen dead wizards necromantically sewn together into a single levitating arcane golem's body, heads and arms sprouting off the torso at weird angles, each with wands or a hand to cast with. Completely freaked them out.

To be fair, I'm just reading it in a forum post and it has ME freaked out...

 

[altquark]

ok - I re-read this. And I have something to add. Lets say that we have a 4th Level Paladin with standard HP - without any CON bonuses, 4d10 = 10+6+6+6=28hp.

A 1st Level Magic Missile is three 1d4+1 missiles. Therefore, each "standard" damage is 3hp damage.

Paladin has forgone his initiative round, and the 11 enemies decide to fire magic missiles at the paladin. It looks like there are additional members in the paladins party. So :
enemy #1 fires, and does a total of 9hp of Damage. Paladin is down to 19hp.
enemy #2 fires, and does a total of 9hp of Damage. Paladin is down to 10hp.
enemy #3 fires, and does a total of 9hp of Damage. Paladin is down to 1hp
enemy #4 fires, and does a total of 9hp of Damage. Paladin is now down to 0hp - and now has 3 death saving rolls left

At this point, the remaining enemies have THEIR turn left. As a DM I would have them now hit the REST of the party with the 7 Magic Missiles remaining, since the moment that the party gets an initiative round, the wizards would be dead. Its VERY unlikely that a wizard would continue firing at what is perceived to be a dead paladin bleeding out. 7 x magic missiles at the rest of the party would likely put down another player character - but very unlikely to put down the entire party.

So, the paladin would have 3 rounds to try and stabilize - and hopefully the party has a cleric that can either do a cure wounds to get him back into the fight, or at least a "save the dying" to keep him from bleeding out.

However, lets continue and pretend that this was 11 wizards that had readied an action to cast MM at one target :

enemy #5 fires, and does a total of 9hp of Damage. Paladin is still at 0hp - and now has 2 death saving rolls left
enemy #6 fires, and does a total of 9hp of Damage. Paladin is still at 0hp - and now has 1 death saving rolls left
enemy #7 fires, and does a total of 9hp of Damage. Paladin is still at 0hp - and is now dead

Resulting in enemies 8,9,10 and 11 firing MM into the corpse of the paladin. And then the party gets a go...

Its all how the encounter is played out properly. The DM is doing a terrible injustice to the players by having the wizards cast ALL magic missiles at one character - and I would absolutely challenge that would happen as their action. I NEVER have a monster target a player character who is at 0 hp if there are other characters still running around in the battle. This is not 1st edition -
its 5th edition - and it is supposed to be VERY difficult to kill a party....

 

[jasper]

...altquark.... I NEVER have a monster target a player character who is at 0 hp if there are other characters still running around in the battle. This is not 1st edition -......its 5th edition - and it is supposed to be VERY difficult to kill a party....
I think my standard is Int 8 and below change targets. 9-11 depends on monster. 12+ If I am nice I roll d20 at below the monster INT the monster targets 0 HP paladin to make sure. If I am not nice, I decide on what would the monster do. In this case, since the wizards know about heal spells, 5-7 would target the paladin. The one would target a spell caster. 9-11 would all target what they think is the weakest party member.

 

[schnee]

In the absence of a specific reason why the archmage can do that, I'd argue that is unfair.

As a player, I expect to have a certain amount of knowledge about how the game world operates. I know roughly what an archmage is capable of (since my PC could potentially become one). If I am considering taking on an archmage in combat, that knowledge will inform my decision.

Now, maybe this archmage has made a deal with Demogorgon that lets her split her mind into pieces and cast many spells simultaneously. If so, that's cool, and I don't necessarily have to know that in advance; the occasional nasty surprise is part of the game. But I expect the DM to know it and have thought about it. If my PC wizard, after surviving the fight, decides to go digging and find out how the archmage was capable of casting ten spells in six seconds, it should be possible to unearth an answer.

Why should everything operate the same?

I hold the other perspective. There should be pools of knowledge unknown by characters. Things that seem one way, but are another. Monsters that defy reason. And some things should always and forever be unfathomable.

This is a world of mysterious magic, not the categorical clarity of science.

 

[altquark]

Jasper - I think my standard is Int 8 and below change targets. 9-11 depends on monster. 12+ If I am nice I roll d20 at below the monster INT the monster targets 0 HP paladin to make sure.

Thats a lot of rolls every time you have an encounter. I got to say - who has time for that ?! I don't roll damage unless its spell damage, usually I just take "standard" dice as much as I can to hurry through the DM's part of the round. I want my players to be the ones that sit there determining "what to do" and "what dice to roll". Believe me, in a 10-15 minute long round with 6-8 players, I'm proud to take < 2 minutes for the monsters on the board - even if theres 10 of them. I know exactly what they're doing each round and will definitely alter what they do based on players (usually the monsters go for the characters that are doing the most damage, they'll likely only go for the weakest or a random player on the first round). But still, when a player character has been dropped, its time for the party to burn heal spells. And as soon as the healed player starts back up, they're getting a claw in the face. But given the way that death saving throws work - I don't want to take advantage of players that are on the ground.

However, of course, if an AoE happens to go off, and it tags a downed player, then by rule they gain a failure on their death saving throw.

 

[schnee]

Yes, magic missiles automatically hit. I lost my first character, Tormyr the shiny lawful good paladin, to a group of level 1 wizards in training. The wizard school had turned evil and started blowing up parts of the town and we were sent to investigate. We approached the tower and saw a group of 10 students led by prefect going into it. The students looked scared, so my paladin stepped out and tried to talk to the students to see if they were in need of help, what is going on in the school, etc. After a bit of talking, the prefect shouted, "Now!" 11 simultaneous castings of magic missile hit my level 4 paladin for 110 damage. Wrote up a new character that had the Shield spell.

Your DM is a weapons-grade a-hole.

And a tactical idiot.

And probably the best argument for new players to quit the game and start throwing nerds in trashcans.

 

[discosoc]

However, lets continue and pretend that this was 11 wizards that had readied an action to cast MM at one target :

If a group of 11 wizards decides that having everyone cast magic missile is the smart move, then they kind of suck at being wizards.