Magic Missile. How have you and how do you roll the damage.

[Sword of Spirit]

I roll individual dice. I don't have a strong opinion on it, but this keeps magic missile more reliable in its damage output, and that's part of the point of magic missile.

Also, I only let the evoker's damage bonus add to one of those dice. I decided on that ruling after I did math comparing the overall damage of evokers, sorcerers, and other wizards, and determined that adding +5 to each magic missile was highly imbalanced.

By contrast, I finally decided that forcing Agonizing Blast to only apply to one blast (like the general rule for similar things) actually balances out the class by making a Pact of the Blade weapon user competitive with a blaster (without the need for Hexblade), while still leaving warlock as the best cantrip blaster in the game.

When there isn't a strong opinion otherwise, defaulting to the interpretation that provides better balance isn't a bad idea.

I think the conclusion is incorrect. Sage Advice is RAW/RAI. It's Jeremy explaining how he meant the rule he wrote to be interpreted.

One interesting thing is that usually he will give what he reads as the RAW, even when the RAI he meant to write was different. It's often better to ask him explicitly for the RAI, as otherwise he is just parsing text for you.

 

[Li Shenron]

If the Sage wants to nitpick on the RAW, why not nitpicking even more? Let's add a couple of extra ridiculous nitpicking:

The mm spell says each dart does d4+1 to "its target" which is a lot different than the wording of actual AoE spells like fireball.

The Magic Missile spell description actually says "A dart deals 1d4+1 force damage to its target." (emphasis mine) So the other darts deal nothing, they're just for show.

Let me make a point about the bolded part.

There is no "rule" about one damage roll for "simultaneous" damage.

All that rule says is "at the same time" not specifically "simultaneous."

But let's assume "simultanous" is a synonym with "at the same time". However, PHB page 196 actually says "If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them" (emphasis NOT mine) So by the RAW the Sage is correct ONLY when you use Magic Missile on multiple targets but NOT when you direct all darts at the same target, in which case the rule doesn't apply and you should roll separately.

I understand the attitude of Crawford to always want to protect the RAW at all costs, in order to avoid any chance of having to revise the rules in printed books.

What I don't understand is how he doesn't seem to care about the fact that, when four years into the game people are revealed they've been playing all wrong because apparently we're all too stupid to understand the rules, he is actually just giving his own company a bad reputation for either not being able to write clear rules (in the best case, assuming the current RAW is on purpose) or not being able to even write what they mean (in the worst case, assuming his adjudications are an afterthought).

 

[S'mon]

But let's assume "simultanous" is a synonym with "at the same time". However, PHB page 196 actually says "If a spell or other effect deals damage to more than one target at the same time, roll the damage once for all of them" (emphasis NOT mine)

You do roll the damage dice once ...for each missile. Each d4 is rolled once, just like each fireball d6 is rolled once.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, Each missile only deals damage to one target at a time.