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Message: <blockquote data-quote="schnee" data-source="post: 7102002" data-attributes="member: 16728">As snarky as everyone's getting towards the dissenters, I have a few problems with the official rule and I'm going back and forth as to whether it's a good ruling.Remember, game designers are human. They make mistakes. (Cause Disease, anyone? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ) Not every ruling should be taken as Gospel, and IMO this is a situation that's hauling a lot of previous edition baggage on top of it requiring cross-referencing between several different rules.IMO the ruling doesn't sit well with me. It presumes an 'intelligence' on the spells' part that is not fitting with it's level. It 'knows' what is a creature, what isn't, unerringly hits, and sees through illusions. That is an awful lot for 1st level. (It's always been a bit overpowered. Maybe 5e is just keeping the tradition alive!)On the other hand, it does fit with the 'paper, rock, scissors' nature of these low level spells; Shield stops Magic Missile cold, can be cast on a reaction, but only lasts for one round, so it trades duration for immediacy. Mirror Image lasts for a minute, but it isn't 100% effective, so things can 'sneak through'. I see that as a potential rationale for MM auto-hitting.But, given that, it still means that the spell is literally smarter about what is an illusion vs. what's real than the caster. Fog Cloud stops magic missiles cold because you can't see the target; if this is a visual illusion, and most other attacks cause people with regular sight to miss with other attacks, why not the MM too?So, I'd be comfortable at a table that follows the RAW, but I'd also be comfortable with saying 'since no other attack can target the illusory images intentionally, neither can you, and since the attack is instantaneous, every missile will hit the same target - image or caster - so take your chances'. That would lead to a MM caster either literally rolling the dice, like everyone else, and risking the entire spell being wasted popping an image, or dividing up the missiles so one goes after the caster and the other two going after other targets, so less potential wasted hit point damage, and taking out one image at the very least. I think that's an appropriate choice to be made when it comes to a 1st level attack spell facing a 2nd level defense spell.</blockquote>

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