Magic Missiles roll damage - What school are you ?

[DeLastOne]

Hi


Some players say damage from Magic missile should only be rolled once (1xD4)
Some say it should be roll for each missile separately. (3xD4)

I am actually not sure what BG3 uses but I am interested to know what players usually uses as a rule when playing tabletop D&D

Ps : according to Jeremy Crawford it should only be one roll for all.

[Dovahbear]

In 30 years of tabletop, I've always seen it rolled separately.

In game it appears to be thus as well.

Jeremy Crawford can say what he wants. He makes the games, the players fix them.

[Brahson]

rolled once? LMFAO what kind of degenerate thinking is that

[Gaius]

Rolling one dice and multiplying would be a unique a really weird rule. If we aply this to ALL rolls the math behind the game just disappear.

[Conker]

the rules clearly say its 1d4 +1 force per dart

and the spell creates an additional dart for each spell slot above the first

so yeah its 1D4 for each missile

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Magic%20Missile#content
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/magic-missile

[Zirkalaritz]

might aswell just give us the "half" choice, like we're given with hp on level up, lmao.
Separate rolls all the way.
Rules as Written, Rules as Interpreted be damned, how about Fun as a Rule.

[Hobocop]

I roll once if I get a 3 or 4 on the first die, and roll separately if not.

[Avigor]

The argument for one roll for all is a result of the spell not explicitly stating you roll multiple times or roll once and apply that to every dart (instead the PHB says "a dart does 1d4+1 damage" or something to that effect, I'm AFB), combined with a (IMO) weird reading of the multi-target spell rule that completely disregards single target castings or the distinction between a single damaging spell effect (that is, each damaging dart is a separate effect) and the intent in that rule of only rolling once for actual AOE effects (like fireball).
Less pedantically, it's technically faster to roll one single die and apply that to all darts (kinda like rolling damage and attack at the same time), and some prefer the more extreme damage range instead of the more bell curved average result of multiple die rolls.
I'm firmly in the each dart gets a separate roll camp, myself.

[Recjawjind]

Rolling it once for every missile is like putting in the milk before the cereal.

Only skinwalkers do that. If your friend in your TTRPG group does that, they ain't your friend.

[Recjawjind]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

I roll once if I get a 3 or 4 on the first die, and roll separately if not.

Hehe this is the way. Aint got time to roll 8d6 on a fireball, just roll 1d6 and take that x8
Oh, whoops the party is dead because I rolled a 6.

[Jaggid Edje]

Until Jeremy Crawford made his ruling, both of the campaigns I play in (for tabletop) rolled them seperately. Since his ruling, both use one roll.

The DM's for both campaigns don't tend to 'house rules' anything unless there's a good reason to. This being one of those things where it hardly matters either way, they went with official ruling.

personally, if I was still DM'ing, I'd have stuck with separate rolls for each missile, simply because that is more satisfying to the player (imo).

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Separately. This also happens to be how BG3 does it, which is the correct way.

[zenebatos1]

Yeah...
The only reason why Crawford still have a Job at WotC is cause he's gay and he would play the Gay Victime card so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Fast, the Legal team at WotC wouldn't know what hit them.

He's a buffoon that half of the time doesn't know what he says and is constantly contradicting himself.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by zenebatos1:

Yeah...
The only reason why Crawford still have a Job at WotC is cause he's gay and he would play the Gay Victime card so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Fast, the Legal team at WotC wouldn't know what hit them.

He's a buffoon that half of the time doesn't know what he says and is constantly contradicting himself.

It doesn't work that way, he would need to be able to provide actual evidence that his sexual preferences had anything to do with him being fired.

Washington is an 'at will' employment state, which means employers can fire you for any, or even no, reason. The burden of proof that a protected status was a factor is on the person making the claim.

I've been in management for the past 30 years, and the number of employees that have 'tried' to file claims against me for firing them due to race, gender or sexuality would boggle your mind. Not once did a single one of those claims make it to court.

The only time I even had to do anything was once I needed to go to the courthouse to deliver some data that the court requested, before the case was just summarily tossed for having no merit.

I assure you, the fact that he's gay is not a factor and if they wanted to fire him because he's a buffoon, they would. Ergo, that means they don't want to fire him.

[Drake]

Doing only one roll is a mathematical error. 3d4 means you rolled 3 dice. The damage range is not the same and the balance is not the same.
Plus if you do that here, what's to stop people doing for higher dice spells like fireball (for those that don't remember for 8d6 you don't actually roll higher than 39, as the chances are virtually 0.01% to get past that)...
The only thing that rule is going to do is yet again nerf spell damage to the ground (becasue we will get damage values that are normally impossible to get with a correct roll) and the ones that will suffer will those that roll the correct way.
Next edition they'll jsut remove damage dice for spells and you'll just roll one die for hit that you'll multiply by a fixed amount of damage (like 1d4* spell level), and it's going to be boring as hell.

[Blynat84]

Originally posted by DeLastOne:

Hi


Some players say damage from Magic missile should only be rolled once (1xD4)
Some say it should be roll for each missile separately. (3xD4)

I am actually not sure what BG3 uses but I am interested to know what players usually uses as a rule when playing tabletop D&D

Ps : according to Jeremy Crawford it should only be one roll for all.

All I know for sure is that it always does the Lowest damage it can possibly do. If I shoot 6 missiles they will ALL do 1 damage. This kind of "luck" is statistically impossible.