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Sticks and stones will break your bones and words will fucking kill you
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I can't imagine surviving 55 rounds of combat against a dragon. Are people thinking this is a video game or something where you can just simply not take damage from a dragon if you're skilled enough or something?You might be able to find some cheese strat. One good trick is to use a Phantom Steed to constantly outrange your opponent. But Vicious Mockery doesn't have enough range to make that effective. I'm sure someone can figure out a method, but Vicious Mockery isn't going to be the interesting part.
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Would it fit? I suppose technically the rules say a gargantuan creature is 20 feet by 20 feet or larger, and you can make a ten foot radius sphere with Wall of Force. But also, that would give it total cover, and Vicious Mockery does not grant itself an exception from that. Message is the only one I know of that does.
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You might be able to find some cheese strat. One good trick is to use a Phantom Steed to constantly outrange your opponent. But Vicious Mockery doesn't have enough range to make that effective. I'm sure someone can figure out a method, but Vicious Mockery isn't going to be the interesting part.That's still applying video game logic though. Dragons are smart. They wouldn't just endlessly pursue you if they're taking chip damage. They'd fly away. They'd fly towards cities and destroy them to make you stop. The idea one would have contingencies in place isn't unheard of either, they're like evil geniuses.
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Ignoring the actual rules and mechanics is basically one in almost every "isn't this goofy" D&D anecdote. Not only is it not "decent damage" (even the buff it got in 5.5 just brings it from "the worst" to "poor"), it's also not a subtle thing you can just drop on someone unsuspectingly. Spellcasting for an attack is an obvious aggressive action, which means an initiative roll comes first to see if you even manage to get it off before they clock you. It's also not like everyone around just shrugs and lets you go about your business because all you did was hurl an insult. You attacked someone with an offensive spell, the response is exactly the same as if you threw a firebolt at them The flavor of insulting someone to death is fun, I'll grant that, but there's nothing special about Vicious Mockery mechanically that makes it immune to initiative order or people noticing what you're doing."You unleash a string of insults laced with subtle enchantments at a creature you can see within range." ...its only component is verbal, and while it's not *subtle* casting it's fair to characterise as subtle *casting*; i'd argue for first-round surprise and in fact that's how we've played it at my tables...
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"You unleash a string of insults laced with subtle enchantments at a creature you can see within range." ...its only component is verbal, and while it's not *subtle* casting it's fair to characterise as subtle *casting*; i'd argue for first-round surprise and in fact that's how we've played it at my tables...I'm okay with a DM ruling that it's *possible* to cast it in such a way that someone is taken off guard, sure. Maybe a performance or deception vs target insight rather than the typical stealth vs perception when determining surprise from sneaking, but at my table I'd draw a hard line on it being an automatic aspect of the spell. And you *absolutely could not* avoid a fight and just walk away from the situation with plausible deniability because you "only insulted them".
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That's still applying video game logic though. Dragons are smart. They wouldn't just endlessly pursue you if they're taking chip damage. They'd fly away. They'd fly towards cities and destroy them to make you stop. The idea one would have contingencies in place isn't unheard of either, they're like evil geniuses.I guess you'd need flight too, so Phantom Steed wouldn't be enough. They probably wouldn't be able to reach a city in time. Also, it only really works in open areas, so you'd have to avoid any caves.
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I'm okay with a DM ruling that it's *possible* to cast it in such a way that someone is taken off guard, sure. Maybe a performance or deception vs target insight rather than the typical stealth vs perception when determining surprise from sneaking, but at my table I'd draw a hard line on it being an automatic aspect of the spell. And you *absolutely could not* avoid a fight and just walk away from the situation with plausible deniability because you "only insulted them".> And you absolutely could not avoid a fight and just walk away from the situation with plausible deniability because you “only insulted them”. If you offend someone so hard that there's a possibility of physical harm and/or death from it, and that person survives that insult, I'm quite sure most people wouldn't just let that slide.
