Sticks and stones will break your bones and words will fucking kill you
Sticks and stones will break your bones and words will fucking kill you
I love Tom Cardy with every ounce of my being. I assume that’s what that link is lmao. But I found this BG3 animation for the song and it instantly became my favorite. Evidently the insane looking one in this isn’t the Durge. It’s Tav. The other Dragonborn looking terrified is the Durge which leads to my favorite comment on that. “The Durge may kill people but he just witnessed the most horrifying thing in existence. A perfectly normal DnD player.”
The Gag with “15 days” and the hands kills me every time.

3 comments are on this thread and each one has a different video for that Tom Cardy song.
I love it.
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.
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.
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.
A cantrip that’s as effective as “power word kill” on mundane folk? Use 55 times to kill a dragon? How did I miss this?
As a DM, I’d have to implement a house rule that every such insult must be unique, as it is magically bound to the target at that distinct moment in time. And that goes for failures as well as successes: each use burns that phrase forever. At the very least this goes if used repeatedly against the same target. Besides, a good bard should be able to cook up fresh material.
This is an absolutely insane take. Vicious Mockery is the the least damaging cantrip (or like bottom three). Further, it’s a cantrip, something players are supposed to be able to easily without resource consumption. Expecting a player to come up with unique insults every time they cast this is stupid and exhausting. Also, the reason it’s “as effective as power word kill on common folk” is because common folk are weak and meant to weak. They’re not heroes.
Spell casters using cantrips is akin to fighters making normal attacks, swinging a sword.
Also, the reason it’s “as effective as power word kill on common folk” is because common folk are weak and meant to weak. They’re not heroes.
Fly swats are overpowered because they’re as effective as a machine gun at killing flies.
So are you going to nerf every class similarly?
Bard
Vicious Mockery: avg 10 / 55 casts
Cleric
Word of Radiance: avg 13.5 / 41 casts
Sacred flame: avg 18 / 31 casts
Druid
Produce Flame: avg 11 / 50 casts
Poison Spray: avg 22.5 / 25 casts
Sorcerer
Acid Splash: avg 10.5 / 52 casts
Warlock
Chill Touch: avg 11 / 50 casts
Wizard
Ray of Frost: avg 11 / 50 casts
Artificer
Thunderclap: avg 13.5 / 41 casts
Ha while you were Chaining Lightning and Disintegrating Polymorphs, I studied THE ARTS
don’t call me when the barbarians are at your Gates
It got buffed to a d6 in 5.5e
But then again, with this math they’re talking about 5e, so your point stands
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 in the context of open dialog 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”.
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.