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It's odd saying it does decent damage. It's the least damaging cantrip. Not hating on it, but it's odd to say that lol.
I mean, just look at their example. Level 17+ for the math? Holy shiiiiiit. At levels 15+, you're basically living legends that are about to start conquering kingdoms singlehandedly and fighting gods. That's not "a talented musician," that's the dude who leads month long rave parties that brings in all the nobility's children and starts a religion that is then used with said children to start coups in the continental region.
Ignoring the actual rules and mechanics is basically step 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 hostile creature(s) insight rather than the typical stealth vs perception when determining surprise from sneaking, which is not RAW, but I think sounds reasonable. I'd definitely not consider it to be an automatic aspect of the spell at any table I ran.
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.
It got buffed to a d6 in 5.5e
But then again, with this math they're talking about 5e, so your point stands