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Thanks for that breakdown. (Also note that shield can't be made into a potion and UMD doesn't autofail on a 1 if you still beat the DC.)An extract from a local alchemist. Good catch. Either way it was without a doubt the most resourceful enemy the PCs have faced yet so he would have figured out something one way or the other. I had him hit the party, learn how they fight, then retreat and adjust his tactics accordingly. After he ate a smiting magic missile he was like "Nope, not dealing with that again".
Hopefully that was a friendly alchemist with the Infusion discovery. :)
Brooches of shielding would have been quite the commodity.
What kind of respectable alchemist doesn't have the infusion discovery? IMHO it's an absolute staple.
The thing is that most enemies in this campaign have no idea that the party is coming at them, and even if they did how would they know that there is an antipaladin and he likes to use smiting magic missiles? If the enemies knew that much, the campaign would be over because they would bring down the entire might of the Talirean regime down upon them once learning that a cult of Asmodeus is still alive.
So my conclusion is thus; this combination working is, in general, broken as all hell. In this campaign it was even worse considering how it was structured. Due to my personal experience I will never rule it working that way again. Does that mean nobody should or there should be a supporting FAQ that states this? IMHO yes, but this was only a small test with three gaming sessions and about a dozen combats. There is certainly more data and interpretations that could be brought to the table and could possibly change my mind. But based off of what I have seen thus far, it's absolutely broken and should not be allowed.
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Are you going to explain how?*Casts necrothread*
So I've let the idea fly for a while, and oh man did his DPS get out of hand.
I'd be happy to.
** spoiler omitted **
It was, undoubtedly, completely broken and unbalanced. I wasn't having fun and after two weeks of this the players approached me and said they weren't having fun either. Even the antipaladin said he wanted to drop it.
Obviously this is something that doesn't scale well into high levels, at least past the early teens. It still wouldn't be bad by any stretch, but magic missile has a level cap on how many missiles you can shoot.
Any anybody that says "Oh you can just solve it with a shield spell", remember that shield is a personal spell. Only one opponent that they faced actually had the means to do that, and that's because he retreated and came back with a potion of it. WotW simply doesn't pit many arcane casters against the PCs.
Magic missile against a single opponent is a single damage roll, so even if you are using a level 9 wand that cast 5 missiles, you add your smite damage only once.
It is good against incorporeal monsters that often fly out of the paladin reach and halve non force/ghost touch damage, but not so overwhelming.
Unless the BEEG AC is so high that the smiting paladin rarely hits with his normal attacks. But that should be a extreme rarity, as if the smiting paladin generally fail to hit him the other member of the group will have a even harder time.
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What kind of respectable alchemist doesn't have the infusion discovery? IMHO it's an absolute staple.
Read the old discussion about hos long infusion last and how long they occupy your extract slot.
My side of that discussion think that they don't expire and if lost they will occupy the slot you used to make them forever. So selling them is very dangerous for an alchemist.
If you use the opposite interpretation (they expire 24 hours after they have been made) any alchemist with infusion will be sell "24 hours potions" for way less than regular potions. Probably little more than the cost of casting the appropriate spell in a safe environment.
Ant that would be a problem (at least for my vision of the game world).
Magic missile against a single opponent is a single damage roll, so even if you are using a level 9 wand that cast 5 missiles, you add your smite damage only once.
Arguably. What happens if you shoot five magic missiles at five different targets? Is it five separate rolls than? Why is aiming them all at the same source any different? This is certainly how I am going to choose to rule in in the future, but the way RAW stands now it's up to interpretation and I think an FAQ would be very helpful.
What kind of respectable alchemist doesn't have the infusion discovery? IMHO it's an absolute staple.
Read the old discussion about hos long infusion last and how long they occupy your extract slot.
My side of that discussion think that they don't expire and if lost they will occupy the slot you used to make them forever. So selling them is very dangerous for an alchemist.
If you use the opposite interpretation (they expire 24 hours after they have been made) any alchemist with infusion will be sell "24 hours potions" for way less than regular potions. Probably little more than the cost of casting the appropriate spell in a safe environment.
Ant that would be a problem (at least for my vision of the game world).
Well this is another discussion to be had on a different thread, but here goes.
My interpretation is that the extract lasts until used, as other extracts are. However, if the alchemist decides to use that slow to prepare a new extract, the old one becomes inert and useless.
As far as this particular situation, the person told the alchemist he would be using it by the end of the day so it wouldn't be an issue for him.
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Magic missile against a single opponent is a single damage roll, so even if you are using a level 9 wand that cast 5 missiles, you add your smite damage only once.Arguably. What happens if you shoot five magic missiles at five different targets? Is it five separate rolls than? Why is aiming them all at the same source any different? This is certainly how I am going to choose to rule in in the future, but the way RAW stands now it's up to interpretation and I think an FAQ would be very helpful.
I am not sure, but would the How does the Surprise Spells class feature of the Arcane Trickster prestige class (Core Rulebook, page 378) work with spells like magic missile and fireball? apply?
The Surprise Spells class feature allows the Arcane Trickster to add his sneak attack dice to spells that deal damage that target flat-footed foes. This damage is only applied once per spell. In the case of fireball this means it affects all targets in the area, with each getting a save to halve the damage (including the sneak attack damage). In the case of magic missile, the extra damage is only added once to one missile, chosen by the caster when the spell is cast.|
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Magic missile against a single opponent is a single damage roll, so even if you are using a level 9 wand that cast 5 missiles, you add your smite damage only once.Arguably. What happens if you shoot five magic missiles at five different targets? Is it five separate rolls than? Why is aiming them all at the same source any different? This is certainly how I am going to choose to rule in in the future, but the way RAW stands now it's up to interpretation and I think an FAQ would be very helpful.
I agree that it stand to interpretation, but 1 casting of a spell is a single attack. There are a few exceptions, but you apply SR once, with several of them you roll your to hit once (example: black tentacles) and so on.
Magic missile against a single opponent is a single damage roll, so even if you are using a level 9 wand that cast 5 missiles, you add your smite damage only once.Arguably. What happens if you shoot five magic missiles at five different targets? Is it five separate rolls than? Why is aiming them all at the same source any different? This is certainly how I am going to choose to rule in in the future, but the way RAW stands now it's up to interpretation and I think an FAQ would be very helpful.I am not sure, but would the How does the Surprise Spells class feature of the Arcane Trickster prestige class (Core Rulebook, page 378) work with spells like magic missile and fireball? apply?
The Surprise Spells class feature allows the Arcane Trickster to add his sneak attack dice to spells that deal damage that target flat-footed foes. This damage is only applied once per spell. In the case of fireball this means it affects all targets in the area, with each getting a save to halve the damage (including the sneak attack damage). In the case of magic missile, the extra damage is only added once to one missile, chosen by the caster when the spell is cast.
Yes, this point was brought up about 300 posts ago. The thing about FAQs is that we are told time after time that they only apply to the ruling they refer to and they apply to nothing else.
I certainly agree that's the way it should be, but I will continue to hammer away for an FAQ because I honestly think this question is FAQ worthy. It's not even a particularly tricky or difficult FAQ to write, a single sentence will suffice.
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Perseverance paid ;-)
FAQed
Ooh I got an FAQ from Diego Rossi himself. That's when you know you got a tough question!
1) smite applies to one target, so splitting your missiles doesn't do anything.
2) Every instance of damage added to multi target effects only apply once in every single instance I've ever encountered in the game.
3) How the heck does damage break your game? That's pretty baffling.
Sorry I haven't check this thread in so long. Still hoping for that FAQ, PDT ;)
1) ...yes? So? What is the relevance?
2) We're not talking about multi target, we're talking about multiple hits versus a single target. Again, relevance.
3) When the level 8 party member (not even the whole party, just the antipaladin) takes down the very tanky CR 13 enemy in a round and a half without any exceptional circumstances or insane rolls (indeed, the enemy was actually highly intelligent and using very good tactics), that's broken.
Also, this game is still going strong and we're around the end of book 3 now. Exciting things happening!
Because everyone know shield, right?
Very good tactics... like casting the first level spell that completely negates this whole strategy?
I love having shield up and getting pinged with magic missile.
Each missile deals damage separately, so you add your paladin level to each one just like you would if you were a Longbow using Paladin. Or since you're only using one bow(like using one spell, mentioned above. Just an example) do you only get the damage on the first arrow? One sword attack?
That's how it sounds like it should work since the source of damage is one thing. I know plenty of DMs would rejoice at such a huge nerf...
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Oh look. THIS thread.
Are you calculating in the auto hit portion?
All auto-hitting does is make DPR calculations simple. DPR calculations typically factor in things like miss chance, critical hit range, etc., to determine the average expected damage dealt on a single, or full, attack given enemy defenses.
So, when you actually have to roll to hit, all this does is make your damage more swingy: sometimes it's way below average, sometimes it's way above average. Auto-hitting, particularly with small dice and lots of flat modifiers (in the case of a smiting magic missile), produces more consistent results, but statistically doesn't account for much variation.
bloodline mutations also only affect the sorcerer spells, so unless you're using sorcerer slots for you magus' shocking grasps it's not getting the mutation bonus.
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Comparing a magus going nova with precast spells while already in melee to a paladin using a wand of magic missiles as a backup ranged weapon isn't particularly useful.
For your little trick you have used 1 point of your weapon enhancement, 1 level for the sorcerer dip, 1 arcana for accurate strike, 2 feat, 1 trait.
The paladin has brought a wand.
BTW, the magus should be 9th level, so a 10th level character thanks to the sorcerer dip.
And the spell storing hit don't benefit from the critical multiplier. No to hit to deliver that attach, no critical.
The ability to use the weapon critical range is part of spellstrike:
Spellstrike (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack.
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This attack uses the weapon's critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.
As it has been explained several times, "a spell from the magus spell list" must be a spell the magus has memorized and cast from one of his slots, not from a item.
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Depends on your reading then. Shocking grasp is certainly on the sorcerer spell list, and spell focus isn't a terrible choice.
It don't depend on my reading. Read the FAQs about the magus, and the other FAQs about spells from a class spell list.
When a ability say that "whenever a XX casts a spell ... from the XX spell list", the ability work only with spells cast by the caster using spell slots from the appropriate class.No magic items or slots from other classes.
Some ability can change that, but those are specific abilities.
The others have addressed how the damage is unbalanced because of the auto-hit portion and difficulty to counter, so I'll move on from that.
Yes, a super-munchkin magus can do more damage. Just because that build is more broken doesn't mean this one isn't. I can also build a synthesist summoner that can blow this antipaladin out of the water, but that's completely irrelevant. Let's assume that all my player's aren't powergaming a@~*&~~s.
Actually the idea that I like is waiting till the paladin is 11th level and have him/her give the wizard/sorcerer smite evil using Aura of Justice. No wand, and we get the damage boost per missile, and better capability of punching thru SR.
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Except the wand hits every time, at range, no die roll required. There is no variable. He just does that much damage every round. Full stop. And the only way to counter it (without SR, which I'm not just going to hand out to creatures for funsies) is a shield spell, which is a massive over correction because now the antipaladin does nothing.
Also, you blew a crap ton of resources to do that much, and you need to be in melee.
Your money argument is funny, because this build needs 6.7k to do its job and your build needs 28k to do a less effective job. Granted they need a new wand every once in a while, but 50 charges is doing nearly 3000 damage so I think they can spare it. Hell, they buy 4 of those wands for the cost of your build and now he can pump out 12000 damage.
I experienced what this build does in an actual game, and it is freaking gross. He just applied ~60 damage every turn without a single d20 being rolled and without even bothering to check the map since he doesn't need to give a s@%$ about tactics/placement.
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Except the wand hits every time, at range, no die roll required. There is no variable. He just does that much damage every round. Full stop. And the only way to counter it (without SR, which I'm not just going to hand out to creatures for funsies) is a shield spell, which is a massive over correction because now the antipaladin does nothing.
Also, you blew a crap ton of resources to do that much, and you need to be in melee.
Your money argument is funny, because this build needs 6.7k to do its job and your build needs 28k to do a less effective job. Granted they need a new wand every once in a while, but 50 charges is doing nearly 3000 damage so I think they can spare it. Hell, they buy 4 of those wands for the cost of your build and now he can pump out 12000 damage.
I experienced what this build does in an actual game, and it is freaking gross. He just applied ~60 damage every turn without a single d20 being rolled and without even bothering to check the map since he doesn't need to give a s*%* about tactics/placement.
My archaeologist bard does basically the same thing with a bow... except he does more damage.
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Really, your bard does that much damage while not rolling any d20s and using no resources except one charge from a wand? And his damage is 100% reliable regardless of the enemies AC? Impressive.
Remember that Magic Missile has to power through SR, and a wand of it only gets whatever caster level it was made with to boost the check, so at later levels it's not so relyable.
Remember that Magic Missile has to power through SR, and a wand of it only gets whatever caster level it was made with to boost the check, so at later levels it's not so relyable.
I agree that this tactic would fall off in higher-level play, without a doubt. Partly because of SR becoming more common, and also because magic missile caps out.
Honestly I see it falling off before you can even abuse it, then again I've been fighting a lot of Rakshasa around levels 8-13 so my perception might be skewed a bit.
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Really, your bard does that much damage while not rolling any d20s and using no resources except one charge from a wand? And his damage is 100% reliable regardless of the enemies AC? Impressive.
You may think I'm exaggerating, but yeah, I actually do. I usually only miss on 1's, and I don't consume ammo with my bow. I do a little bit less on average against enemies with higher ACs, but only marginally so.
A Ring of Forcefangs would do wonders against this Hypothetical Wand Paladin.
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Remember that Magic Missile has to power through SR, and a wand of it only gets whatever caster level it was made with to boost the check, so at later levels it's not so relyable.I agree that this tactic would fall off in higher-level play, without a doubt. Partly because of SR becoming more common, and also because magic missile caps out.
If we speak of high level play a wand of intensified magic missile is still relatively cheap (22.500 gp), cap out at level 15 with 8 missiles and, with a CL of 15, can beat the SR of a lot of common creatures.
As you speak of a antipaladin, Holy aura give a SR of 25, so the wand can beat it 55% of the time, a planetar or a CR 16 dragon has a SR of 27 (45% chance of penetrating it). Not ideal, but decent.
If have a level 15 antipaladin and apply the smite damage to every missile, it will do 147 hp of damage every time it beat the SR, at a range of 250'. Not bad for a secondary weapon.
It would be more efficient against enemies without a SR, but it is a useful back up.
Personally I think that a casting of magic missiles is a single attack, so the smite applies only once, but that is a choice of the GM, as the rules can be easily interpreted both ways.
Really, your bard does that much damage while not rolling any d20s and using no resources except one charge from a wand? And his damage is 100% reliable regardless of the enemies AC? Impressive.You may think I'm exaggerating, but yeah, I actually do. I usually only miss on 1's, and I don't consume ammo with my bow. I do a little bit less on average against enemies with higher ACs, but only marginally so.
This is not specifically directed at you, Davor, but seeing how people comment how easy is to disrupt the wand antipaladi, let me comment this: wind wall, flickering winds.
The wand antpaladin hit regardless of blur, copycat, displacement, mirror image and so on. Every tactic has a counter, how good it is depend on your target.
I'm sorry but any chance that is under 70% is not worth taking if you have other options.
I want to see this build Davor.
Why isn't magic missile a valid target of intensify?
Because it doesn't have a maximum damage dice effect like fireball or shocking grasp. It's has a maximum amount of missiles that deal damage. If it didn't say anything about making missiles and that it just deal damage then it would work with Intensify.
One could argue that the intent was to raise the cap of the spell by 5 levels, so an intensified magic missile would grant you additional missiles based on the given progression, so with the 2 for 1, you'd get 2 additional missiles. Or not. I've seen people argue both ways.
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I don't think so. Intensified specifically states that it does nothing for spells whose damage dice is unaffected by caster level. Magic Missile only gains missiles, not damage dice.
Except that you do gain damage dice, just at the rate of 2 for 1, and in the form of an extra missile or 2. I've seen arguments both ways, and I'm sure that many would see it as no, for precisely your stated reason. If it's 1 for 1, i.e. 1d6 per level everyone is fine, but state it as 1d6 for every 2 levels, and suddenly nope. Doesn't work that way. Seems a bit odd. Especially if you are going to state as some have in this very thread that its 5d4+5 damage per spell, so it damage dice based on level, and intensify should work. :)
So fireball adds extra explosions per caster level?
To those who are using the "per damage roll", I have a question. when a paladin lvl 10 with zero str reg attacking with a falchion smite evil a target who's evil, would the damage roll be 2d4+10 or would it be (1d4+10)+(1d4+10) for the way to figure out damage?
I believe it's 2d4+10