So, I had a player say something along the lines of "send magic missiles at X, if they die then any remaining missiles go to Y." And with the PF1 wording of the spell I nearly contradicted them, but I double-checked the 2e wording and it just says "you choose the target for each missile individually" and "If you shoot more than one missile at the same target, combine the damage before applying bonuses or penalties to damage, resistances, weaknesses, and so forth."
So...is that valid? Or am I forgetting about some wording somewhere that says that you must choose targets when you Cast a Spell (unless otherwise noted)?
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I read this as not working. Since you combine the damage of each missile fired at a target before applying resistance and weaknesses, all of the missiles strike the target basically at the same time, meaning they can't be retargeted.
There is also the following bit of "Targets" from the CRB to consider:
If you choose a target that isn’t valid, such as if you thought a vampire was a living creature and targeted it with a spell that can target only living creatures, your spell fails to target that creature. If a creature starts out as a valid target but ceases to be one during a spell’s duration, the spell typically ends, but the GM might decide otherwise in certain situations.
A creature dying before they take damage from one of the magic missiles is an example of them ceasing to be a valid target for that particular missile. Then again, it's difficult to determine whether or not that creature took damage from a particular missile, since they hit more or less at the same time.
*Edit: So I suppose you could allow the rest of the missiles to zoom off towards the next target, but that gets messy if they have a lot of missiles. Instead of just rolling all of the dice at once and adding the damage together like the spell says to do, you have to make sure to keep them and their flat damage separate enough that you can figure out how many missiles it takes to be fatal to target one, before rerouting the rest to the next target and so forth.
This could take extra time and make a situation that should be handled quickly, like mopping up mooks, last much longer than it has any right to.
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I still read the 'you choose targets individually' as occurring at once, so you need to declare the allocation of missiles to targets upfront. Its fine to say '3 at the boss, and 1 at each of the three minions'. But you don't get to do 'I shoot one at the boss, still up? ok I shoot another, still up?...."
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I still read the 'you choose targets individually' as occurring at once, so you need to declare the allocation of missiles to targets upfront. Its fine to say '3 at the boss, and 1 at each of the three minions'. But you don't get to do 'I shoot one at the boss, still up? ok I shoot another, still up?...."
Agree, this is the correct way to do Magic Missile.
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It has always been to assign targets and fire them all at once. The damage from missiles is added up and applies to weakness/resistance as a single unit of damage, so you don't get to redirect a missile if you accidentally assigned too many to one target. In 2e you get a LOT more missiles (5 per action at level 9) so having to assign the missiles before hand makes sense, otherwise you can mindlessly wipe out all the boss's minions with one spell as it auto assigns itself to use just enough missiles to kill.