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Hi,
I've been looking around, obviously in the wrong places, for an explanation to the reversal of the Roll to Hit vs Auto-hit for the Magic Missile ability of Wizards. Why was this changed? Is there somewhere where WotC designers have spelled out (no pun intended) the rationale behind this? That and moving from a Roll for Damage to a Set Damage?
Guess I don't understand what was wrong if the first version of the At-Will ability. It seemed quite in-line with the other classes At-Wills, but now it seems to be the odd man out.
Thanks for any enlightenment and url's,
S.
I've only played it a bit, but 4e is set up very differently from most versions of this game - esp. with things like "wizard spells." There's just no room for magic missile (which is, I think, an at-will power) to auto-hit. The mitigating factors are (1) it's no longer limited to a certain number of times-per-day and (2) your hit bonus and all that, IIRC, is determined by your main stat - INT - so you're about as as good (in terms of hitting and damaging) with your magic missile as a fighter is with his sword* - which appears to be the point.
*Though the fact that he's armed provides, I think, some benefit over a "weapon from thin air" like your spell - but, like I said, I haven't played much.
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In 4th edition, Magic Missile and basically every attack power required an attack roll to determine if the power hit. This was very much inline with the design philosophy of 4th edition. However Magic missile is a time tested spell... a legacy item from previous editions and it's conversion to 4th edition drastically changed what it had been since probably the very creation of that spell. Magic Missile was *always* an auto hit spell. It had never required a to-hit roll til 4th edition rolled around. You could say it was a spell that was always in the repertoire of a wizard because its usefulness as a source of nearly unavoidable damage was very high.
The change that 4th edition recently took (making the spell go from needing an attack roll to just dealing damage and never needing to hit) was an attempt on WoTC's part to bring Magic Missile back to its roots as a spell that would always hit, never allowed a saving throw, and the only defense to it had been SR or the Shield Spell in prior editions. You could say they changed it to help bring in the older generation of players who might of looked at Magic Missile and went "WTF? Magic Missile now has a chance to miss?! Screw this game!" Of course not everyone acted this way but I do know some people did dislike the change to such a legacy spell.
The change that 4th edition recently took (making the spell go from needing an attack roll to just dealing damage and never needing to hit) was an attempt on WoTC's part to bring Magic Missile back to its roots
Interesting ... it's auto-hit again? Where is this errata'd (I might join somebody's 4e game again sometime, after all, and all I have is the first 3 rulebooks), and how did they compensate for this balance-wise (lesser damage?). Seems like a HUGE benefit, in the context of 4e...
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http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateJuly2010.pdf
This would be the errata pdf. They compensated by making it a set amount of damage. My current math says that it can get to about 30 some points of damage by epic levels with the right equipment and feats and such. But it still does present me with some confusion cause I had a wizard build that focused on "Making Magic Missile Sick as Hell" ™.
EDIT: It should be noted that there is a lot more errata then just this one file. They have separated all of the errata into different files so the changes that were made between each month could be focused on individually then collecting it all into one HUGE file.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateJuly2010.pdf
This would be the errata pdf.
Interesting. Thanks! I'll keep the link saved, should I ever need it (although, I guess the people I'd play with would be able to fill me in, as it seems quite vast for casual browsing...)
EDIT: It should be noted that there is a lot more errata then just this one file. They have separated all of the errata into different files so the changes that were made between each month could be focused on individually then collecting it all into one HUGE file.
There is also a one big file they keep updated in the archives section. It's gotten fairly large over the last few years.
EDIT: It should be noted that there is a lot more errata then just this one file. They have separated all of the errata into different files so the changes that were made between each month could be focused on individually then collecting it all into one HUGE file.
Yeah. I made the error of assume just that last week when I opened the latest set of updates and thought that 20-ish pages for the pdf was pretty darn good for how much they published.
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EDIT: It should be noted that there is a lot more errata then just this one file. They have separated all of the errata into different files so the changes that were made between each month could be focused on individually then collecting it all into one HUGE file.Yeah. I made the error of assume just that last week when I opened the latest set of updates and thought that 20-ish pages for the pdf was pretty darn good for how much they published.
Up to July 2010 the errata pdf document is 115 pages...
But in honesty most of it is sort of "who cares". We are playing non-errata'd everything except PC's (thanks for the character gen). Still having fun even if we are doing the odd thing "wrong".
S.
It unfair to other clases who don't have automatic damaging powers. A fighter always has to roll die to hit why do wizards get to be special?
If set up right a 1st level wizard can now kill an arch-demon but there isn't any way to set up a combat that a 1st fighter can do the same thing.
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Considering how much damage it does, it's very unlikely that 1st level wizard is going to be able to kill an arch-demon before it gets to him and squashes him. And I can't think of a good enough way to set it up where that wizard wouldn't eventually be reached. And if they can't be phsyically reached, that arch-demon probably has a ranged attack (and remember if the wizard can see the arch-demon then the arch-demon will see the wizard and no amount of invisibility will help cause it's a very easy perception check to find a 1st level invisible wizard)
Magic Missile at 1st level deals 2+int mod+magic item enhance points of damage... At level that's probably 5 or 6 point, possibly 7 if you really went all out on your intelligent score or you got a magical implement. It's good, especially for that troublesome minion that refuses to be hit, but it isn't game breakingly amazingly (The max amount of damage I think I've been able to get it up to is 36 points of damage by epic level and even then I'm not sure I'm following the rules correctly enough).
Considering how much damage it does, it's very unlikely that 1st level wizard is going to be able to kill an arch-demon before it gets to him and squashes him. And I can't think of a good enough way to set it up where that wizard wouldn't eventually be reached. And if they can't be phsyically reached, that arch-demon probably has a ranged attack (and remember if the wizard can see the arch-demon then the arch-demon will see the wizard and no amount of invisibility will help cause it's a very easy perception check to find a 1st level invisible wizard)
Magic Missile at 1st level deals 2+int mod+magic item enhance points of damage... At level that's probably 5 or 6 point, possibly 7 if you really went all out on your intelligent score or you got a magical implement. It's good, especially for that troublesome minion that refuses to be hit, but it isn't game breakingly amazingly (The max amount of damage I think I've been able to get it up to is 38 points of damage by epic level and even then I'm not sure I'm following the rules correctly enough).
I was exaggerating but a 1st level wizard would hit an arch-demon every time and a 1st level fighter only has a 1 in 20 chance.
It goes against 4e ideal of equality. It's a very minor change that will have very little impact on anyones game but it's like WotC is going back on there word.
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Ah well I don't know about going back on their word but I do think they are taking 4th edition in the wrong direction especially with the soon-to-be released Essentials.
(On a side note I liked it when my pacifist cleric could heal about 80 points of damage with Astral Seal at 30th level, why do they keep getting rid of all the items that affected healing whether it required a healing surge or not ;_;)
There are other ways to deal damage withou a to hit roll. Auras and half damage on miss attacks.
I also don't see how Essentials affects the direction of 4E in any meaningful way. They are releasing another set of builds, they've been doing that since Martial Power.
Is anyone upset by Essentials someone who actually plays 4e?
Personally, I'm not fussed. If Essentials brings something useful we can use, we'll use it. If it doesn't, we won't. Pretty simple really.
I, on the other hand, am fussed. One of the reasons I adopted 4E whole-heartedly was because I feel the design philosophy, especially of PCs, is cleaner than past editions. I happen to like the parallelism across classes. The 4E psionic system was one of the first big cracks in that, and Essentials is wholesale abandonment.
As far as the estimable Rev Rosey's take, my gripe is they seem, from what we've seen so far, to be not planning further support for the non-Essentials 4E. Yes, I can continue to play with 4E as it will stand in August, but by the same reasoning I could continue to play with Empire of the Petal Throne as it stood in 1970-whatever. It's a perfectly cromulent game, but ongoing support and expansion adds to the fun!
They are releasing Heroes of Shadow, which is not part of the Essentials line.
I'd say that remains to be seen. It's not labeled as Essentials in the catalog, but in format, price point, and title line, it looks more like Essentials than current 4E.
At the end of the day, it's still compatible. It hasn't been included in the line by WOTC's publicity, to the best of my knowledge.
The entire Essentials line is expected to be compatible, at the end of the day. My gripe, as noted above, is with the change in philosophy reflected in what we've seen of Essentials.
There is already a wizard at will power called storm pillar that is an area burst 1 that causes automatic damage to any creature that runs into it. The damage it causes scales just like any other wizard power. The new magic missile does not scale with other wizards powers, and causes static damage. Therefore, there was already a precedent, this just offers another type of tradeoff.
The biggest complaint with the new magic missle would be against minions.
Hi,
I've been looking around, obviously in the wrong places, for an explanation to the reversal of the Roll to Hit vs Auto-hit for the Magic Missile ability of Wizards. Why was this changed? Is there somewhere where WotC designers have spelled out (no pun intended) the rationale behind this? That and moving from a Roll for Damage to a Set Damage?
Guess I don't understand what was wrong if the first version of the At-Will ability. It seemed quite in-line with the other classes At-Wills, but now it seems to be the odd man out.
Thanks for any enlightenment and url's,
S.
Check out their most recent podcast. They talk about Essentials a fair bit in it. While they don't single out Magic Missile explicitly (I don't think) they pretty much delve into their idea of making some classes more complex then others. It seems they are going with the classic 'fighters can be simpler, wizards more complex' break down. This version of Magic Missile would seem to fit in with that - it gives wizards access to an at will that automatically hits for a smaller amount of damage. Which means adding another 'choice' to a class that already needs to use at wills for a number of different circumstances. I'm neither happy nor unhappy with the change but it does clearly make picking at wills for the wizard a more difficult process involving more trade offs. On the upside (IMO) it makes human a better race choice for wizards - three at will options pretty much covers the gamut of what a wizard wants to do with their at wills.
EDIT: It should be noted that there is a lot more errata then just this one file. They have separated all of the errata into different files so the changes that were made between each month could be focused on individually then collecting it all into one HUGE file.Yeah. I made the error of assume just that last week when I opened the latest set of updates and thought that 20-ish pages for the pdf was pretty darn good for how much they published.Up to July 2010 the errata pdf document is 115 pages...
But in honesty most of it is sort of "who cares". We are playing non-errata'd everything except PC's (thanks for the character gen). Still having fun even if we are doing the odd thing "wrong".
S.
If your DM is using the Monster Builder then the monster fixes would be in the DDI as well. Between changes to monsters and changes to characters thats really is the vast majority of the fixes. Elements outside of that are mainly some fixes to Skill Challenges (found in DMG2) and updated stealth rules (PHB2).
The big element that is not included is changes to monster design from MMII and MMIII. DMs using monsters from the older books should probably manually update at least the monster damage out put.
I've heard it suggested (by someone on this forum) that doubling (tripling for brutes) the damage modifier works really well and is reasonably close, mathematically to what wizards was doing with the monsters in MMIII. Hence if damage was 1d10+6 then change it to 1d10+12 for most monsters and 1d10+18 for brutes. I've found this works really well - but its definitely scary for your players to be taking this kind of punishment
It goes against 4e ideal of equality. It's a very minor change that will have very little impact on anyones game but it's like WotC is going back on there word.
I don't think a change of philosophy qualifies as going back on their word. Your correct that they went with a specific method for character design initially, and had a philosophical reason for going down that route. As I recall the goal was to even out the 'sweet spot' by giving fighters more abilities to make them interesting and by reducing the complexities inherent in high level wizards. That said I don't recall them ever explicitly closing the door on doing classes that broke that mould.
Nor do I think they've completely abandoned the sweet spot mentality - The addition of some simplification for a couple of classes and the inclusion of some mould breaking features for others makes it so that some classes are a little more complex (and will take a little longer to do their turns) but we have not gotten anywhere even close to the complexity of a 14th level mage or cleric in older editions. The basic philosophy remains intact if slightly tweaked.
So how does it affect minions? Do they still have minions?
I seem to recall that minions needed an attack roll to hit before they are killed. So suddenly, they have become immune to magic missle. That seems unfair, but so does the opposite: an auto-kill.
I have found 4e wizards to be a little underwhelming, to be honest, except when it comes to minions. This tweak gives them a bit more usefulness against single opponents, even if it is minimal damage.
They're pretty good against any large group of enemies, IMO. They benefit more then many other classes from having certain specialized builds. The group I play with has a wizard that, even in the heroic tier, can lay downs area burst 3 and 5 type effects that do substantial amounts of damage every turn that creatures are in the effect.
Total damage output against a large group of enemies is really phenomenal - but it does face the problem that its wounding all the bad guys but not killing any. Nonetheless the combination with some strikers is really effective - it means that later rounds of combat really swing in the parties favour very quickly because the strikers start working through the bad guys at a phenomenal speed since they have all lost half their hps from automatic area damage. Of course to pull this off required the wizard to use specific powers, combo'd with specific feats and supported by specific magic items.
So how does it affect minions? Do they still have minions?
I seem to recall that minions needed an attack roll to hit before they are killed. So suddenly, they have become immune to magic missle. That seems unfair, but so does the opposite: an auto-kill.
Minions auto-die. Its not a hit thats required to kill - its that you can't kill on a miss. Since the power has no roll it can't miss.
That said its not really a very good 'anti-minion' power for a wizard. This kills a single minion a round which is, for the wizard in particular, really sub par when they normally lay down a power that will attack 3 or 4 (or sometimes more) minions and should kill 2 or 3. Nearly anyone can hit and kill a minion in a round, what makes the wizard special is that it can kill half a dozen under the right circumstances and usually can kill at least two or three. The parties strikers will nearly always be able to kill a single minion every round themselves but minions are their weak point because it does not really matter that you just got to roll 3d12 for damage if the target was a minion.
In reality often when your jumped by minions there can be 20+ of them out there - killing them at the rate of 1 a round means that the party will take a lot of damage.
This is kind of an average circumstance - the ability can get both worse and better under more extreme situations. In one case the DM might design a level +3 encounter and use the whole budget on minions. You could be talking 60 minions. Here 1 per round is particularly terrible but there are so many enemies that area attacks can take out large numbers every round. The other extreme is the DM who makes a level +4 encounter for a 5th level party - the encounter, among other nasties features 4 9th level minions. Now these are probably very suitable targets for the wizards magic missile. At 9th level even the strikers are missing fairly often and the defenders and leaders can't seem to buy a hit. Damage output and accuracy on these high level minions is really good as well. Here the wizards area burst type effects are not great - like everyone else he probably misses their good defences - so now using magic missile to kill them at the rate of 1 per round is a slow but effective option. Gonna be a tough fight if thats how you have to handle the situation and there are other big nasties in this encounter.
Even more extreme in favour of the magic missile minion kill power is where the DM takes the budget for the whole fight and spends it on 8 really high level minions. But this is pretty corner case - it breaks encounter design guidelines.
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It unfair to other clases who don't have automatic damaging powers. A fighter always has to roll die to hit why do wizards get to be special?
If set up right a 1st level wizard can now kill an arch-demon but there isn't any way to set up a combat that a 1st fighter can do the same thing.
I may get the name wrong, but I'm pretty sure Fighters got something like Reaping strike that does either hits for (1 weapon) + 3 or 3 on miss.
So guaranteed damage isn't foreign to the system.
It unfair to other clases who don't have automatic damaging powers. A fighter always has to roll die to hit why do wizards get to be special?
If set up right a 1st level wizard can now kill an arch-demon but there isn't any way to set up a combat that a 1st fighter can do the same thing.
I may get the name wrong, but I'm pretty sure Fighters got something like Reaping strike that does either hits for (1 weapon) + 3 or 3 on miss.
So guaranteed damage isn't foreign to the system.
Automatic hits are.
Automatic hits are.
So guaranteed damage isn't foreign to the system.
Not anymore ;)
Not anymore ;)Automatic hits are.
So guaranteed damage isn't foreign to the system.
I'm pretty still are because the updated magic missile is no more an auto-hit than the cloud of daggers at-will wizard power in the Player's Handbook.
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The post wasn't because I had an issue with either version of Magic Missile. I was interested to know the reason behind the change. Did someone at WotC wake up one morning and think "Magic Missile always hits, it's a know fact. What have we done!" (insert sounds of rule writing) or was it "Mechanically I'm unhappy with the way Magic Missile works, lets change it."
S.
I was exaggerating but a 1st level wizard would hit an arch-demon every time and a 1st level fighter only has a 1 in 20 chance.
It goes against 4e ideal of equality. It's a very minor change that will have very little impact on anyones game but it's like WotC is going back on there word.
Their 'word'? Really" Where is it stated that no one will ever have auto-hit powers? Oh, right. Nowhere since the PHB already has one Cloud of Daggers (and I'd count Reaping Strike here too).
Your position is defeated before it even began.
I *like* the change. I like giving the wizard an auto hit, fairly low damage spell. My only concern - and it's a small one - is the combo with Wizard's Fury.
[For those who do not know, Wizard's Fury is a level 1 Wizard Daily that allows the Wizard to cast one magic missle, per round, as a minor action. The Wizard has to know Magic Missile to choose the Daily].
The possibility of auto damage twice per round (if the wizard uses MM as his/her standard as well) might be iffy, but I don't think it will be.
There is already a wizard at will power called storm pillar that is an area burst 1 that causes automatic damage to any creature that runs into it. The damage it causes scales just like any other wizard power. The new magic missile does not scale with other wizards powers, and causes static damage. Therefore, there was already a precedent, this just offers another type of tradeoff.
The biggest complaint with the new magic missle would be against minions.
I think there is a big difference between a spell that creates a readily avoidable zone which monsters can simply walk around to ignore risk, and a spell which auto-damages everything and anything, regardless of circumstance - and that includes concealment, cover, and invisibility (the latter assumes you can sense with Perception the square the creature is hiding in).
I also note that Cloud of Daggers was mentioned, and again, not the same thing, as the cloud still must bit the targets, but leaves a zone behind that is visible and avoidable by monsters, so they can avoid the "non-hit" damage.
The concern about minions is a non-issue compared to a larger issue of a spell without a "Hit:" requirement and only an "Effect:". This move by WotC to appease 3.5 players not yet willing to move to 4E is damaging to game balance, and I can only hope they realize this and errata Magic Missile back to the way the original rules had it function - with a hit required to do damage.
The official reason according to the latest update document is:
This update reflects an effort to restore
the power to its classical form.
Personally, I think that WotC always wanted magic missile to be an auto-hit power, they just were not confident in its ability to not be abused when 4e was first published. I think the experience of arcane bolt bears this out; that power is basically an encounter-level facsimile of the new MM and appeared in a Dragon article several months ago. A few weeks before that article was released, one of the developers came to the WotC CharOps board and asked them to break a similar auto-hit power, which resulted in the final version of arcane bolt being tweaked and some of the rules clarified (basically, when can you apply damage modifiers). I think that experience gave WotC the confidence to put the classic version of magic missile into play.
It also helped that magic missile was easily the most complained about wizard power IME (with scorching burst being second), with little to go for it other than it being a ranged basic attack (wizard's fury helped it somewhat) with zero control. Now at least it does something interesting to make it stand out from the wizard's other at-will selections (even if its still one of their weaker choices; at least the Essentials mage build gets it automatically).
There is already a wizard at will power called storm pillar that is an area burst 1 that causes automatic damage to any creature that runs into it. The damage it causes scales just like any other wizard power. The new magic missile does not scale with other wizards powers, and causes static damage. Therefore, there was already a precedent, this just offers another type of tradeoff.
The biggest complaint with the new magic missle would be against minions.
I think there is a big difference between a spell that creates a readily avoidable zone which monsters can simply walk around to ignore risk, and a spell which auto-damages everything and anything, regardless of circumstance - and that includes concealment, cover, and invisibility (the latter assumes you can sense with Perception the square the creature is hiding in).
I also note that Cloud of Daggers was mentioned, and again, not the same thing, as the cloud still must bit the targets, but leaves a zone behind that is visible and avoidable by monsters, so they can avoid the "non-hit" damage.
The concern about minions is a non-issue compared to a larger issue of a spell without a "Hit:" requirement and only an "Effect:". This move by WotC to appease 3.5 players not yet willing to move to 4E is damaging to game balance, and I can only hope they realize this and errata Magic Missile back to the way the original rules had it function - with a hit required to do damage.
True, there is a difference, but I just wanted to point out the concept was already out there, and I also agree it was a move to bring back some old school feel and possibly more 3.5 players. But if you don't like 4E, typically it is not based on one class or power. If this one power fundamentally changes the game, I doubt it, unless we see a onslaught of auto-hit powers.
I *like* the change. I like giving the wizard an auto hit, fairly low damage spell. My only concern - and it's a small one - is the combo with Wizard's Fury.
[For those who do not know, Wizard's Fury is a level 1 Wizard Daily that allows the Wizard to cast one magic missle, per round, as a minor action. The Wizard has to know Magic Missile to choose the Daily].
The possibility of auto damage twice per round (if the wizard uses MM as his/her standard as well) might be iffy, but I don't think it will be.
Considering that you need to spend a daily power to get this I just can't see it really breaking anything.
There is already a wizard at will power called storm pillar that is an area burst 1 that causes automatic damage to any creature that runs into it. The damage it causes scales just like any other wizard power. The new magic missile does not scale with other wizards powers, and causes static damage. Therefore, there was already a precedent, this just offers another type of tradeoff.
The biggest complaint with the new magic missle would be against minions.
I think there is a big difference between a spell that creates a readily avoidable zone which monsters can simply walk around to ignore risk, and a spell which auto-damages everything and anything, regardless of circumstance - and that includes concealment, cover, and invisibility (the latter assumes you can sense with Perception the square the creature is hiding in).
I also note that Cloud of Daggers was mentioned, and again, not the same thing, as the cloud still must bit the targets, but leaves a zone behind that is visible and avoidable by monsters, so they can avoid the "non-hit" damage.
The monsters can't avoid being hit if the zone targets them. Cloud of Daggers allows the mage to lay down an area 1 attack and try to hit all targets in that area - if he hits there is some damage - but hit or miss the monsters will take automatic damage when their turn starts because they will be in the zone. Flaming Sphere does the same basic thing - in this case the wizard player will roll the sphere up to the target area and the monsters will take automatic damage first thing when their turn starts.
The concern about minions is a non-issue compared to a larger issue of a spell without a "Hit:" requirement and only an "Effect:". This move by WotC to appease 3.5 players not yet willing to move to 4E is damaging to game balance, and I can only hope they realize this and errata Magic Missile back to the way the original rules had it function - with a hit required to do damage.
I'm sure they'd love it if some 3.5 players suddenly switched because of this but doubt that this will really happen - its to small a change. I think the bigger incentive is the one Matthew astutely pointed out. Low level Wizards kind of feel pretty similar to low level bow wielding Rangers this is an easy way to highlight some difference. Furthermore it was easy to eschew this type of effect when core first came out because there seemed to be infinite things one can do with a power.
I'd say part of the reason they are expanding the definition is that there really are only so many combinations of damage and conditions in existence and they need to be themed by class. One of the difficulties in designing for 4E is that you need to come up with a truly huge number of good powers. In earlier editions if a spell was not good people just did not take it and, when you got your free spell choice usually you'd be looking at a list of 30 or so spells but only 3 or 4 where ones that really interested you at that level. Most of the spells could be sub par and that did not hurt the game - it might have even helped a little by making it easier for players and DMs to figure out what the 'good' spells where thus saving time the next time you had to pick a spell of that level for a character or monster. With 4E powers hooked into all the classes that luxury of having bad powers is much less. You only get so many choices depending on your class and level - they need to almost all be comparably viable options and they need to make the classes feel distinct. A tall order and WotC is likely broadening their definition of what a power can do in part to give themselves more design space.
Can it be used in place of a basic attack? That might make a difference to its utility given some of the 'an ally makes a basic attack' powers of the other classes.
One a related note, can anyone explain how the errata'ed staff of missle mastery works:
"Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, or +1d8 damage per plus
when using magic missile."
How exactly does one generate a critical with a magic missle now?
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One a related note, can anyone explain how the errata'ed staff of missle mastery works:
"Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, or +1d8 damage per plus
when using magic missile."How exactly does one generate a critical with a magic missle now?
Good point, which makes me wonder about the wisdom of changing something that already worked fine as is. 4e Magic Missile wasn't broken in its original form.
S.
One a related note, can anyone explain how the errata'ed staff of missle mastery works:
"Critical: +1d6 damage per plus, or +1d8 damage per plus
when using magic missile."How exactly does one generate a critical with a magic missle now?
You wouldn't be able to generate a critical with a magic missile, so the second part of the critical section is redundant and should be ignored.