Ok, so lets say I REALLY like magic missile, but I want to make it as nasty as possible. Not just damage, but other effects as well. What combination of feats/traits/other could make it a truly impressive spell?
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Toppling Spell metamagic feat from Ultimate Magic.
the way i understand it if you are an arcane trickster you can make some outright nasty magic missiles since you can sneak attack them
the way i understand it if you are an arcane trickster you can make some outright nasty magic missiles since you can sneak attack them
I didn't think you could sneak attack them since they don't involve an attack roll but then, maybe I'm thinking 3 ed.
Force missle mage from the dragon compendium?
extra missles per cast elemental effects for free
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with 3.5's complete arcane you can energy substitute + energy admixture (+3), lord of the uttercold (+0), violate spell(+1) Fell Drain(+2) magic missile.
so you deal normal damage + same amount of damage again but 1/2 cold +1/2 negative energy. Half of all the damage is considered "vile" damage and cant be healed without being in a consecrated area, and they lose a level.
i like it better with chain missile, since it can hit multiple targets and deal multiple levels
also i think fell drain deals a negative level per missile
"Fell Drain [Metamagic]
Living foes damaged by your spell also gain a negative level.
Benefit: You can alter a spell that deals damage to foes so that any living creature that is dealt damage also gains a negative level. If the subject has at least as many negative levels as Hit Dice, it dies. Assuming the subject survives, the negative level disappears (without requiring a Fortitude save) after a number of hours equal to your caster level (maximum 15).
A fell draining spell uses up a spell slot two levels higher than the spell's actual level."
since each missile damages seperately, its a seperate negative level.
eat your heart out enervation. At 5rd level you can dish 2 negative levels, no attack roll, no save, medium range, up to 5 a round at 9th level using just a 3rl level spell slot. enervation is a 4th level, d4 negative levels, range touch, close range.
Fell magic missile is uber wicked
WARNING: May cause GM to shoot you out of a cannon.
Force Missile Mage from Dragon issue 328 “Feb 2005” or Dragon Compendium
*For more Dakka! (self-explanatory)
*Dakka is ‘Shield Piercing” (shield spells are now “NO SALE!”)
*Dakka can ‘add’ elemental energy to Force Effect. (to take advantage of elemental weakness)
The feat “Artillery Mage” from [MegaFeats Revisited]
*For even MORE Dakka! (effectively doubling firepower)
*In exchange for a 5th-level Spell Slot Dakka is twice as strong (d8 instead of d4)
*Convert other spells into Magic Missile like Cleric.
At Level 20 (Wiz/Sorc 15/F.M. Mage 5) you are capable of throwing 21 magic missiles, for a total of 21d4+21 damage (Max Damage: 105), that that ignore the “Shield” spells “immunity to Magic Missile” effect. That are capable of attuning to a element at each casting of the spell to target vulnerabilities. Oh and your magic missile spells count as being effected by the “Still Spell” metamagic feat without increasing its Spell Level.
Oh and did I mention that this Magic Missile spell is STILL a 1st level spell!!!
And if you cast a Magic Missile spell with at least a 5th level Spell Slot it jumps to 21d8+21 (Max Damage: 189!) Leaving you with up to 4 Spell Levels open for metamagic feats (except Still Spell, you already get that ^-^).
“Are YOU getting enough DAKKA!?”
the way i understand it if you are an arcane trickster you can make some outright nasty magic missiles since you can sneak attack themI didn't think you could sneak attack them since they don't involve an attack roll but then, maybe I'm thinking 3 ed.
One of the class abilities later on states that sneak attack is applied to ALL spells that deal damage
Evoker adds 1/2 class level to evocation spell damage, but only once per spell.
Here we go. I played next to one of these back in 3.5. Pathfinder, not going to happen, but heres a full-splat 3.5 magic missle monster.
Sorceror, PHB2 trade-out familiar for standard (as opposed to slow) metamagic.
Force Missle Mage, as previously noted.
Argent Savant for extra damage bonuses.
Twin, repeating, quickened, empowered, for feat selection.
Spell Matrix spells from Spell Compendium, Celerity spells as well.
End result: Unload like a beast for an average of 500 points of nearly unblockable damage on any target (or divided amongst targets) within medium range. Throwing around something like 60 missiles per round.
Willing to suffer consequences? Push it up to 700 with celerity.
Like I said, we played with the guy, point buy was high, but that just gave him a few extra spell slots, since he wasn't ever setting DCs. His math and such were legit, we all went over it together.
Barring DM modifications on the fly, he would have downed Kyuss in Age of Worms in 1 round with average damage. Granted, he was begging for inevitables to come down on him with all the time-warping via celerity and time-stop to re-fill his Spell Matrix.
Again, 90% useless for Pathfinder tho.
If you care to take a look, TCG, I made a thread about converting the Force Missile Mage. Me and the other guys in the thread came up with a 5 level version that we felt was more in line with the PF power bump, and then I fleshed out a 10 level version, cause there were 10 abilities. There's 2 versions on the thread, the first post is the 5 level version, and the finished version is this.
I would like some playtest data on it, if your GM is willing to allow either version, as I will also be compiling some data on it in about a month in my own high level game.
A lot of interesting ideas, but very few that are pure PF. James maissen has the right idea, though.
First of all - face it. You're not going to be doing a lot of damage with a MM, no matter what. Even an Empowered, Intensified*, and/or Maximized magic missile does pathetic damage compared to the other spells you could be casting with that slot.
Instead, you want to be focusing on the other things you can add to the spell. All the "Add a condition" metamagic feats say "If the spell allows a saving throw, a successful save negates [the effect]. If the spell does not allow a save, the target can make a [save type] save to negate the [effect]." Since MM doesn't allow a save normally, each of these feats will require the target(s) to make a separate save.
The primary condition-adding feats that don't require a specific energy type are: Dazing Spell (+3), Disruptive Spell (+1), Sickening Spell (+2), and Thundering Spell (+2). On top of that, there's Toppling Spell (+1) which is for force spells only. This brings us to +9, which is the most you can put on a 1st level spell (assuming the trait for -1 as well). With Spell Perfection this only would take up a 6th level slot, and would give you 5 missiles of "Take 1d4+1 damage, then Will save vs daze for 1 round, Fort save vs deafening for 1 round, Fort save vs sickening for 1 round, make concentration checks to cast next round, and I roll to trip you". You'll notice that a lot of the effects don't help much, since they only last one round.
If you want to throw in Elemental spell (+1), you can convert half of the force damage to acid, cold, electricity, or fire, allowing you to add Burning Spell (+2), Rime Spell (+1), Flaring Spell (+1), or both Burning and Flaring, respectively. Burning would add two damage the following round, Rime would entangle for 1 round, and Flaring would dazzle for one round. Again, nothing really special and they don't stack well.
The final way to improve a magic missile spell is to make it fire faster / more often. This would be Quicken (+4), Persistent (+2), or Echoing (+3). Of these, Quicken is likely to be the only one of use.
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Taking all the above into account, I'd say the best combination of metamagic feats for magic missile would be Toppling (+1), Dazing (+3), and Heighten (+n). With Spell Perfection to negate the Dazing, and Magical Lineage to let you squeeze in an extra level, this caps out as a 6th level spell (n = 5) which allows you to target up to 5 people, and each one who gets hit takes 1d4+1 damage, has a chance to be tripped, and then saves vs dazing for 6 rounds. This also boosts the save DC on the dazing effect. You can fill all your spell slots of 6th level and lower with MM modified by heighten to just blast it out all day long. That also preserves your high-level slots for the more damaging / useful spells.
Alternatively, you could lower n by three, and add elemental spell (fire or acid) and burning for 9 extra damage, but it's probably not worth it unless you also drop Dazing for Flare.
So, if we really want to go over the top, let's add Mythic options:
At 5th tier:
Add Mythic Empower (1.75x damage)
Fire off a 2 mythic pt, augmented Magic Missile that has been
Intensified and maximized.
First: Intensified = 7 missiles.
Second: Augmented (4th tier) doubles that number to 14 missiles
Augmented damage = 2d4+1 Maximized = 9 pts damage
14 missiles x 9 pts per = 126 pts
Apply Mythic Empower = 220 pts
So, you fire off a 220 pt damage spell, range is LINE OF SIGHT, it bypasses SR, Spell Immunity and Shield spell/similar effects.
If you can find something to add to the "per dice" damage, you can boost this even more...
Give the caster a good telescope, and he's hitting things for nice damage MILES away. Though you will need a 5th Tier Mythic character to do this...
;)
So let us derail and ask,what was this issue with MM amd intensify?
Magic Missile doesn't benefit from Intensified Spell.
Maybe because a Magic Missile spell cast be a level 9+ spellcaster inflicts 1d4+1 damage 5 times rather than inflicting 5d4+5 damage?
I will second "Toppling Spell" with Magic Missile. Just made a Psychic for my Carrion Crown campaign, and he loves to knock mo-uckers prone.
Meh,
Even without Intensify, the Mythic rules still pimp MM pretty decently.
Augmented 4th tier + maximized to double the missiles still puts 10 missles x 9 pts (90 points) of pretty much unstoppable damage downrange.
Multiply by 1.75 and you get 157 points blasting at line of sight range. That's still impressive, given you can hit from a long, long ways away.
But, Mythic pimps things up to broken level pretty quick.