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/Shield
Magic Missle purly optimzed for damage are not a good idear if you plan to run this PC past level 5. At some point a fireball will allways out damage your MM. But the best part about MM is not the damage ... MM is a force spell. So it can be used with Toppling Spell (Metamagic)...
Breiti
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Toppling Spell is so so. While dedicated maneuver speciaists gain all kinds of boni to their checks, you are stuck with just your level and casting stat. Getting through CMD with that won't only be hard, it will eventually be impossible.
Breiti is right about MM being a lousy choice for specialization, however. What I would do is to keep with it for the first, say, 6 levels and then do something else. Pick up Spell Focus and Spell Specialization along with the trait that ups your caster level of one spell by +1. Anything that improves your caster level, basically. You'll get a really good trick that always works, since it's an automatic hit and is a great damage source on levels 1-4. As long as you realize it won't stay competitive later on, you are good to go.
Magic Missile Could be a good arcane trickster spell.
If memory serves you get sneak attack damage with all spells that deal damage against flat dotted targets, regardless of whether or not your spell requires an attack roll.
Also for the usefulness of MM, consider that since its force it can get thru all DR, ER, and hit incorporeal targets. Im sure theres something else to lol.
Granted, I've stopped taking it with some of my casters.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Magic Missile Could be a good arcane trickster spell.
If memory serves you get sneak attack damage with all spells that deal damage against flat dotted targets, regardless of whether or not your spell requires an attack roll.
That's the capstone ability of arcane trickster so you'd need to be 16th level or so before you got it. I'm not sure that would be a good plan.
There was a 3.5 force missile specialist PrC. You may see if your GM would allow it since you're going super-specialized anyway.
I've never understood taking magic missile at level 1. Unless you have extra resources/additions, you can do a lot better with your spells than auto-hit d4+1. To me MM is a spell for 3rd level, once you can at least equal a sword swing with it.
ya i knew about the capstone thing. but you are right, it'd be a lot of investment for a spell that would be essentially useless (or less useful) by that point. sneak attack fireballs are way more fun.
It depends!!
It is a dependable thing to do on your go.
You can do damage without making a roll to hit or allowing a save
You are gonna do some damage to almost everything you meet
It beats varying bits of cover, concealment, mirror image
as its first level it is easy to metamagic
all sorts of thing have all sorts of immunities and stuff, but not many to force
go for it
Breiti is right about MM being a lousy choice for specialization, however. What I would do is to keep with it for the first, say, 6 levels and then do something else. Pick up Spell Focus and Spell Specialization along with the trait that ups your caster level of one spell by +1. Anything that improves your caster level, basically. You'll get a really good trick that always works, since it's an automatic hit and is a great damage source on levels 1-4. As long as you realize it won't stay competitive later on, you are good to go.
He said he'll get Spell Specialisation at 1st level.
Also it allows you to switch the spell every even level.
So at level 6 he could change his MM specialisation to Fireball for example.
4d4+4+3 for magic missile at 6 becomes 8d6+3 then. Even halfed after the save that's still almost as much.
But till 4 or 5 it seems like a decent way to do damage.
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Has anyone experimented with using Ready Action to shut down enemy casters with "If he starts casting a spell, I cast Magic Missile at him"?
Until level 5 or so, I don't think MM does enough damage to drop people on its own. At that point you can spare a few level 1 spell slots, and they're good for hitting wounded enemies running away from the combat (to get help, perhaps).
Another use is when the DM hints that enemies are quite near death, the "ooh, 1 more damage and you'd have had him", to a fighter who does huge heaps of damage. I use MM to clean up at that point, saving the fighter valuable actions to take on fresh enemies.
Well using the OPs trick you get 2d4+2+1 damage at level 1, whihc is 7 damage on average, which is usually enough to drop other level 1 enemies.
However you're right normal MM will not drop anyone on its own at any level.
And I think the "shoot them with MM" is one of the standard caster-counter tactics if you can't just counterspell the spell.
Counterspelling can work.
RavingDork posted a pretty interesting counterpeller a while back. I have played a Magician Bard in a home game that was decently effective at Counterspelling. Of course the bard version winds up relying on having Dispel Magic, though the Spell Supression Bardic Performance turned out to be very useful.
It can work it just isn't easy, and it can be argued just prepare an attack to disrupt them.
I once made a force missile mage which was a prestige class from one of the dragon magazines (328?). Apart from bypassing shield spells, adding energy descriptors, it also gave you 1 extra missile. So with the twin-spell feat, and other meta magic feats, you can do a LOT of damage. Combine that with a few levels in Force Adept, and a MM mage can be a force to be reckonded with.
A player can make any type of mage (or other class) very powerful if you have the character specialize in one type of spell, school, or ability (a grappler, critical hit master, throwing enemies, etc...). The biggest flaw is that you lose the versatility that you could have with other spells.
But who cares? It's fun to make characters that stand out from the croud. Even if magic missile may at times be less powerful in a fight, to YOUR character it is the most powerful spell in existence.
MM is a pretty lousy spell for the most part, the most common good use I really see with it is using it as a held action to interrupt casting.
Using it with toppling spell makes it viable, but that trick is pretty easy to stop (shield, enemies that can't be tripped ect).
Its not terrible for some sorcerers, or to finish off the mooks that barely survived your fireball. But basing your build off of it is not especially good.
Magic Missile is not lousy, not for a 1st-level spell, anyways. If anything, it might be too powerful for 1st-level.
It's only lousy when you get to higher levels and have access to higher-level spells that scale better.
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I dunno, I think it scales a lot better than other 1st-level spells actually. Picking off nearly-finished enemies, Shadows and interrupting casters; not bad for a first-level spell, and it stays functional that way at higher levels.
It's not going to win the combat by itself, you've got other spells for that. But it's good at its niche.