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I mean, yeah, it works on incorporeal creatures, but c'mon...
Even at it's most powerful, we're talking about 5d4+5 damage at level 9.
How has this spell survived sooo long when it's so terrible?
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Because it works pretty well, but not for dumb blasting.
You know that moment when the GM gives the fighter the "hah! 1 more HP!" look? And the monster is in melee, and you suck at targeting spells in melee? And if the monster gets a turn, he's really going to hurt the fighter?
Or if a monster flees because it's nearly dead, and it's pretty fast? And you don't want it warning the other monsters about the PCs?
Or when there's this annoying enemy wizard. You can see he doesn't have Shield up. You could ready a MM to interrupt his spellcasting.
It's a guaranteed hit with a generous range. It's very good to have 1-2 prepared. No more, but then it's pretty good.
It does damage that's garonteed it never misses. Its one of the best spells in the game for disruoting spellcasting. I think it has the longest range of any lvl 1 spell.
Additionally unless their modified by other magic its dsmage is in line with other lvl 1 spells.
Shocking grasp 5d6 burning hands 5d4 magic missile 5d4+1.
Really I don't see what your issue is.
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Auto-hit, good range, force damage, and no save. What's not to like? Find me a first level spell that beats it.
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Ummm ... It's an auto hit, force damage, bypasses DR, does full damage against incorporeal at range and is a 1st level spell that would do ~18 hp of damage on average. By 9th level you should also be able to cast an empowered version for an average of ~27 hp of damage, not to mention a quickened version in the same round for an average of about 45 hp of damage. Compare to a fireball which does on average about 32 hp of damage at 9th level and allows a save. Granted the fireball is an AoE, but depending on what you are fighting, it also could do no damage due to evasion, energy resistance or energy immunity (things which don't apply to magic missile).
All that said, I'm not sure I'm seeing how it sucks and deserves to be dropped.
EDIT: ninja'd by a gaggle of ninjas.
And not only that, but think of all the metamagic feats that can be applied to it.
There's very few guaranteed defenses against it: the shield spell and spell resistance.
It can even target multiple foes at once.
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A lot of this is a repeat of earlier, but
- 1:Ignores Concealment
- 2:Quick Way to get rid of Mirror Image
- 3:Multiple Targets at Once
- 4:Best Toppling Spell Target for Debuff on top of Blast
- 5:Ignores Incorporeality
- 6:Automatic Hit
- 7:Only needs a small portion of the enemy to target
- 8:
Meh, it is a fairly terrible spell which does weak damage which does not scale at all. If you think doing 18 damage is a good use of your action at level 9 then I just don't know what to say other than that CR9 opponents have on average around 115hp.
It can be improved with the addition of things like Toppling Spell or Dazing Spell but otherwise is really not worth it. At level 1 I would much rather have things like Grease, Colour Spray, Silent Image or Sleep. At higher level I am not using level 1 spell slots for offence.
What he said.
It's not USELESS, but there are invariably better options out there.
It is a solid spell for a level 1-3 mage to have ready. At 9th level, a mage shouldn't be made to look at first level spells as "make or break" concepts.
As a first level spell, it can also be used as a wand for pretty cheap. Ask my Summoner's Eidolon how well such wands work. (Biped Eidolon, with Use Magic Device skill fairly high).
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I don't get why it seems like a couple people are comparing Magic missile to higher level spells at ninth level. It's not competing with slots for wall of force... Its competing with mage armor and color spray.
And it's a wonderfully versatile and uncannily reliable offensive trick. It's not the best spell in the game, but it doesn't have to be to be good.
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Meh, it is a fairly terrible spell which does weak damage which does not scale at all. If you think doing 18 damage is a good use of your action at level 9 then I just don't know what to say other than that CR9 opponents have on average around 115hp.
It can be improved with the addition of things like Toppling Spell or Dazing Spell but otherwise is really not worth it. At level 1 I would much rather have things like Grease, Colour Spray, Silent Image or Sleep. At higher level I am not using level 1 spell slots for offence.
So why are you using that sleep or colour spray if not for offense? (OK. Color Spray could be momentarily decorative.) And both are subject to SR and a saving throw.
Edit: Ahh, I think now that you meant for your last sentence to stand as a new paragraph. I agree that those four spells are excellent choices at first level. But is magic missile so terrible to pick up as you adventure? A wizard can get it for practically free.
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My level 9 Bard loves his wand of Magic Missle (CL 7 I think I don't have his sheet handy at the moment). Generally, he won't out damage the party's Fighter or Druid, but he can use the wand while singing and dancing. Sometimes massive piles of damage are not the responsibility of the wizard (or bard) or the wizard does not want blow throuAndals his best spells and the relatively small, but reliable, damage from Magic Missile is just bonus.
Of course a magic Missile is situational. All spells are situational.
Wizard:"We need to get out of this deep hole, what spell should I use? Magic Missile!"
GM: No effect
Wizard: "Fireball! That is my go-to spell"
GM: Still no effect
Wizard: "ooo I know. Haste! That spell is perhaps the most useful spell available"
GM: ugh
So why are you using that sleep or colour spray if not for offense? (OK. Color Spray could be momentarily decorative.) And both are subject to SR and a saving throw.Meh, it is a fairly terrible spell which does weak damage which does not scale at all. If you think doing 18 damage is a good use of your action at level 9 then I just don't know what to say other than that CR9 opponents have on average around 115hp.
It can be improved with the addition of things like Toppling Spell or Dazing Spell but otherwise is really not worth it. At level 1 I would much rather have things like Grease, Colour Spray, Silent Image or Sleep. At higher level I am not using level 1 spell slots for offence.
Few things have SR at that level.
I would rather cast a spell that might do something over one that is guaranteed to do almost nothing.|
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MM is still pretty good at level 9, for the reasons I mentioned before. If you want to suppress a spellcaster, you really REALLY want your readied spell to hit. Otherwise you wasted your action, AND got hit with his spell. 5d4+5 is enough to screw up someone's Concentration check.
And GMs very often tell you that the monster has only a few HP remaining. For whatever reason; gloating or pitying the fighter for rolling low on damage. MM is a perfect cheap way to finish a monster off.
At level 9, a magic missile is really cheap. You have plenty of level 1 slots. You can afford to prepare two magic missiles for those moments when it's good.
At level 9, a magic missile is really cheap. You have plenty of level 1 slots. You can afford to prepare two magic missiles for those moments when it's good.
Assuming you prep-cast.
Useless? No.
Situational? Yes.
This.
I would consider Magic Missile poor as a spell of first resort, except possibly with specialized metamagic (and even then it is unlikely to be earth-shattering). The lack of failure chance can be of significant use in some circumstances though. I think it makes a decent pick for a sorc's 5th or 7th level spell known.
It feels like a lot of theorycraft in here. I still don't see any reason to prepare it past level 1, tbh, and really not even then.
Level 1: Color Spray and/or Sleep wins the game. Why bother with MM at all?
Level 2: The above remains true, and Burning Hands suddenly becomes better DPS.
Level 3: Scorching Ray becomes available, and both it and Burning Hands do superior DPS.
Level 4: Probably the last level that Color Spray or Sleep are auto-win (they're still good though), and Scorching Ray/Burning Hands is still doing better DPS.
Level 5: Scorching Ray stops being obviously better for a bit here, but it's technically still superior and Burning Hands is still in the lead.
Level 6: Ditto level 5.
Level 7: Magic Missile finally overtakes Burning Hands again! Wait, no it doesn't: 5d6 > 4d4+4. Also, now you get your second ray for Scorching Ray, and from here on out, it's always better single-target DPS. (edit - Wrong dps for BH. Technically MM wins at this level, but still loses to Scorching Ray.)
Level 8+: Are you really using 1st level slots for offense anymore? Honestly?
(A note on Shocking Grasp: The only class I ever see bother with this spell is Magi who abuse metamagic tricks/traits in order to make it better than 5d6. Otherwise, I just don't see people using it, so I didn't bother to include it.)
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.... so i guess your question is
why should there be any spells other than color spray, sleep, burning hands and scorching ray at that level.
If thats the case then there is no reason to use Magic missile... so don't.
all spells are situational that is the nature of spells.
go into battle with undead and your going to wish you had magic missile rather than useless colorspray and sleep.
bottom line if you don't like it don't use it. But the question of why is it still around is basically troll bait.
its around because its fun, effective and balanced. Not every choice in the game is about DPR (damage per round, Damage Per Second is kind of meaningless in a turn based table top game.)
Fun? Sure, maybe.
Balanced? Eh, I obviously think it's below par.
Effective? Only if the target is incorporeal.
Sure, not everything is about DPR, and not everything should be.
But successfully contributing to the party's success is important, and I just don't see how MM does that.
For example, you know what else is fun? Enchantment Spells. But if you're not a Kitsune Sorcerer, you're (generally speaking) wasting your, and everyone else's, time by trying to make those work for you.
I really like it. For Sorcerers.
1st level spells are very soon a plentiful resource. And it's almost always useful. Not tremendously useful, but then, it uses a common resource. It gives you something to do when you want to preserve spells. It gives you something to do when you come up against something that your main tricks don't work against. It gives you a way to contribute once you've cast your buffs and summons.
It's never going to solve encounters on its own, but for what it can do, it is fine, easy and cheap.
And as comparison with burning hands and scorching ray goes:
Burning hands requires you to get close to the enemy, scorching ray requires an attack roll which probably has, at the time you get it, a 30%+ rate of failure. So the real comparison at level 4 is a guaranteed 2d4+2 for a level one slot, or a 30%+ chance to do 4d6 for a level two slot. 7 DPR vs. 9.8 DPR. But with scorching ray, you could have wasted your action. At level 5, MM does 10 DPR, so comes out ahead. Also, while touch AC doesn't scale rapidly, in particular in the lower levels, where enemies are smaller, it is often at least a bit higher than ten, tilting things even more in the direction of MM.
A similar calculation, using saving throws, can be applied to burning hands, which does retain the advantage of doing AoE with all that that entails, yet has a distinct disadvantage regarding range.
As an aside, burning hands does d4s not d6s in damage.
If you focus on burning hands, you can easily make it very powerful - doing 5d4+10 on first level, which is, frankly, glorious overkill. Similarly, scorching ray is a great spell to focus on, if you want to build a ray blaster. Magic missile on the other hand doesn't lend itself to be exploited by just the right build. You can do a bit of it with metamagic (toppling, sickening, dazing, e.g.), but nothing truly record setting. But if you do not want to specialize in the spell, magic missile is easily as useful, if not more useful than either burning hands or scorching ray.
All the first level offensive spells quickly turns useless or very dangerous to use as one gains levels. In my experience, this is around ~level 5-6.
Sleep & Color Spray is capped by HD.
Burning Hands & Shocking Grasp puts the squishy mage very close to danger.
Snowball and the two above frequently gets shut down by resistances.
Either you fill your first level slots with only utility or you are kindof forced to pick up Magic Missile!
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P.s.
It's the only spell you can use to attack the darkness.
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It feels like a lot of theorycraft in here. I still don't see any reason to prepare it past level 1, tbh, and really not even then.
Level 1: Color Spray and/or Sleep wins the game. Why bother with MM at all?
Level 2: The above remains true, and Burning Hands suddenly becomes better DPS.
Level 3: Scorching Ray becomes available, and both it and Burning Hands do superior DPS.
Level 4: Probably the last level that Color Spray or Sleep are auto-win (they're still good though), and Scorching Ray/Burning Hands is still doing better DPS.
Level 5: Scorching Ray stops being obviously better for a bit here, but it's technically still superior and Burning Hands is still in the lead.
Level 6: Ditto level 5.
Level 7: Magic Missile finally overtakes Burning Hands again! Wait, no it doesn't: 5d6 > 4d4+4. Also, now you get your second ray for Scorching Ray, and from here on out, it's always better single-target DPS.
Level 8+: Are you really using 1st level slots for offense anymore? Honestly?(A note on Shocking Grasp: The only class I ever see bother with this spell is Magi who abuse metamagic tricks/traits in order to make it better than 5d6. Otherwise, I just don't see people using it, so I didn't bother to include it.)
Level 1:Color Spray/Sleep is mind effecting, and requires a save v. MM which auto-hits for d4+1 and has no save
2:Still a no save d4+1 v. a save-for-half resistance-prone 2d4. comparing averages, MM gets 3.5 and BH gets 5 with save for 2. Burning Hands also brings you up near melee.3:A 2nd level spell surpasses a first level spell in DPS with a commonly resisted energy type. But that is 2nd level spells v. 1st level spells. Burning Hands v. Magic Missile means Burning Hands comes ahead, at 7.5 save for 3 on average v. MM with its consistent 3.5, no save, and range.
4:Scorching Ray is still level 2, so is a higher investment then a MM, and Burning Hands is 10, save for 5 v. MM which is 7, no save, no resist, auto-hit.
5:Burning Hands goes up to 12.5 or 6 on a save, v.10.5.
6:No Change
7:Burning Hands is 5d4 v. 4d4+4, which is either 12.5 average or 14 average, one of which allows a save.
8+First Level Offensive Spells are now in the wizard's spellbook next to the Knock-Knock Joke because you now have 4 levels of spells, but hey, MM is still about as good as Burning Hands against 1 target.
Now, throw in multiple targets clumped together, and this makes BH superior, but still MM is competing in terms of damage the whole way. This post probably seems to be in a different tone than its intended to be in, so for clarity, this isn't me being argumentative or defensive, just providing food for thought. Personally, I think MM is a pretty balanced 1st level spell. Not OP, not UP, not always the best choice, not too often the worst choice.
As DM I had to pull some punches by having a couple low level sorcerers protected by mirror image stop casting magic missile. They were focusing down the partys primary damage dealer from a distance while he was dealing with a few mooks. Group of bad guy sorcerers can do a lot of damage target firing with this in the low to middling levels.
MM is still pretty good at level 9, for the reasons I mentioned before. If you want to suppress a spellcaster, you really REALLY want your readied spell to hit. Otherwise you wasted your action, AND got hit with his spell. 5d4+5 is enough to screw up someone's Concentration check.
I don't agree with you here. Shield is pretty much guaranteed to be up for any spell caster who had time to buff because he heard you cracking skulls in the next room.
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stuff about Burning Hands or Scorching Ray
First, if you're going to look at spell damage without considering the chance of passing a save or missing a ranged touch attack, then of course a spell that does less damage but has a major selling point in no save or attack roll is going to look worse on average.
Second, even if you had factored that into your averages, consistency is valuable in itself. All other things equal, a 100% chance to deal 10 damage may well be more attractive than a 75% chance to deal 15 damage. Even though DPR will tell you the latter is superior. Decreasing randomness favors PCs as the typically stronger side in a battle.
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Fun? Sure, maybe.
Balanced? Eh, I obviously think it's below par.
Effective? Only if the target is incorporeal.Sure, not everything is about DPR, and not everything should be.
But successfully contributing to the party's success is important, and I just don't see how MM does that.For example, you know what else is fun? Enchantment Spells. But if you're not a Kitsune Sorcerer, you're (generally speaking) wasting your, and everyone else's, time by trying to make those work for you.
so you don't like it...
fair enough, your entitled to not like it... i personally don't like color spray for various reasons... but I'm suggesting it should be removed from the game.
I guess I don't understand why you think I should not be able to use MM because YOU don't like it.
should it be tweaked in some way? should it be replaced? should the magic spell list be the 7 spells you feel are useful and we should remove all other spells because YOU find them useless?
Im just not sure what the point of this post is.
NOTE: you are fully entitled to your opinion. If your post was something like "I don't really like MM why do you like it" I would find that fair but your post is more like "I don't like MM and I think it should be removed prove me wrong" which I think is small minded... my own personal opinion of course.
I'm running d6 hungry are the dead right now. Everything is immune to sleep and colourspray. Shocking grasp woukd require melee range and burning hands being in 15 ft.
If the party wizard wants ro use lower level spells as support magic missile for this moment is his best dsmsge option.
On a side note tho it can't hurt mirror images.
A couple of people have mentioned that Magic Missile can't destroy Mirror Images. It can bypass them though. I guess Fireball can too, but Magic Missile also bypasses energy resistances. If nothing else it makes a cheap wand to use when you'd otherwise just float around conserving spell slots. You can also lend the wand to somebody with UMD when incorporeal stuff shows up.
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Held action
I shoot a magic missile in response to spellcasting
5d4+5 damage= 17ish damage for a concentration check of 27 + spell level.
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Like the others have said above, Magic Missile has its uses. It is not the most powerful spell (it's a 1st level spell...); however, it can be fun. This is especially true if you're running with Mythic Rules.
Mythic Magic Missile when empowered with mythic power.... 10 missiles at 2d4+1 damage that completely ignore any and all immunities... hey that's not bad for a 1st level spell. Yes, yes, you can do so much more with mythic rules, but again we're taking a 1st level spell that ignores Shield, SR, and magic immunity amongst all the normal things MM does.
Plus it's a great spell to use against PCs. Your front line fighter goes through the door and BAM! He's suddenly hit with a crap ton of magic missiles cast by a group of mid-level magic users. Just a thought.
1st-level Wizard formations using level 1 wands of magic missile is probably THE most effective NPC military strategy against non-SR targets, so that's something.
It's also a great wand to chuck on a grasp-capable familiar.
It's not something a PC would usually cast but automatic damage has a niche. I've caught out a GM with it before after he boasted about his favourite villain being on single digit HP but out of range of our attacks. If i'd chucked a save-capable or attack roll spell at him the DM would've fudged it and said it missed/he saved.
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Nothing in the world is scarier than 4 dragons flying through the air carrying a boat filled with 100 1st level kobold sorcerers that all have a magic missile readied for when lieutenant says, "NOW!"
^Actually happened in a game I ran. Devistation and disbelief swept across the faces of my players.
The very next action went to the party wizard, and looking at the obliterated corpse of his buddy the fighter, said as quickly and worriedly as you can imagine, "quickened shield"
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If you are a 9th level caster and reduced to casting magic missile, you have bigger issues to deal with. Of course, by that point in the combat, 17 points of damage may make a difference ...
Sure it is not the go to spell at higher levels. And I don't think anyone has said it should be. But it is nice to have in reserve if needed. For a modern RPG analogy, it is the .38 your PC keeps in their pocket for those times when they run out of shotgun shells and the .45 has nothing but empty clips. You don't kick down the door with it in hand, but when everything goes sideways, it's nice to have just in case.
As to the quickened version, sure, it's not something I would prepare for a wizard PC (though as a GM it's oh so much fun to throw it into the mix every once in a while for NPCs to use). That said, there is always the lesser quickened metamagic rod (and I would argue the rods are the way to go rather than the metamagic feats) ... ticket price 35000gp if your GM allows purchase of magic items, 17500gp if the GM allows the construction of magic items (DC 22 spellcraft, DC 27 if the creator does not have the Quicken Spell feat ... by 9th level you should have a spellcraft modifier of no less than 15 and most likely in excess of 20 if you are running with crafting feats).
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Troll kids use at park when normal tag boring.
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It feels like a lot of theorycraft in here. I still don't see any reason to prepare it past level 1, tbh, and really not even then.
My 7th level Sylph Wizard(Air) in a Rise of the Runelords campaign always has at least one MM prepped AND through one of the side-mods our GM added also has a 5th level wand of MM.
As many people have said it is nice to be able to throw that guaranteed to hit 4d4+4 force damage to the BBEG to topple them down when I know from the queues from the GM (either unconscious or conscious) that the BBEG is about to topple over but our front-liner just missed the mark, is low and HP and I'm right after the front-liner, but the BBEG is right after me. My wizard ended up killing off the BBEG and ensuring that the front-liner didn't get pounded into mush.
I've also used MM (albeit from a wand most of the time) on fights I know aren't going to last very long and I don't want to waste any of my precious 2-4th level spells.
In Book 2 of Rise of the Runelords, you fight lots of ghouls, my Wizard used to almost always exclusively have Color Spray and Sleep prepped. Even as an experienced player I learned a harsh lesson when we went out investigating the farmhouse and got ambushed by ghouls and after my second level spells were used up, I was relegated to using a Wand of Shocking Grasp (CL:1), which isn't a very good idea for a wizard to begin with, but it was really the only thing I could do a that point
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One of my players made a magus/monk that at level 10 had 40 some ac and 15+ to all saves. The first time I saw fear in his eye was when they ran into a daemon that had quickened magic missile and regular magic missile. Think he only had around 60 hitpoints and when I plowed into him for 40 points of magic missile he quite rightly panicked.
So I'm convinced that "useless" is way too strong a word now. I suppose it can, in fact, come in handy (especially if undead are a major thing in your low-levels.)
I'd say that the "miss chance" for a Ranged Touch is so low in most encounters that it shouldn't really factor, but it's not a point I'm willing to argue. :)
It's just my personal experience talking, I suppose. Any time I've made a caster with MM, I pretty much always end up wishing it was something else.
Even watching other casters use it: In my current game two weeks ago, one of our PCs managed to do nothing at all but piss off the enemy and get himself killed by using his wand of MM.
So sure, when your enemy numbers a handful or more of casters all dropping Magic Missiles at you, yeah that hurts.
But do you honestly care when a single enemy caster does? How is the reverse situation not also true?
I remember when our party was hacking its way through the wizard's guild they tapped into the armories and geared up the 1st level or so apprentices with a bunch of CL 9 Magic Missile wands with a handful of charges. Makes for very cheap yet reliable damage from mooks, in a situation where touch attack or saving throw effects would have been much less useful.