Manifold Stare and Magic Missile

[Halldar]

Hi all.

Got a question concerning those two entities.

I've got a Mesmerist with Manifold Stare feat taken twice, so he can apply his Painful Stare damage (3d6+5 currently, or 5 if it is an ally) 3 times per round.

Also he's got his hands on a CL5 magic missile wand -- which, naturally, shoots 3 missiles per use.

Question is: how many times additional damage from Painful Stare should apply to target (ofc it is under the effect of Hypnotic Stare too)?

3 times?

Or only 1 (semi-relevant faq: https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qqm , it's not sneak attack but another game mechanic) ?

Or none at all?

TIA.

[Vaellen]

I'd probably only allow it to go off once. 9d6 is not a ton of damage at level 9, but it's too good to be able to do it round after round with little risk to yourself.

[Meirril]

It is the same though as with the scorching ray from that FAQ: the spell generates all of the missiles at once and they hit at the same time. So each target hit (no matter how many missiles hit) should trigger Painful Stare once.

I'm fairly certain all of the spells in Pathfinder that hit multiple times do so only once per round, mainly to prevent sneak attack from being combined with spells. Otherwise it would be the march of the Rogues with Minor Magic casting 9th level Magic Missile to hit for 1d4+1+7d6 x 5 every round.

[Thedmstrikes]

I am short on time today, but this is in line with the rules for Magic Missile and precision damage where the precision damage applies only once during the spell and only to one of the missiles (usually the first, but it is unspecified if that is necessary) (can easily be found with google). Relevant data:

D20PSFRD wrote:

Painful Stare (Su)

When an attack that deals damage hits the target of a mesmerist’s hypnotic stare, the mesmerist can cause the target to take an amount of additional damage equal to 1/2 the mesmerist’s class level (minimum 1).

The mesmerist can use this ability as a free action, and can use it even if it isn’t his turn. If the mesmerist uses this ability to increase his own damage, the additional damage increases by 1d6 points for every 3 class levels the mesmerist possesses. This damage is precision damage and is not multiplied on a critical hit. A mesmerist can trigger this ability only once per round, but a single creature can take damage from multiple mesmerists’ painful stares in a round.

Here you can see that the type of damage is classified as precision damage. Further, it specifies that multiple mesmerists can affect the same target in the same round, but any single mesmerist can only affect the target once per round.

[blahpers]

Meirril wrote:

It is the same though as with the scorching ray from that FAQ: the spell generates all of the missiles at once and they hit at the same time. So each target hit (no matter how many missiles hit) should trigger Painful Stare once.

It would only affect one target hit, not each, if we apply the FAQ reasoning. Only one missile would get the buff.