Magic Missile while blinded

Okay, I ran into this the other day while playing one of the Red Box encounters with my kids. The goblin hex hurler through a blinding curse (I can't remember the exact name of the power) at the party's wizard, which lasts until the goblin's next turn. The wizard, on his turn, threw a magic missile at the goblin hexer. Since MM is an "always hits" spell, I ruled that the hexer was hit, even though the wizard was blind while casting it. But is there a rule that addresses this situation?
 

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OnlineDM

Adventurer
The blinded condition means that targets have total concealment against the attack (normally a -5 to the attack roll). For an auto-hit power, that doesn't matter - the Magic Missile hits.

From a flavor perspective, remember that blinded doesn't necessarily mean you don't know where the enemy is. You can't see them, but you can still hear them. If they move away stealthily (and you do have -10 to Perception checks while blinded, so sneaking away is pretty easy) then you could become unaware of them.

I would rule that if a monster blinds you and then sneaks someplace else without you hearing them (their Stealth check versus your Perception check with the -10 blinded penalty) then you couldn't hit them with a Magic Missile because you don't know where they are. But if the bad guy hasn't moved, or they've moved while making so much noise that the blinded character still knows where they are (poor Stealth roll or awesome Perception roll) then the Magic Missile still works.

This is how things work in the rules, too - see page 221 of the Rules Compendium for the details on Targeting What You Can't See. Technically the character can still pick a square and shoot at it in the hopes that the bad guy was there, but feel free to rule that as you see fit as the DM (this is rather silly if the bad guy token is still on the table so that other characters can see it - though you could rule that the blind character's allies can yell instructions about where to aim to hit the bad guy).
 

That makes sense. Or, perhaps the Magic Missile spell only requires the caster to "visualize" his target, and it hits if the target is in range.
 

UngainlyTitan

Legend
Supporter
I dunno, poking through the Compendium nothing defininative jumps out but I think that total concealment or invisibility should prevent use of magic missile.
 


Minifig

First Post
It's an At Will power, and a Standard action, that being said, I'd assume that that means you have to see your target to cast it.

I agree with the assessment that you have to do a perception check with the blind mechanic attached.. which is a -10 penalty.

Why?

Because you have to take a standard action to see the creature.

If you don't see the creature to attack it .. how does the magic missile know where to fly to hit?

Looking around is a basic action, but actually DOING something while looking around requires an action..

Casting, IS an action.
 



I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich
So if the mage fails his perception who does he target

The darkness.

Duh.

(Put me in the "you can still know what square your enemy is in, unless they're also using stealth" camp...though now I've gotta look into picking up things that inflict blindness for my gnome assassin...hehehehe)
 

the Jester

Legend
It just counts as a standard miss as far as I'm aware..

Clearly, I am a bit more rat-bastardy than this...

I would probably allow a chance of hitting the wrong target if it was adjacent to the target and the blind wizard rolled a 1 on his Perception check.
 

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