D&D 5E Empowered Evocation plus Magic Missile?

[Degwerks]

Er... I'm confused now. Is he saying that you roll 1d4+1 (plus Empowered Evocation) once, and then apply that same damage total to each missile? That's the only way I can make sense out of Crawford's tweets. But that seems like a highly unintuitive reading of the text of the spell; the obvious reading is that you roll for each missile.

Without some clarification, I'm going to ignore Twitter and go with the official errata: You get your Int bonus on one damage roll, meaning one missile.

Yes, he's saying you roll once for the spell (1d4+1) and all missiles do that damage that you rolled that one time, and each one of those missiles if you're an Evoker do +X Int bonus damage.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah, that's a RAI that I'm not going to bother with. I find rolling three d4s for MM calculation has worked fine, so there's no reason to change it.

As far as Empowered Evocation is concerned (not that I actually have to deal with it currently)... I'd probably rule it once per target. Treating it as though it was like a critical on an attack roll-- two missiles hitting a target is like rolling a crit wherein the damage dice are doubled (1d4+1 being the "damage die"), but any non-rolled bonuses are added in once after the fact.

 

[Dausuul]

Yes, he's saying you roll once for the spell (1d4+1) and all missiles do that damage that you rolled that one time, and each one of those missiles if you're an Evoker do +X Int bonus damage.

Huh. I guess you could read the spell that way... it's a very strange interpretation, though. "A dart deals 1d4+1 force damage to its target."

It should be re-worded to "Roll 1d4+1; each dart deals that much force damage to its target."

 

[Noctem]

I do expect errata on this to be clear

 

[Diamabel]

Once per missile in my game, for sure- Magic missile *should* be better than a cantrip.

At level 10, without empowered Evocation, or with a single +int modifier for the whole spell, magic missile has a worse damage range than firebolt- and it only gets worse as cantrips scale twice more.
(Even taking into account the auto-hit and force damage nature of magic missile- it still costs resources)

I rather think it's a problem across the board that cantrips outscale lower level damage spells that actually expend resources(except for AoE in certain situations).

 

[Finalone]

I agree that the spell doesn't appear to read that way at first glance, but the lead man himself says that's how it works. I think this is a fairly important point to iron out for those of us who have dm's who want to play by the book. Outside of sculpt spells, Evocation is pretty underwhelming but this ruling changes the whole ballgame. Being able to do 1d4+6 for each missile without a save or attack role is pretty beefy at all levels.

 

[Horwath]

I agree that the spell doesn't appear to read that way at first glance, but the lead man himself says that's how it works. I think this is a fairly important point to iron out for those of us who have dm's who want to play by the book. Outside of sculpt spells, Evocation is pretty underwhelming but this ruling changes the whole ballgame. Being able to do 1d4+6 for each missile without a save or attack role is pretty beefy at all levels.

An in 3.5e so in 5E, evoker is pretty bad. more or less you do hitpoint damage.
Atleast you should be really best at it.

as for magic missile

cast as 3rd level, 5 missiles. it deals 5d4+5+5(or+25) damage average; 22,5 or 42,5 no save/miss

fireball as 3rd level deals 8d6+5(either way), average 33 damage(16,5 with save)

clearly if int bonus is applied to all missiles magic missile wins at single target. As it SHOULD.

but if fireball hits 2 targets(one makes the save) fireball deals 49,5 damage.

And fireball hase decent AoE. It affects 52 5ft squares if you hit dense army formation(a rare event I admit) and half of them makes the save(very generous IMHO) you will deal 1287 damage.

but generally I dont think that would be ever over 15 or 20 targets. Count on 6-8 on average. And half make the save.

4 targets 99 damage
6 targets 148,5 damage
8 targets 198 damage

 

[Caliban]

I do expect errata on this to be clear

It is clear. Per the PHB Errata:

Empowered Evocation (p. 117). The damage bonus applies to one damage roll of a spell, not multiple rolls.

Errata can be found here: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/Errata_PH.pdf

 

[Degwerks]

It is clear. Per the PHB Errata:

Errata can be found here: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/Errata_PH.pdf

Caliban, on the previous page there were links to Tweets that specifically say that Magic Missile is an exception to that PHB Errata. Magic Missile no matter how many missiles you have, you roll only 1d4+1 & add your Int bonus to each missile.

 

[Caliban]

Caliban, on the previous page there were links to Tweets that specifically say that Magic Missile is an exception to that PHB Errata. Magic Missile no matter how many missiles you have, you roll only 1d4+1 & add your Int bonus to each missile.

Unfortunately tweets aren't official errata.