July Errata is up

[UngeheuerLich]

Never Miss!!!

Minion = Dead!

What misses however is the ability to deal full damage to insubstantial creatures.

Also i had liked following Spell:
hit: 1d4 damage
effect: what it is now!

edit: about removing a perfectly fine power...
they reacted to critics which are 2 years old by now... Maybe add a different spell to fill the old niche...
They just tried to make magic missile "magic missile"... i guess it has something to do with essential line, where they try to make it better than with the normal line, where they had to endure a lot of nerdrage because of a magic missile which had to hit.

Since they are trying to get in those peaople who skipped 4e until now, they want to avoid those mistakes, and in this case there was no other option than errata...

They also don´t want to hear again that all classes are the same and wizards are no wizards...
I also bet that rituals included in essential line will have casting times of about a min and wizards may cast some of them for free

 

[Markn]

No not usually.

 

[DracoSuave]

What misses however is the ability to deal full damage to insubstantial creatures.

Actually, the new power is better against insubstantial creatures.

This is because the only thing that made insubstantial creatures fear the magic missile was:

Inescapable Force
Benefit: When you use a power that has the force keyword, you deal full damage (instead of half damage) against insubstantial creatures, and that power deals an extra 1d10 damage to such creatures.

So, against insubstantial creatures, Magic Missile now gains a damage roll, which means all them bonuses you have with the rest of your powers are now applicable. 1d10+3+static bonuses on an autohit is nothing to sneeze at.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Never Miss!!!

Minion = Dead!

What misses however is the ability to deal full damage to insubstantial creatures.

Also i had liked following Spell:
hit: 1d4 damage
effect: what it is now!

You still have the ability to do full damage to insubstantial creatures, what would change that?

 

[Solvarn]

Magic Missile

Yeah they should have created a new power called:

Grognard's Magic Missile

or

Archaic Magic Missile.

I think that they are hoping to scoop up a good portion of old school gamers with the Essentials line and one of the biggest zomg comments you get from old school gamers is "I have to roll to hit on magic missile?!"

 

[MrMyth]

One side effect of the change to magic missile is that it's a huge nerf to invisibility. Since it's an auto-hit, and the attack is visible (silvery darts streaking towards their victim), it's like tracer fire to identify what square the invisible opponent is hiding in.

I'm pretty sure you have to know the enemy's square to target them to begin with. You can't just declare you are firing at an invisible assassin, and have it magically seek them out (any more than you could do so with any other attack, and have it fire at their location regardless of where they are.) Of course, it is still great against invisible enemies, since once you do figure out where they are, you can ping away at them without any worries about missing.

 

[MrMyth]

Inescapable Force
Benefit: When you use a power that has the force keyword, you deal full damage (instead of half damage) against insubstantial creatures, and that power deals an extra 1d10 damage to such creatures.

So, against insubstantial creatures, Magic Missile now gains a damage roll, which means all them bonuses you have with the rest of your powers are now applicable. 1d10+3+static bonuses on an autohit is nothing to sneeze at.

It remains very much a topic of debate whether adding bonus damage dice to static damage rolls allows you to add damage modifiers. I think using that as an argument in it's favor is a pretty poor one.

Here is a more interesting one: Weakened. This was mentioned briefly earlier, but let's put a bit of a spotlight on the fact that when you are weakened, "Your attacks deal half damage. However, two kinds of damage that you deal are not affected: ongoing damage and damage that isn’t generated by an attack roll."

So if you also have Inescapable Force, all those weakening insubstantial creatures get to be extra afraid of your ability to blow past all their damage reducing abilities.

 

[Nifft]

Inescapable Force
Benefit: When you use a power that has the force keyword, you deal full damage (instead of half damage) against insubstantial creatures, and that power deals an extra 1d10 damage to such creatures.

There's an active debate over on the CharOp board about what constitutes "extra damage" vs. what constitutes the "damage roll".

There are very few ways to add rolled damage to a power that can't be interpreted as "extra damage".

Shadowfell Gloves are one surefire way, but that uses a Daily power.

 

[DracoSuave]

It remains very much a topic of debate whether adding bonus damage dice to static damage rolls allows you to add damage modifiers. I think using that as an argument in it's favor is a pretty poor one.

Here is a more interesting one: Weakened. This was mentioned briefly earlier, but let's put a bit of a spotlight on the fact that when you are weakened, "Your attacks deal half damage. However, two kinds of damage that you deal are not affected: ongoing damage and damage that isn’t generated by an attack roll."

So if you also have Inescapable Force, all those weakening insubstantial creatures get to be extra afraid of your ability to blow past all their damage reducing abilities.

Still. I don't know if the new power is all it's cracked up to be... I mean, yeah it autokills minions (so does Cloud of Daggers) and it does automatic damage (so does Cloud of Daggers) but... does it do more than say... Cloud of Daggers?

Range concerns aside, Magic Missile and Cloud of Daggers have much in common. For all practical purposes:

Magic Missile's damage is 2/3/5 + Enhancement Bonus + Int bonus

and Cloud of Daggers' damage is Probability (1d6 + Enhancement Bonus + Int bonus + other stuff) + Wisdom bonus...

A direct comparison between the two is possible for any given character. Generally tho, because of 'other stuff' and the Wisdom bonus kicking in there for auto damage, you're really asking if the DPR of the attack portion of cloud of daggers is greater than, well, usually 3 for heroic characters.

Is 3 dpr a hard hurdle for a 1d6+stuff power to climb over?

 

[Oldtimer]

they reacted to critics which are 2 years old by now... Maybe add a different spell to fill the old niche...
They just tried to make magic missile "magic missile"... i guess it has something to do with essential line, where they try to make it better than with the normal line, where they had to endure a lot of nerdrage because of a magic missile which had to hit.

This is a really bad reason to change the MM since it wasn't auto-hit from the start. AD&D had it as auto-hit but not OD&D or BECMI. 3.x being more of AD&D than BECMI went for auto-hit, but I was glad they went back to the original MM in 4e.

But most of all, you don't change a spell that's been in play for 25 months in such a fundamental way when there is no problem with it!