Do magic missiles glow?

[frankthedm]

Magic is flashy.

Important rule IMHO.

I say Holy aura shines like a torch, but I feel most buffs should glow.

 

[molonel]

They look like whatever the player wants them to, so long as the effect does not effect how they actually work. But they will probably be small.

 

[Thurbane]

Thanks to a piece of artwork in one of the Basic D&D books, I think I'll always visualize MM as ghostly arrows...

 

[JRR_Talking]

The D&D Basic Set Player's Manual has a picture showing Bargle cast Magic Missile at the cleric. It's a glowing arrow (and the text describes it as such).

thats the first thing i though of too

did always take issue with that scenario though. The cleric has been praying overnite and casts 2 1st level spells before being hit by 1 magic missile and dying. she had to be third level to cast two spells and died with 1 hit from a d6+1 MM? Boy she rolled bad on her hit points

John
I relaise it was written for effect, but there u go....

 

[Glyfair]

The D&D Basic Set Player's Manual has a picture showing Bargle cast Magic Missile at the cleric. It's a glowing arrow (and the text describes it as such).

Well, if you look at the original source for the magic missile spell, The Raven, it clearly looks like a dart (and the shield spell is more buckler like).

Given the various interpretations, it seems that what it looks like varies. However, it might be specific to how your learned it. So, if you learned it from Dr. Scarabus then it would look like a glowing dart.

 

[Destil]

Perhaps not for something like MM, but Fireball? Lightning Bolt? Flame Strike?

The Feat does exist for a reason, after all.

To fill space in a book?

It's a rather silly feat. The apperance of spells fits the description of the player. The DMG is very clear about this.

Flame strike for my current druid is a colum of deep purple (but otherwise completly natural looking) flame (most of his spell effects are purple because he uses a purple byshek crystal as an arcane focus).

For a cleric I once played it was a piller of silver-white light.

For a cleric of a god of the moon / tides in one of my games it was a simple blue moonbeam shot-through with scalding clouds of steam.

Aside from being able to potentially identify a caster based on the description (a good thing, I'd say) there's no rules benifit. Why make someone take a feat? Particuarlly given that the DMG is rather clear on the issue...

 

[Plane Sailing]

Perhaps not for something like MM, but Fireball? Lightning Bolt? Flame Strike?

The Feat does exist for a reason, after all.

The example goes on to expressly talk about Fireball and Lightning bolt, I just didn't want to write any more out.

The feat exists because someone writing a feat didn't know their DMG well enough!

(unless you feel that a spell that adds +5 to the DC of working out what spell you are casting is worth something. I don't)

 

[Plane Sailing]

If you are facing superstitious primitive warriors who are deathly afraid of cats and you describe your magic missiles as looking like "flaming cat heads", no problem. The spell still will not have any effect other than the auto-hitting damage.

Now I'm going to disagree with you here, although we may be working from different premise'

I'm assuming that wizards can't change their description on the fly - they have "this is how MY magic missiles look" stamped on them.

Thus if a wizard who has magic missiles which are always 'flaming cat heads' comes across the primitive tribe (which I as a DM have put there) and fires his flaming cat heads at them, then the tribesmen are going to run away screaming "arhga, arhga, doosh-tulip!*" which is a cool moment in the story, makes the PC feel good for his imagination and cements part of the PCs identity as well as opening up cool roleplaying moments in this part of the campaign



* no, no, the flaming cat heads of doom!

Cheers

 

[Krafen]

I believe the most current version of Spell Thematics also gives +1 caster level to one spell of each level.

 

[lukelightning]

I guess I'm in the minority when I say that spells have a standard look. I'd rule that barring a feat or something like that, all magic missiles look the same. Spells aren't just things created by the caster's imagination; they are patterns or tools that follow universal laws.

The mages of old who invented or discovered magic missile developed the spell from certain cosmic concepts; even if discovered independantly the same universal laws would apply. Perhaps different magical traditions or schools would have differnent variations, but not variations from caster to caster.

In any case I run an Arcana Evolved game, and my campaign has relatively few "traditions" of magic and virtually all come from the same "ancestry." So no "magic cat head missiles" unless you have a special talent (feat) that gives you a unique style (which has the added bonus that your spells are harder to identify and counterspell).