Epic Magic Missile

[bolie]

Can someone suggest an Epic Magic Missile? I'm looking for force missiles that hit unerringly with no saving throw. I'd liked to see a lot of lower damage missiles (3-5d6 or so) missiles that can be divided up among multiple targets or sent after one target.

I wasn't sure how to start and what I did do looked like it was going to have an absurdly high Spellcraft DC.

Thanks,
Bolie IV

 

[Ottergame]

You could try adapting Greater Misslde Swarm from Neverwinter Nights (if it's not anywhere else). It's not epic, but it's a Missle Spam spell that's greatly effective.

 

[Krafen]

Epic magic tends to be a poor choice for attack spells. It excells in the areas of protection, buffing, and the combination of multiple effects. You would most likely be better off researching a 9th level version of Magic Missile.

 

[Trainz]

Forgotten Realms Adventures (2nd Ed) had a 5th level spell called Major Missile. It worked just like Magic Missile, except that it capped at 15 missiles (for a 29th level caster).

Now, with metamagic feats, we can boost magic missile, but I wouldn't mind seeing Major Missile brought back (you could empower it with a 7th level spell slot for example).

 

[melkoriii]

The problem is that MM scales.

cast at caster lvl 20 you have five missiles (5d4+5)

So you could make say a lvl 5 spell Greater Magic Missile
Starts out with 3 missiles (1d6+1 each) and scales at +1 missile every two lvls max 10 missiles at lvl 19

 

[jgsugden]

Magic missile is an overpowered spell. It is a very useful spell, even at medium and high levels. If you're going to make an epic version that is balanced, you'll need to take this into account.

You want a spell that deals force damage (only resisted by spell resistance) and that always hits (no attack roll or saving throw). That means that it will have to do less damage than a typical spell of that level that would deal elemental damage.

If you want something that a newly epic spellcaster can cast, I'd be looking for something in the range of 5 missiles of 4d6 damage (or 3d8) . 70ish points of damage seems about right.

 

[Caliban]

Back in 2nd edition I had a character create a 9th level version of magic missile that did 10d6+40 points of damage, and you could do it as a single missile or 10 missiles that do 1d6+4. If you did the single missile it automatically forced a save against massive damage. No scaling, it just did that amount of damage. It was still stopped by Shield though.

An Epic version would probably be similar.

 

[Epametheus]

My 2E wizard had a 5th level version of magic missile that launched a random amount of single-point missiles. The version of the spell that's on my comp was 1d4+1 missiles for every two caster levels, but I think the final version was far more random than that (3d12+3d8 missiles or something like that was the highest damage category).

Shooting 30 magic missiles for 30 damage with a 5th level slot wasn't terribly effective, but it was incredibly flashy. It also had the added bonus of instantly snuffing Stoneskin spells in 2E.

 

[Piratecat]

Slid over to House Rules.

 

[Trainz]

My 2E wizard had a 5th level version of magic missile that launched a random amount of single-point missiles. The version of the spell that's on my comp was 1d4+1 missiles for every two caster levels, but I think the final version was far more random than that (3d12+3d8 missiles or something like that was the highest damage category).

Shooting 30 magic missiles for 30 damage with a 5th level slot wasn't terribly effective, but it was incredibly flashy. It also had the added bonus of instantly snuffing Stoneskin spells in 2E.

Not to mention Mirror Image.