Magic missile too strong?

[Mistwell]

And how often are all three of those things true? And besides, "good saves" aren't nearly as common as you seem to think they are, someone next to an ally can still be targeted with an area spell without hitting the ally, and cover can often be gotten around or or a spell (not just Magic Missile) can be used where it's not an issue.
By a miniscule amount. At level 7 I can target eight creatures with a fireball for 7d6 damage each. How does that compare?

It's a very common situation that an NPC is fighting a PC in melee combat in a hallway.

I'm not sure how you adjudicate area spells. But in our game, there is no way to cast an area spell in a 5-10" wide hallway and miss the ally that is next to the NPC. Your fireball will fry the ally. Your Black Tenticles will grapple the ally. You cannot target INSIDE wall, only with line of sight, and therefore very often an area spell will hit your ally.

Which brings it down to touch attack spells. Which are harder to hit when the NPC is in melee combat with a PC as well.

In those situations, a magic missle can be appropriate, even if all you have left is 4th level spell slots, particularly given that a sorceror built for more utility-based and travel spells isn't going to often have the spell choices open to have a lot of other options at certain levels.

Why do you think that almost all other direct-damage spells have either a saving throw or a ranged attack roll? Given the game designers of 3.0 said they also wanted to change magic missle to be higher damage but with a ranged attack roll, but playtesters shot it down merely because magic missle was "iconic", don't you think it's at least possible magic missle occupies a unique position in D&D that just might be a bit overpowered because of that uniquness?

 

[Jhulae]

It's a very common situation that an NPC is fighting a PC in melee combat in a hallway.

I'm not sure how you adjudicate area spells. But in our game, there is no way to cast an area spell in a 5-10" wide hallway and miss the ally that is next to the NPC. Your fireball will fry the ally. Your Black Tenticles will grapple the ally. You cannot target INSIDE wall, only with line of sight, and therefore very often an area spell will hit your ally.

Which brings it down to touch attack spells. Which are harder to hit when the NPC is in melee combat with a PC as well.

Well, unless the party is fighting near the end of the corridor, they only have to be 25' away from where the fireball detonates to not be hit by it... So, actually, it's pretty easy to cast in a hallway and not get party members, unless the party doesn't work together well.

 

[terrainmonkey]

why are you folks still arguing about this. magic missile is not overpowered at all. why anyone would say this about a 1st level spell is just, ... i'm sorry, Wrong!. NO. 25 points of damage. that's it. oh sure, there's a few feats, classes, etc. that give you more, but what, anouther couple of dice damage? maximized? what are we talking, 15 more points? really, DMs, come on. if you are making things so easy on your players such as having monsters with less than 40 hit points, you are not making enough of a challenge. folks at 9th level should be hitting things with no less than 60 hp, and that's minions. the BBEG is probaly sitting on somewhere in the neighborhood of 150+. and you are worried about Magic missile? get over it. move on to something else that is a better use of your discussion time. please. all you guys complaining about MM being too powerful for a 1st level spell need to go back to DM school and figure out better spells to get your players to use. magic missile stops being a good spell after 5th level. i have never had a mage use MM after this because the damage output is so minimal that it doesn't make sense at all to use it. in fact, i can count on 1 hand how many times a wizard in my party used magic missile in the last 5 years of DMing. it's a perfect 1st level spell. and it never gets out of hand.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Okay, okay, maybe I was overstating my point a little.

To restate it, less emphatically: the reliability of magic missile makes it so that almost every other damage spell is only situationally better than magic missile.

I would still disagree emphatically even with this. Magic Missile is the situational spell -- IME 90% of the time it is that thing uninspired arcane spellcasters do when they cannot figure our how to make good use of an AoE spell in the situtation at hand. (That is not meant as an insult. Sometimes the spellcaster is saving their spell for a higher value target. It happens.)

MM makes a fine Plan H. But that does not make the more powerful spells A, B, C, D, E, F, and G all "situtational".

 

[Benimoto]

I would still disagree emphatically even with this. Magic Missile is the situational spell -- IME 90% of the time it is that thing uninspired arcane spellcasters do when they cannot figure our how to make good use of an AoE spell in the situtation at hand. (That is not meant as an insult. Sometimes the spellcaster is saving their spell for a higher value target. It happens.)

MM makes a fine Plan H. But that does not make the more powerful spells A, B, C, D, E, F, and G all "situtational".

Magic Missile's reliable, and it does the equivalent of 1d6/2 levels in damage. As mentioned, that means than whenever your fireball only hits one target, and that target saves, then you might as well be casting magic missile. Whenever you have to roll an 11 or higher to hit with your orb spell, you might as well be casting magic missile. Even with disintegrate, any time they make the saving throw, you're doing magic missile style damage.

Any of the other spells needs an optimal situation, specific to the spell, in order to outdamage magic missile. For a wizard, it's a risk taking those other spells. For a sorcerer, it's a different kind of risk. Magic missile is not normally a risk.

If you're going to load your caster up with a damage spell for every occasion, you may as well play a warmage. They're better at it. If you want to play a less damage-oriented caster, but you still need a spell that will reliably do damage in almost all situations, that spell is magic missle. And it's first level. Hey, what a bargain.

 

[satori01]

[Devil's Advocate]
Why can't the point of Magic Missle be to ferret out Illusions?
[/Devil's Advocate]

Because, with a spell as storied as Magic Missle, the spell has always been a means of dealing realiable damage. The interperatation that the spell can ferret out illusions is an inadvertent side effect from the wording of the spell in 3.0/3.5. Now I am all for inadvertent side effects,
It always makes D&D fun, but I think Hyp's interperatation is way to literal minded.

Magic Missle does not damage inanimte objects, thus no MM being used to sunder weapons, break down doors, or cut ropes. Under targeting it says : creatures.
I do not think Magic Missle works as an instant ID system. Someone using Magic Missle to target an Illusion of an Orc or say an Orc under the effects of a Seeming spell has no knowledge that he is targeting an illusion. The DC to make a disbelief save should occur after Magic Missle is cast, rather than Magic Missle thru a Friend/Foe/ or Illusion targeting system blow the nature of the Illusion out of the water.

Again, one of my personal axes to grind is feeling that Illusion magic should work. Will save to disbelieve is already a steep hurdle to climb, w/o making more magic spells autoreveal illusion magic, especially since given MM 30 year history, it never previously was able to do it.

I would call Hyp's interpertation a bug not a feature of the spell.

 

[apsuman]

Been a while since I was here...

Is MM too powerful? The answer is yes. The proof is that it is still used by 10th and 15th level casters while other first level spells are not. IMHO QED.

Look there are a few other points brought out in the thread that I will address below but, imho, the constructive replies in this thread are comparing MM, a first level spell with fireball, a third level spell, and the give and take on the topic is that situationally one of them might be superior. The fact that that arguement can (and has) been made indicates that MM has some real mojo going for it that other spells do not.

Now back to something else that came up in the thread, sorcerers. I love the class. I do not think it is too powerful or too weak. Were I to design the class I would have dome it slightly differently. But there seems to be a fair bit of criticism about a) an 8th level sorcerer using MM in fourth level slots, and b) the ability for sorcerers in general to use spells in higher slots. I would (like to try) to address both of those points in one general response.

When a sorcerer gets spells of a higher level they only get to know one spell of that level. Character level 8 is a really good example (but by no means the only one), they know a single fourth level spell, but they can cast three fourth level spells per day. The net result is that situation is ripe for lower level spells to be cast in those slots. Metamagic comes to mind. Also, if the other characters are the meatshields, I could see a sorcerer not taking many damaging spells. In 25 point buy maybe all the fighter types just would have awful saves against area effect spells like fireball. Maybe the fourth level spell was improved invisibility and the sorcerer in question uses empowered silent magic missiles to damage opponents without being detected. Maybe... I could easily think of 20 more possibilites without resorting to assming that the player must be an idiot for using MM in fourth level.

Nobody asked (please correct me if I am wrong) the following question(s): Why does the 8th level sorcerer use MM in fourth level slots often enough for you to remember and comment. Please provide detail, is yours a campaign with lots of wraiths, a lack of other damaging spells (and why), a desire to not use that fireball spells, etc.?

 

[Stalker0]

Been a while since I was here...

Is MM too powerful? The answer is yes. The proof is that it is still used by 10th and 15th level casters while other first level spells are not. IMHO QED.

At 10th level I'm still using mage armor as a wizard. Ray of enfeeblement is a wonderful spell. Shield is nice too, especially now that my duration is decent. Enlarge person is a great fighter buff.

There are plenty of 1st level spells I still use at 10th level, doesn't mean they're necessarily broken.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Is MM too powerful? The answer is yes. The proof is that it is still used by 10th and 15th level casters while other first level spells are not. IMHO QED.

Then Protection from Evil is too powerful as well. I cast more of those than MMs. At those levels Dominate Person and Magic Jar is a big risk, so tossing them down on my friends when I have spare action makes sense a lot of the time.

Grease is too powerful also.

 

[Votan]

Been a while since I was here...

Is MM too powerful? The answer is yes. The proof is that it is still used by 10th and 15th level casters while other first level spells are not. IMHO QED.

I will add to the growinbg list of potnetially useful 1st level spells that a 10th level caster will cast: Cure Light Wounds. Desperately need to nerf that spell, clerics seem to cast it way too often!

As for arcane spells, I still see Feather Fall, Identify and True Strike in use (in addition to Protection from Evil, Grease, Color Spray, Mage Armor, Enlarge Person and Tenser's Floating disk). I don't see Shield being used but, looking at it, there is really no good reason why not.

I think we'd need a new design if 1st level spells were useless by 10th level as it would be worth it to create a system where we did not have to keep track of them in this case.