Magic missile

[Nahat Anoj]

If they *don't* scrape the 1e detritus off of Magic Missile then 4e will have failed to live up to its promise.

I agree, actually. This is a sacred cow that needs to be put out to pasture.

 

[chaotix42]

As long as I can still say "I'm casting magic missile!" in an annoying voice I'll be happy.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I would love it if it were removed from the game.

But then what would we cast at the darkness?

 

[CleverNickName]

Old and busted: 1d4+1
New hotness: 1d6

I think it is awesome. And I think I will cast it on the darkness.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I never thought I'd say this, but I won't be overexcited if the drag Magic Missile out back and put it out of it's misery.

It's got a dumb name, I've never been able to visualize it properly, and whilst I DO think that Wizards should have at least a handful of "autohit" spells, and spells that do unusual damage types (i.e. not elemental or holy/evil-type damage, but "arcane" damage), I don't like this particular one.

I think an "arcane" attack (hopefully not from a bloody wand) would be a good thing for Wizards to cast almost "at will" (if it's absolutely "at will", it'll get abused and break game worlds, imho), with low damage, and a to-hit roll. That could replace the "functionality" of Magic Missile with a much more useful and interesting thing.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Why does anyone hate magic missile? It's a boring spell, sure, but sometimes you just need a fall-back spell that does a little bit of damage, especially to hard-to-hit targets that the wizard can't otherwise affect. What can a wizard do against a wraith? It's immune to a heck of a lot, but not to magic missile, so the wizard needles it a bit to soften it up while the fighter hacks away at it with his magic sword.

Even an empowered, maximized magic missile (a 6th level spell) only does 30-37 points of damage. It's the spell you use to lightly poke things that are extremely hard to hit, or who aren't affected by your save-or-suck spells or area-of-effect blasts.

 

[Jack99]

There are no saving throws in 4e.

Do we know this for sure now? Or is it an educated guess?

 

[Reaper Steve]

I agree that magic missile is a very likely candidate for "at will" status.In 4e, there may be no difference between a ranged touch attack and a reflex save.

You may be on to something here...
I really dislike multiple ACs against different attacks, and this may take care of it.
AC (which should be called Defense) is used when someone must get past all of a target's defenses with enough force to do damage. Reflex would be for those attacks that just need to touch to take effect. I'd almost say that ranged attacks in general could be against a Reflex number.

 

[Sphyre]

So, fireball no longer does 1d6/level.

What if magic missile no longer did (1d4+1)/2 levels? What if it was 1d6?

What would YOUR reaction be?

Rejoice at the fact that they are reworking the math of D&D to be fun and exciting at all levels, as opposed to sticking to sacred cows that don't necessarily need to be there. The way it gets the damage isn't important to me. The effect of the spell does.

 

[Wormwood]

Rejoice at the fact that they are reworking the math of D&D to be fun and exciting at all levels, as opposed to sticking to sacred cows that don't necessarily need to be there. The way it gets the damage isn't important to me. The effect of the spell does.

Man, If my .sig wasn't already full . . .