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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spatzimaus" data-source="post: 2549653" data-attributes="member: 3051">MM is very efficient at single-target damage; like you said, there are very few spells that can stop it (Shield, Spell immunity, the Globes of invulnerability, etc.), and it's only a first-level spell.  But, at high level, in my experience, the limiting factor is TIME.  What's the point of using a Magic Missile when I can drop meteors on my target in the same 6-second round?  No matter how you cut it, an unenhanced MM will never do more than 25 damage, and typically will average 17-18.  When my alternatives are save-or-die, area-effect, or both... what's the point?  In other words, MM at high level becomes the fallback spell, the one you cast when nothing else seems to work; it won't do much, but it's better than nothing.  And if you're a Sorcerer approaching 20th level, it's not even really the best choice for that; there are plenty of 2nd and 3rd level attack spells, and it's practically guaranteed ONE of them will work.But let's say you're just doing a low-level comparison, comparing MM to other 1st-level spells.The first thing to realize is that elemental resistances are RARE at low level.  The various fire spells (Burning Hands) remain a better source of raw damage until level 10ish, in my experience.The second point is saves.  A no-save spell is great, of course, but many other spells come close to that; with a casting stat of 18, you're looking at DC 15 for a level 1 spell, and at low levels, most characters would be lucky to beat that half the time (especially if you tailor spells to the target).  Towards higher level those low-level attacks become worthless, but as I pointed out above, that's true of MM, too.So while on paper MM beats the other 1st-level attack spells, in practice it's not really a huge difference.Now, since this is the House Rule forum, I'll mention something we tried.  Our biggest complaint for MM was that it was just too... general.  We wanted our spells to be more rock-paper-scissors, and so we switched MM to be more of an anti-caster spell.  What we did was this:> Drop the damage to a flat 2 per bolt.> The DC of any Concentration check a target attempts during the next round increases by the amount of MM damage taken, as if the MM was an interrupting spell.  (You can use MM as a readied action to interrupt a spell, but there's no additional bonus, it's still 10+damage)> Even if there's no other trigger for a Concentration check, a target attempting to cast any spell during the next round has to make a Concentration check, DC 10 + (MM damage/2), as if taking continuous damage.It actually became a pretty popular spell to have around; by high level, DC 15-20 isn't that hard to reach, but if you can get two or more people to cast MMs at one target, you can still shut him down.  And, it gave us room to add higher-level versions of the same concept.</blockquote>

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