Why does't magic missile have a save?

[Avatar of the North]

The mage is only 1 BAB at first level

No he's not, he's at his str or dex mod to hit at 1st level seeing as how the only classes with BAB +1 at level 1 are fighter,paladin,barbarian, and ranger

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Clearly better than other first level spells? I think not. Out of three spellcasters in my game in 3E, none of them took it. Didn't take it at first level, or at second, or at third. The wizard found a spell book that had it and learned it, but hasn't memorized it even once. At low levels, sleep and color spray are the big boys.

The sorceror I ran for a while didn't even HAVE mm. He had:

Expeditious Retreat
Mage Armor
Shield
Spiderclimb
True Strike



And he was a blast to play.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Way back when MM was first introduced (pre 1e) it magically fired a +1 arrow that did 1d6+1 damage, with two extra arrows per 5 caster levels. Was this spell commonly taken? No way! Sleep and Charm Person ruled the roost in those days, and in low level parties the MU used to resist casting his spell until the last possible moment, because before he cast Sleep he was god, and after he cast it he was worthless

OK, I admit the guys that I played with in those days had some... problems. Most of the time MUs were attempting to sleep the party towards the end of the adventure and run off with the goods! Nobody could even spell "Campaign" in those long-forgotten days

Is MM too good to be true now? I don't think so. I can understand Pie taking it out because it doesn't fit his campaign flavour (one of the most reasonable reasons for making rules modifications IMO) but otherwise? No. My Sorcerer didn't take it until he reached third level, Another Wizard hasn't taken it at all.

You might as well ask why Sleep has been neutered. It used to give no ST, but now they get saves (I think I know why they did this BTW ).

Cheers

 

[Gez]

Why Magic Missile don't allow save ? Because this efficiency is WotC's explanation for why there are still people taking the road of the Wizard (or Sorcerer). Without it, the casualties among Sors and Wizs are too high for most of them to reach level 2. Sure, you also have Color Spray and Sleep (that affects more targets), but Sleep is useless against skeletons, Color Spray don't works on vermins, and both of them allow save, making the wizard ridiculize himself by casting a spell with no effects.

MM is the best 1st-level damage-dealing spell, but something has to be on top on the stack, heh ? If you remove MM, you'll have another spell that would be overpowered relative to the other, and you'll need to remove it, and so on until you do not any spell left.

Next topic: Harm.

 

[Raduin_Nimblegrund]

my two coppers

I've played mages in 2e and 3e, and balance wise MM is not such a big deal. In 2nd edition, the wiz was a one trick pony at 1st level.

"shoom!" "pop!"...... "oooh, aaah"...."zzzz"

The wizard's function is often the "save everyone's behind" person in the party. He has a wide variety of spells, for a wider variety of situations. Magic Missile is important in that respect for two reasons...
1)because he can reliably provide a finishing blow to take out that baddie who's down to 3 hit points and JUST WONT DIE!!! and

2) because playing a mage is at times difficult... with such a wide variety of spells to choose from, its sometimes hard to think up a viable use of a spell. (no, that won't work... not that one either... well, maybe this one will work, but i have to look it up in the phb...) In a situation like that, when the DM is looking at you crossly for not knowing what you're going to do, its often simpler to just MM one of the buggers and hope you come up with somthing next round.

You could probably say that the magic missile is more important to the wiz than the sorc.

besides, its a classic.