Thanee said:
Medium range, up to 5 targets (usually 2, more will be rare, I guess), seperate targeting (no area) - that's too much for 2nd level.
The no area is as much of a benefit as it is a drawback (in fact, in my experience for the campaign I am currently in it needing to target would make it an almost never used power! we have been almost entirely in woodlands and grasslands, hiding behind trees, being a few feet away in grass, night time raids, etc etc).
5 targets is incredibly unlikely. It might happen now and then, but at higher levels it will effectively never happen against enemies that matter (trying to keep from being all caught in a fireball type of effect is a good enough example of this). They all have to be within 15' of one another after all. (but you did mention this, just thought I would state it again
).
Medium range is nice, but in underground settings it doesnt come into play. Outdoors it also rarely comes into play, and because it must target it is easy to be behind something making it impossible to be targetted (remember the trees I mentioned?)
Some have tried to compare it with magic missile, which doesnt make much sense to me, but here it goes I guess.
They both have the same targetting scheme.
MM is force vs energy of energy missile (point for mm)
both have the same range.
MM has no save vs energy missile has a save (point for mm)
MM has up to 5d4+5 points of damage for a first level spell vs energy missile 3d6 + modifier for a second level power. This is impossible to compare usefully. We dont know what damage MM would do if it was 2nd level, maybe it would have double its count of missiles, maybe each would do double the amount of damage, maybe it would do 5d4+5 to each target. who knows?
So, even in this comparison, energy missile comes out looking all right. Agaist a lower level spell it comes out ahead in damage (maybe) but it falls behind in other areas.
If MM is the top of the pecking order for first level spells, and energy missile is the top of the pecking order for 2nd level powers that are discipline specific (which generally deserves a slight boost in my mind), and energy missile doesnt win all over in this case.. well..
Certainly seems like energy missile is fine that that level. So now I have compared it at just about every level in one form or another. Everytime it comes out looking all right, sometimes being better, sometimes worse.
Where is the imbalance?