I attack the darkness!

[bluegargantua]

Hi,

So I've not been paying attention to D&D for awhile. I was trying to figure out what the heck "D&D Essentials" was supposed to be and in the process I discovered that in June WTOC made a major revision to Magic Missile (the Wizard's classic at-will). Said change was made solely "to make it more like it used to be" (their words) which I find very interesting.

The change is that magic missile now automatically hits for a set amount of damage (usually X + your INT modifier). Magic Missile was always an auto-hit spell, but in 4th ed. you had to roll to hit. It did a bit more damage.

But while an auto-hit is nice it does invalidate a number of prestige class features that were tailored to work with Magic Missile (or feats you might have taken to improve your hit chances). The other problem is that Magic Missile is still really short-ranged compared to an arrow or crossbow bolt.

But the biggest problem is that in previous editions you got more than one missile (each of which would be independently targeted). So you had (I think) 2 at 5th level and 4 at 12th and so on. So when a high-level wizard cut loose, he'd unleash a small volley (actually I think it was capped a 5 missiles, but still). And I think this is the feature that is sorely missed with magic missile. In fact, multiple missiles to sweep minions or sand-blast regular monsters seems more in line with the Wizard's Controller role. But I think Controllers in general (and the Wizard in particular) has been ill-defined and ill-served in 4th ed.

later
Tom

Comments

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I don't know crap about 4th ed, but I do know the "higher-level caster hits multiple lower-level targets" function of Magic Missile in 3.x and earlier is handy. There's a sweet spot around 5th level where you can thwap three different enemies (you get an extra missile every 2 levels 'til 9th.) Each missile is 1d4+1, and there's a decent chance an encounter for a 5th level party will be a group with individuals wimpy enough that ~3 points of damage still matters. Or you just hit that one guy with a stupid-high AC.

[harrison-ripps.livejournal.com]

4th ed really inspired me to check out True20. I'm not sure that's what WotC would've wanted but I've been really happy with the results. :-)

It's one per two levels

[drwex]

I know this because I used to buy an extra d4 every time my wizard hit an odd numbered level.

The cap was introduced later because it was a stupidly good spell when it kept scaling - 3.5 from d4+1 is the same expected return as the d6s from wizards' signature spells like fireball and lightning bolt except those can sort of miss (save for half) so your expected value is actually lower for those, over a number of encounters.

Not that I, you know, ever min-maxed that sort of thing...

[pfloyd.livejournal.com]

I bought the new class book for Essentials. I've only mildly perused it, and decided to set it aside for now, and stick with the regular 4e rules for the upcoming game I'm hoping to DM. (However, the Rules Compendium will come in handy. No real changes there.)
I did manage to see the change they did to Magic Missile, and to be honest, I'm not sure that I like it. It doesn't have the beefiness that the 4e MM spell has, even if there's a decision/trade-off on roll-to-hit/automatically hit. Maybe there should be a compromise between the two, and say "Okay, you automatically hit for X + Int, but if you roll to hit, the damage payoff can be bigger..." or something to that effect.