The other factor in class balancing that people are missing here is melee vs. ranged. Yes, the fighter, when already standing still, next to the enemy, assuming a 50% miss rate, is outperforming Magic Missile (the at-will power). But, the fighter is not guaranteed to have a target every round. He may have to move and position in lieu of the attack for a round. The fighter is also the one who is at risk for taking the most damage being a front-line melee type. Fighters earn the extra damage in exchange for these limits.
The wizard, on the other hand, never misses. Can always attack every round with magic missile if any enemy is in sight. Gets to stay to the back in relative safety. Is usually back far enough to easily make a safe retreat. On top of this, the wizard is given many spells that are supposed to be even better!!!
There is no reason magic missile should be anywhere close to the same average damage a fighter dishes out in melee. If it is, then the wizard is broken.
I'm just going to make one point. Apologies if it has already been said, I didn't feel like reading all 3 previos pages of posts.
All at wills need to remain useful at whatever level they are used at. Exactly how this is achieved depends on the spell effects and how the game scales in general. At the moment it looks like the only thing that scales is damage... so damaging spells should scale. This scaling may come from the spellcasting class itself rather than from the spell. Most at wills don't inflict damage so don't need to scale. Ray of frost, for instance, remains useful without needing to improve. Same for most utility effects.
Magic missile is odd in that it doesn't have an attack roll and isn't affected by casting attribute. I think the real question here should be: should it follow seperate rules from other offensive spells? I think that magic missile always hitting is a very minor sacred cow (if it even qualifies as one at all) and can't imagine too much gnashing of teeth if it were to go away. I could be wrong. I don't have a lot of history with this particular spell so don't have the attachment to it or any specific mechanics regarding it.
I really don't know why everyone is getting so worked up when we have so little info.
We have the scaling on Magic Missile through level 9. We have the scaling on everything else through level 3.
Is it balanced for the data we have? I think so; 2d4+2 auto-damage seems about on par with the other classes, given that the clerics have long-duration buffs (which don't help MM), Sneak Attack scales rapidly, and Cleave plus the fighter's already-high damage is sick.
What will damage progression for weapon attacks, and therefore probably weapon-like spells such as Radiant Lance and Shocking Grasp, be like? Who knows? Well, WotC does, but we don't. Given the HP bloat we can see from the rules we're given, damage output, whether directly or indirectly, will skyrocket as a function of level.
I have a feeling that 5d4+5 auto-damage, at will, will be a perfectly appropriate attack at level 9, compared to other classes' at-wills. It probably won't see much use even then, depending on how many spell slots the wizard has and how long the workday is.
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I really don't know why everyone is getting so worked up when we have so little info.
We have the scaling on Magic Missile through level 9. We have the scaling on everything else through level 3.
Is it balanced for the data we have? I think so; 2d4+2 auto-damage seems about on par with the other classes, given that the clerics have long-duration buffs (which don't help MM), Sneak Attack scales rapidly, and Cleave plus the fighter's already-high damage is sick.
What will damage progression for weapon attacks, and therefore probably weapon-like spells such as Radiant Lance and Shocking Grasp, be like? Who knows? Well, WotC does, but we don't. Given the HP bloat we can see from the rules we're given, damage output, whether directly or indirectly, will skyrocket as a function of level.
I have a feeling that 5d4+5 auto-damage, at will, will be a perfectly appropriate attack at level 9, compared to other classes' at-wills. It probably won't see much use even then, depending on how many spell slots the wizard has and how long the workday is.
Because Auto Hit At wills aren't a good idea when they scale at all.
Remember this isn't and shouldn't be compared to a fighters single attack without considering the full power of both classes.
Both in this case have an auto hit. One does the average damage, the other does a roll to see how much and has a minimum 1 less but scales over time.
Both are a bad idea.
One strictly based on the mechanical implications, the other based on how much the class has outside the at will.
The mage can detect magic (no biggie here), do a shocking grasp that is even better against metal armor, magic missles everywhere, deliver healing potions at range to downed allies via magehand, cast sleep, cast burning hands, cast ray of frost, shield, mage armor.
The slayer can hit stuff and wear armor. He doesn't miss Ever. Sometimes he can hit stuff twice. Or if he kills something 3 times.
Hmm... what is wrong with comparing the DPS of magic missle with the fighter attack I wonder?
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I really don't know why everyone is getting so worked up when we have so little info.
We have the scaling on Magic Missile through level 9. We have the scaling on everything else through level 3.
Is it balanced for the data we have? I think so; 2d4+2 auto-damage seems about on par with the other classes, given that the clerics have long-duration buffs (which don't help MM), Sneak Attack scales rapidly, and Cleave plus the fighter's already-high damage is sick.
What will damage progression for weapon attacks, and therefore probably weapon-like spells such as Radiant Lance and Shocking Grasp, be like? Who knows? Well, WotC does, but we don't. Given the HP bloat we can see from the rules we're given, damage output, whether directly or indirectly, will skyrocket as a function of level.
I have a feeling that 5d4+5 auto-damage, at will, will be a perfectly appropriate attack at level 9, compared to other classes' at-wills. It probably won't see much use even then, depending on how many spell slots the wizard has and how long the workday is.
Because Auto Hit At wills aren't a good idea when they scale at all.
Remember this isn't and shouldn't be compared to a fighters single attack without considering the full power of both classes.
Both in this case have an auto hit. One does the average damage, the other does a roll to see how much and has a minimum 1 less but scales over time.
Both are a bad idea.
One strictly based on the mechanical implications, the other based on how much the class has outside the at will.
The mage can detect magic (no biggie here), do a shocking grasp that is even better against metal armor, magic missles everywhere, deliver healing potions at range to downed allies via magehand, cast sleep, cast burning hands, cast ray of frost, shield, mage armor.
The slayer can hit stuff and wear armor. He doesn't miss Ever. Sometimes he can hit stuff twice. Or if he kills something 3 times.
Hmm... what is wrong with comparing the DPS of magic missle with the fighter attack I wonder?
I agree with you here. They need to make it where they take the damage if the reaper misses by 5 or less or something like that which would be more realistic.
A better way to do magic missile would be to make them roll for it, but if the die is less than 10 have it automatically count as 10 (then add bonuses and penalties) so that it would feel more reliable, but could still have a small chance of missing on high AC targets...
The other factor in class balancing that people are missing here is melee vs. ranged. Yes, the fighter, when already standing still, next to the enemy, assuming a 50% miss rate, is outperforming Magic Missile (the at-will power). But, the fighter is not guaranteed to have a target every round. He may have to move and position in lieu of the attack for a round. The fighter is also the one who is at risk for taking the most damage being a front-line melee type. Fighters earn the extra damage in exchange for these limits.
The wizard, on the other hand, never misses. Can always attack every round with magic missile if any enemy is in sight. Gets to stay to the back in relative safety. Is usually back far enough to easily make a safe retreat. On top of this, the wizard is given many spells that are supposed to be even better!!!
There is no reason magic missile should be anywhere close to the same average damage a fighter dishes out in melee. If it is, then the wizard is broken.
Boy that argument takes me back...
First, that's already covered. A 50% miss chance on one attack is being horribly generous towards the mage here. At 50%, level 1 against level 1, we're looking at double the damage. 1d4+1 is 3.5 average. That's half the example dwarven fighter's BONUS STATIC damage, before his 2d6.
Until you've got a second missile, you're at a quarter of his damage if he's hitting every round. ONE. QUARTER. On rounds where the fighter misses, he's dealing 0.5 average damage less than the mage.
The fighter gets these: -Roughly double the damage over the mage from what we're looking at right now. The wizard can pull out his lightning arc, the fighter can pull out his second attack. I'd say that compensates for the rather occasional "no targets here", especially if he's at least got a ranged weapon instead of just an axe.
-d12hp, which on average is 2.5~3 times the mage d4 -Heavy Armor
Those last two certainly compensate for being in melee I would say. Magic Missile ain't all that great, but even it needs to be upgraded to an improvable "weapon" in order to become a valid ranged weapon.
The wizard should be doing less damage than the fighter with his at-wills. The fighter, in this case, has taken the slayer theme ... which is basically a 'striker' theme. The wizard has taken a theme which is basically a 'controller' theme (it gives him extra at-wills). The wizard has elected to be more versatile, the fighter has elected to deal more damage. Removing those elements, you still have that the wizards should do more damage (or better effects) through their daily powers than the wizard, while their at-wills should be weaker. The magic missle for the wizard should be comparable to say ... the rogue attacking without advantage, or the fighter using their backup weapon. It should probably be better than those 'fall backs', since the fighter/rogue should be able to use their 'best' more often than the wizard uses their spells, but if the wizards at-wills are as good as the at-wills for classes that don't really have much aside from at-wills ... either the wizards spells aren't better than at-wills, or the wizard is better than martial classes. And, fighter should, in raw numbers, be very good at something if it's the only thing they are good at, while a wizard should, by virtue of being able to do many different things, not have to be as powerful. There is power in versatility, which is the wizards bread and butter.
Certain powers auto-scale by virtue of not needing to, like Ray of Frost. Since magic implements, like wands, improve attacks vs. AC and save DCs, perhaps they could have some kind of wand bonus that also scales up Magic Missle. Hell, why not use a theme/feat to improve the cantrips/orisons if someone wants them to. That way you are investing 'something' to improve your at-will power. [Perhaps there are even inate class features of trading spell slots to improve at-wills, as a way of reducing your number of spells per day, but having better 'back-ups' as a result, etc].
The big thing I see here is, everyone is compareing MM to the fighters attack as if thats all the Wizard can do. Yes, the fighter hitting thigs does more damage per round than a MM, but MM is not the wizard's only spell, and no mater which he choses, all the fighter can do is hit things. No amount of hitting one or 2 targets at 5th lv, will ever equal a fireball in damage output.
MM is a function of Class. The Fighter's auto-damage is a function of theme so it shouldn't come into play for these calculations.
Our example Fighter is using a two handed weapon that he has a racial bonus for, so it's not exactly the best comparison.
But using the basic spell and weapon provided (but not Themes) and assuming the spells/classes are balanced at level 1, the Mage does 2-5 (1d4+1) damage with an autohit and the Fighter does 9-19 (2d6+7) damage but requires an attack roll.
At level 9 the Mage will be doing 8-20 (4d4+4) with an auto hit versus the extrapolated Fighter's 12-22 (2d6+10) again, still requiring an attack roll.
If it was balanced at Lvl 1, it sure as heck isn't at 9.
Ranged weapons in general are on or below par with the main one handed weapons, so by extension a ranged at will should do 1d6 or 1d8 + modifier like the priest's version.
Assuming a +1 damage every three levels like the fighter, Radiant lance does 5-12 (1d8+4) at first level with an attack roll, and 8-15 (1d8+7) with an attack roll at level 9. That appears to be much more like what WotC is looking for with their 'flatter progression.'
My suggestion: Make MM a 1st level spell and let it scale when it's placed into higher level spell slots. Replace it with a damage at-will called Arcane Bolt or Eldritch Blast or whatever that works like Radiant Lance. This would also balance out any ability score gains that may happen during progression.
One of the main reasons for the "Quardratic Wizard" was that not only did they get new and more powerful spells, but also their old, low level spells got more powerful.
