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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 4:19PM
#31
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Date Joined:
Jun 28, 2006
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I'd much rather have Magic Missile require an attack roll than be outright negated by anyone carrying a shield or behind partial cover. The problem with Magic Missile is that it automatically hits. I dislike any spell that just works without any kind of roll or saving throw. I'm not fond of the new Scorching Ray for the same reason.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 7:15PM
#32
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2004
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Automatically hitting is sort of magic missiles thing. It has been since 1e. I hope that aspect sticks around... just because i like balance doesn't mean I want to throw tradition out the window.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 7:29PM
#33
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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No you don’t. You are getting the rules of different playtest packets mixed up. You can use your dice once per turn. Your turn is one turn. Someone else’s turn is another turn.
This is the literal reading of what it says in the rules right now, but it's definitely not intended:
twitter.com/Trevor_WotC/status/281069046...
That link is dead and/or that tweet is gone.
Beginning of the turn does work fine and actually can put more tactics in the players court. Both make sense. I don't care if your dice are 'wasted' because you made a bad decision. Many PCs deal with that on a per round basis.
The half-cover idea for MM is a neat one and perhaps just the fix that MM may need. I don't view it as broken as is, but I'm willing to take some mathematical evidence, and haven't done the full analysis myself just yet, over an adventure day into consideration.
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 9:06PM
#34
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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I think Magic Missile is fine. If you have the power to change reality with six seconds of utterance but instead choose to shoot darts of force damage, that's your choice. You can only do that once per day. The fighter can be attacking every round. With Whirlwind Attack, they can kill 5+ enemies in one go with proper positioning. It's kind of offesnive to wizards to say 'This spell that is supposed to be of the most advanced magic available to those who call themselves mages is less effective than any warrior of equal caliber.' 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells are supposed to be the game changers by definition, the equivalent to air strikes from FPS's and bombs from shoot-em-up. If they're used, they're used in the most dire situations to great effect. Taking that away would ruin the satisfaction of getting just one casting of them per day.
The reason cover doesn't stop magic missile is because of the fluff of how it works. It's targeted as soon as the caster picks a target, and it will fly around cover to strike its target.
If there's one thing that's off, though, it's the 'two missiles per spell level' part of it. I think one missile for 1d6+3 would do the trick in making it a little weaker.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 9:14PM
#35
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2004
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I think Magic Missile is fine. If you have the power to change reality with six seconds of utterance but instead choose to shoot darts of force damage, that's your choice. You can only do that once per day. The fighter can be attacking every round. With Whirlwind Attack, they can kill 5+ enemies in one go with proper positioning. It's kind of offesnive to wizards to say 'This spell that is supposed to be of the most advanced magic available to those who call themselves mages is less effective than any warrior of equal caliber.' 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells are supposed to be the game changers by definition, the equivalent to air strikes from FPS's and bombs from shoot-em-up. If they're used, they're used in the most dire situations to great effect. Taking that away would ruin the satisfaction of getting just one casting of them per day.
It is overpowered. But I am too tired to go over why again. There are people on these boards who believe that a wizard should be able to do everything that every other class can do, with a high level spell, better than any other class. I don't agree. Seeing just how much a wizard does get, I think it is fair to say that non-situational single target damage, survivability, and group protection (as in protecting an adjacent ally from damage) should be the forte of a fighter, and a wizard should never overshadow him if they are both spending a resource of equal value. If you don’t agree, so be it. But I won’t play or buy any game that doesn’t agree with that philosophy. That is my deal breaker. The reason cover doesn't stop magic missile is because of the fluff of how it works. It's targeted as soon as the caster picks a target, and it will fly around cover to strike its target.
Then why does the shield spell, which grants 1/2 cover, block magic missile?
If there's one thing that's off, though, it's the 'two missiles per spell level' part of it. I think one missile for 1d6+3 would do the trick in making it a little weaker.
So, hold on: I just want to make people have to target foes who are not behind cover. I am happy leaving the damage as is. You, on the other hand, want them to drop damage to the point where it only deals 58.5 DPR as a 9th level spell (instead of dealing 81 DPR). Really!? Ok. I would rather make it tactically unique myself. I like that people will rush for cover against a spellcaster who can cast magic missile. But, whatever... either change would float my boat.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 9:17PM
#36
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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Dumping your only 9th level spell to equal the DPS of a fighter for one round is nowhere close to overshadowing.
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 9:25PM
#37
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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Shield functions as a magical field of force that is also specifically tailored to resist Magic Missile. It doesn't create a floating shield in front of you, it creates a field of force around you. The half cover is essentially a way of using game elements to express its AC bonus, and allows it to be stacked on with Mage Armor to create one hard-to-hit Abjurer.
Also, yes, one round of being badass does not equate to being badass all the time every day. If you go through five fights in a day, the wizard can do it in one round of one of them, and then will be wishing he had a Wish spell available when the Cleric dies in the fourth.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 9:52PM
#38
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2004
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Dumping your only 9th level spell to equal the DPS of a fighter for one round is nowhere close to overshadowing.
Except, after he dumps his 9th level spell into magic missile, he can cast his 8th, 7th, and 6th level spells that way as well. A fighter using the best weapon he can (1d12) and all 4 of his surge (his 6-9th level spell analog) abilities only manages to match the wizard's DPR over 4 rounds in his 4th round. So, the wizard can do the same DPR as the fighter and better nova DPR than the fighter over 4 rounds of 11th level plus abilities. It can also cast wish, gate, meteor swarm, or whatever else. Yes, being able to do the same thing, and more, when the fighter can only do that one thing, does overshadow the fighter. And let us not even start to talk about “wasting spell slots to cast wish.” The wizard gets to memorize a number of spells equal to 1+his level. A 20th level wizard can memorize 21 spells. You don’t have to match spells up to particular slots. You can cast what you need when you need it. So, if you don’t need that DPR you won’t use it. If you do, you can pump out magic missiles to your heart’s content. Either way you have gotten a high level spell worth of power. The only thing is, where you can pump out the damage of a fighter using a greatsword with a surge at range and do other things a fighter can only really do one thing. At that thing, the wizard should never be able to overshadow the fighter. That sort of damage has to become situational as a result.
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 9:55PM
#39
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2004
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Shield functions as a magical field of force that is also specifically tailored to resist Magic Missile. It doesn't create a floating shield in front of you, it creates a field of force around you. The half cover is essentially a way of using game elements to express its AC bonus, and allows it to be stacked on with Mage Armor to create one hard-to-hit Abjurer.
Also, yes, one round of being badass does not equate to being badass all the time every day. If you go through five fights in a day, the wizard can do it in one round of one of them, and then will be wishing he had a Wish spell available when the Cleric dies in the fourth.
Ah. I see. 
Things work however the rules say they work. Making cover negate magic missile makes the rules more interesting. It helps to keep magic missile balanced. It doesn't reduce the spells damage. You really prefer for the spells damage to be dropped to one bolt that does 1d6+3? Fine. That would make me happy. I would rather the cover rout, but 1d6+3 would be balanced. It breaks tradition (magic missile has always done d4s of damage), it is less interesting, it won't make people rush for cover when a wizard appears on the stage, but fine...
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5 months ago ::
Dec 22, 2012 - 10:08PM
#40
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2012
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Dumping your only 9th level spell to equal the DPS of a fighter for one round is nowhere close to overshadowing.
Except, after he dumps his 9th level spell into magic missile, he can cast his 8th, 7th, and 6th level spells that way as well. A fighter using the best weapon he can (1d12) and all 4 of his surge (his 6-9th level spell analog) abilities only manages to match the wizard's DPR over 4 rounds in his 4th round. So, the wizard can do the same DPR as the fighter and better nova DPR than the fighter over 4 rounds of 11th level plus abilities. It can also cast wish, gate, meteor swarm, or whatever else. Yes, being able to do the same thing, and more, when the fighter can only do that one thing, does overshadow the fighter.
And let us not even start to talk about “wasting spell slots to cast wish.” The wizard gets to memorize a number of spells equal to 1+his level. A 20th level wizard can memorize 21 spells. You don’t have to match spells up to particular slots. You can cast what you need when you need it. So, if you don’t need that DPR you won’t use it. If you do, you can pump out magic missiles to your heart’s content. Either way you have gotten a high level spell worth of power. The only thing is, where you can pump out the damage of a fighter using a greatsword with a surge at range and do other things a fighter can only really do one thing. At that thing, the wizard should never be able to overshadow the fighter. That sort of damage has to become situational as a result.
With surge, you do more damage per hit on avg (73.5) than a wizards 8th level MM (72).
So, for one round the wizard has better damage, while using dailies.
When the dailies run out (4 rounds?) the wizard has two rounds 45 avg damage and then down to 36 and below. The fighter is still doing his 52.5 damage per hit[edit].
So show me where it breaks down? I'm not against being wrong here. But they're not using equal resources. The fighter can do it all day. The wizard only overshadows if he can do it better than a fighter. Doing it for one round as your super daily should harldy be considered that.
Also you can't mix and match your arguments. Either we're overshadowing and doing single target
damage as our conversation or we're not. So let's talk about single target damage for now, because the discussion was about MM and how it is OP.
Currently running a playtest, weekly, online D&D Next Session using a virtual table system called roll20.
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