# poor rational for "updating" Magic Missile?



## Mythtify (Jul 11, 2010)

Caveat:  I enjoy 4e, but do not play it as much as other games

I was looking through the July Update, and was frustrated by the reasoning behind the update of Magic Missile.  The given reason:
"This update reflects an effort to retore the power to its classical form."

4e is 2 1/2 years along, and they decide they like the way that maigc missile used to be better than the way they designed it for 4e?  That seems like a bogus reason to go changing the rules this far along.  There wasn't any problem to be fixed with magic missile, they just wanted to go back to the old way.  If this is an exceptable reason to change the rules, then pretty much anything goes.   

Is, "we like it the old way" a good enough reason to change a rule that isn't "broken"?  It seems to me that changing a rule "just because" can cause frustration with players.


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## Nifft (Jul 11, 2010)

"Rationale".

Also: yeah, quite a few people are puzzled by this decision. MM wasn't broken, and the new version doesn't fix anything.

Perhaps they just now came up with a way to allow auto-damage that they felt wasn't breakable, but even so, they didn't need to take away the non-broken original version (which my Wizard was rather fond of using...)

Cheers, -- N


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## Oldtimer (Jul 11, 2010)

Mythtify said:


> Is, "we like it the old way" a good enough reason to change a rule that isn't "broken"?



Absolutely not! This is one of the most stupid moves WotC has made in 4e.

And "the classical form" of MM? That would be "a conjured missile equivalent to a magic arrow", i.e. +1 to hit and 1d6+1 damage. None of that newfangled AD&D stuff. Auto-hit? Bah!


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## Scribble (Jul 11, 2010)

Yeah... lots of people are puzzled by that one.

I think the real reason might be that the auto-hit missile might play nicer with the new essentials class variant.

Maybe we'll know more on Friday when we see the (one of the?) build.


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## Dungeoneer (Jul 12, 2010)

The 4e Magic Missile as it stood was fairly under-powered, in the sense that there were better things that people always took instead.  Yet it is supposed to be one of THE iconic Wizard spells.

I think the change is definitely due to the essentials, which are among other things reaching out to old-school players who haven't made the leap to 4e.  Giving them a Magic Missile that looks like the one they're familiar with isn't a bad idea.  Giving everyone else a Magic Missile that they might actually choose is not a bad one either.

If you prefer the old Magic Missile you can certainly still use it.


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## circadianwolf (Jul 12, 2010)

> The 4e Magic Missile as it stood was fairly under-powered, in the sense that there were better things that people always took instead. Yet it is supposed to be one of THE iconic Wizard spells.




This is even more true than it was before, though. The new version is decent damage at heroic but pretty terrible at anything above (and of course doesn't have any controller effects).


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 12, 2010)

it kills a minion when needed... clear a path guaranteed... kill a near dead foe without chance of failure... this is a strng power in the right situation! I.e.: when you need a kill desperately!


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## Piratecat (Jul 12, 2010)

I love it. I'm not so sure about changing it with errata, since it wasn't actually broken, but I (and my players) vastly prefer the new version.


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## Dice4Hire (Jul 12, 2010)

My main problem with MM is it emphazizes thge whole "What is an attack" Does XXX add to damage all the time, or only when there is an actual damage roll" confusion. 

Overall, I think it is a strong option, as auto damage can kill a badly wounded critter, or a minion, and as a RBA, the warlord cna help it be used miltiple times a turn.


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## Nifft (Jul 12, 2010)

circadianwolf said:


> This is even more true than it was before, though. The new version is decent damage at heroic but pretty terrible at anything above (and of course doesn't have any controller effects).



 Exactly. The old version had some uses, and I never regretted taking it (... albeit as a human who had access to two other at-wills).

The old version was a bit underpowered, but had its place, for example if your party lacked a dedicated ranged attacker, or if your party had a Leader who handed out a lot of (ranged) basic attacks.

Cheers, -- N


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## Amphimir Míriel (Jul 12, 2010)

I was initially puzzled by this change as well, however, upon further thought I feel the new/old version more-or-less fits better with the controller aspect of the wizard class...

It is now a "minion-killer", and as mentioned above, sometimes it is exactly what is needed to remove an obstacle and clear a path for the strikers or the defenders


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 12, 2010)

I'm completely unaware of what you're talking about.  MM is changed where?


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## Whimsical (Jul 12, 2010)

I like the change. It allows you to complete your turn in one second. "I move here and do six points of damage to that creature. Done."

Plus, it's a great cherry tap power!


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## Dungeoneer (Jul 12, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I'm completely unaware of what you're talking about.  MM is changed where?




The latest errata, strangely enough.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 12, 2010)

Ah...stuff I pay no attention to.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 12, 2010)

I think people are overreacting to this change.

First of all, virtually nobody took the original 4E Magic Missile. The main reasons to take it were either someone who did not understand the game system, or someone who took a Human Wizard. Possibly.

So, who cares if they changed a power that virtually nobody took?

Now, it has a reason to be taken, especially in Heroic level. It's an auto-single minion kill. Automatically. It can be used to help whittle down a hard to hit foe. The Defender locks the foe down and the Wizard auto-damages it.

Magic Missile, at least at Heroic level, now has a meaning in life.

Now, combine it with White Lotus Riposte.

With an 18 starting Int, that's 10 automatic points per round against a foe attacking the Wizard. 10 auto-damage is a fairly strong incentive to attack anyone other than the Wizard at low level.

And there will be some long range encounters where the Wizard can auto-ping a foe from 20 squares away at the beginning of the encounter while everyone else who does not have a bow cannot.

Even the normal 6 points of damage at level one against a foe can be very useful to bloody a foe, or take a foe out when it is close to those boundaries.

There are some nice feats that work with this as well. Forceful Defense, Solid Sound, Inescapable Force.

And finally, even at higher levels, this is a power that is worth taking. At mid-Paragon and higher, most PCs should be using their 4 Encounter powers and even a single Daily power most encounters. That's 4 or 5 rounds before the At Wills have to be pulled out. By this point in an encounter, an auto-hit power will sometimes be more useful against foes that are nearly dead than a power that may or may not hit, even if it does almost 1.5 times as much average damage. It will be worth it to have one At Will that hits every time. Even if it does not kill a heavily wounded foe, it allows an ally to kill that foe with a single attack.


Personally, I think this is a smart move on the part of WotC. They finally gave Wizard players a reason to take Magic Missile.


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## Scribble (Jul 12, 2010)

I don't think people are reacting to the change itself, so much as the reason they stated for making it-  It just stands out.


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## Dice4Hire (Jul 12, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> I
> First of all, virtually nobody took the original 4E Magic Missile. The main reasons to take it were either someone who did not understand the game system, or someone who took a Human Wizard. Possibly.
> 
> So, who cares if they changed a power that virtually nobody took?




In your experience, dude, in your experience. 

Why do you feel the need to insult these who did take it?


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## Nifft (Jul 12, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> The main reasons to take it were either someone who did not understand the game system



 Hmm.



KarinsDad said:


> Magic Missile, at least at Heroic level, now has a meaning in life.
> 
> Now, combine it with White Lotus Riposte.





			
				Compendium said:
			
		

> Benefit: When an enemy you *hit* with an arcane at-will attack power attacks you before the start of your next turn, that enemy takes damage (of the same type the attack power deals) equal to the ability modifier to the attack power’s damage.



 White Lotus Riposte is useless with the new Magic Missile, because the new MM never hits.



KarinsDad said:


> There are some nice feats that work with this as well. Forceful Defense, ...





			
				Compendium said:
			
		

> Benefit: Whenever you *hit* an enemy with a force power, one ally adjacent to that enemy gains a +1 bonus to AC until the end of your next turn.



 Again, you picked a feat that worked great with the old one, and it is useless with the new one.

The new one is clearly confusing even for people who "understand the game system" far better than lowly me, who was dumb enough to use the old version for 12 levels.

 -- N


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## Dungeoneer (Jul 12, 2010)

Nifft said:


> Hmm.
> 
> White Lotus Riposte is useless with the new Magic Missile, because the new MM never hits.




I'm very interested to hear how a power that is an automatic hit never hits.

Please continue.


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## Nifft (Jul 12, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> I'm very interested to hear how a power that is an automatic hit never hits.
> 
> Please continue.



 Because it never hits. The damage is an Effect, not a Hit.

Come over to the Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible WotC CharOp forum if you have any more questions.

Cheers, -- N


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## KarinsDad (Jul 12, 2010)

Nifft said:


> Hmm.
> 
> White Lotus Riposte is useless with the new Magic Missile, because the new MM never hits.
> 
> ...




Good points.

No worries though.

They will errata Magic Missile to say: "Even though it is an effect, consider Magic Missile to be an automatic hit." or some such.


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## Dungeoneer (Jul 12, 2010)

Nifft said:


> Because it never hits. The damage is an Effect, not a Hit.




So, if it doesn't hit, it must miss.

Therefore, it is useless for killing minions.  That sucks.

The good news is that it's a great power if you're marked by someone, as it will never trigger their mark.


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## ourchair (Jul 12, 2010)

Mythtify said:


> Is, "we like it the old way" a good enough reason to change a rule that isn't "broken"?  It seems to me that changing a rule "just because" can cause frustration with players.



I like the classic 'always hit' magic missile more, even if my experience with it is limited to videogame adaptations of 2e/3e D&D, but I agree with you 1000%, it's a piss poor set of reasoning.

To think that almost every piece applied to the ruleset has been applied with judicious balance in mind, this kind of reasoning basically says, "Well, okay not ALWAYS." and provides the kind of chink into their design ethos that lets more 4e haters pile on the hate. ("See, it's not balance! It's dumbing it down!")


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## Nifft (Jul 12, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> They will errata Magic Missile to say: "Even though it is an effect, consider Magic Missile to be an automatic hit." or some such.



 Just like they errata'd *Arcane Bolt*, which was published months ago, right?

Good luck with that.



Dungeoneer said:


> So, if it doesn't hit, it must miss.



 That's entirely wrong. The power deals damage as an Effect. You can neither hit nor miss.

It's like being in an Aura. The Aura never hits, it never misses, yet it deals you damage every round.

Cheers, -- N


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> I think people are overreacting to this change.
> 
> First of all, virtually nobody took the original 4E Magic Missile. The main reasons to take it were either someone who did not understand the game system, or someone who took a Human Wizard. Possibly.
> 
> ...



All White Lotus Feats require a _hit. _New MM does not Hit (no auto-damage power ever hits). So that's out. A lot of the other stuff you mentioned doesn't work either.


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## Marauder_POV (Jul 12, 2010)

I was going to retrain my bard out of magic missle(as the dillatante power) but using one of the later feats you can use your dillatante power as a basic attack with a power.

always hit ranged daily power anyone?


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## OSEZNO (Jul 12, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> So, if it doesn't hit, it must miss.
> 
> Therefore, it is useless for killing minions.  That sucks.
> 
> The good news is that it's a great power if you're marked by someone, as it will never trigger their mark.




All of these are false.

It doesn't miss, it's an affect that doesn't require a roll to deal damage.
It still kills minions (attacks that miss never deal damage to a minion, this never misses.)
All PC marked target attack features would still be triggered if an enemy used MM and visa versa. (combat challenge, divine challenge, warden's fury, etc.) MM is still an attack, it has no attack roll and doesn't hit or miss, it deals its damage as an effect.


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## Otterscrubber (Jul 12, 2010)

Amphimir Míriel said:


> I was initially puzzled by this change as well, however, upon further thought I feel the new/old version more-or-less fits better with the controller aspect of the wizard class...
> 
> It is now a "minion-killer", and as mentioned above, sometimes it is exactly what is needed to remove an obstacle and clear a path for the strikers or the defenders




Well we have made a house rule in our campaign where we give minions 1hit per tier.  Not a hit point, but a hit.  My DM has ruled that if you do 30hp of damage that counts as 2 "hits".  We did this as we felt it was kind of weak to have paragon level minions (like a cyclops) go down in a single hit.  I personally think it should be 20hp damage makes 2 "hits", but oh well.  So MM is not necesarily a minion killer in ours either, unless the minion has already been hit once.

But in any case I do find this troubling.  I didn't mind when in 4e spellcasters now had to roll to hit, because at least with at-will powers they never ran out of them.  Now they are changing their tune and not being consistent with their design.  I seem to recall other caster classes had access to magic missile.  Does this mean that warlocks and sorcerers will also have an auto-hit at will option?  Perhaps the ranger at-will Careful shot should be a low damage auto-hit as well?  This is going to open a door that will be hard to close and raise all sorts of question.  I definitely think having a power that will never fail to hit changes a lot.  Sure it doesn't do as much potential damage as before, but sometimes you need a hit to drop someone in a special circumstance.  Sometimes we face foes that we just can't hit and that is why we can't beat them.  But with this it is possible that you can take out anyone if you can slow them up with other team members.


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## Obryn (Jul 12, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> I'm very interested to hear how a power that is an automatic hit never hits.






Dungeoneer said:


> So, if it doesn't hit, it must miss.



You're being snarky here, but he's right.

It never hits, and it never misses.  It simply deals damage, much like the secondary effect on Cleave.  It's not a hit, because there's no attack roll, and there's no Hit line.



> Therefore, it is useless for killing minions.  That sucks.



Nope.  Just like the secondary effect of Cleave, it will auto-gank minions.  It can't miss - it just deals damage.



> The good news is that it's a great power if you're marked by someone, as it will never trigger their mark.



You'll never suffer the -2, and you'll never suffer a "hitting an ally" consequence of a Mark.  But you are still making a Ranged Attack, you're still prone to Opportunity Attacks, and you're still affected by any "attack an ally" mark effects.


Personally, I think the change is kind of neat.  I am actually intrigued by this power now.  I think it's still just a 3rd choice, mind you - but it was before, too; you'd be crazy to take this over Winged Horde, for example.  It's something different, and something which has some neat applications.

-O


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## Nifft (Jul 12, 2010)

Obryn said:


> But you are still making a Ranged Attack, you're still prone to Opportunity Attacks, and you're still affected by any "attack an ally" mark effects.



 There is actually quite a lot of debate over whether the new MM is "an attack".

I have no opinion on this issue: there are significant exploits for both interpretations, so IMHO balance won't perfect either way.

Cheers, -- N


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

OSEZNO said:


> All of these are false.
> 
> It doesn't miss, it's an affect that doesn't require a roll to deal damage.
> It still kills minions (attacks that miss never deal damage to a minion, this never misses.)
> All PC marked target attack features would still be triggered if an enemy used MM and visa versa. (combat challenge, divine challenge, warden's fury, etc.) MM is still an attack, it has no attack roll and doesn't hit or miss, it deals its damage as an effect.



This is going to be my only response in this thread after this post.

Attacking, by RAW, requires an attack roll to see if you hit versus a defense. If you do not roll to see if you hit, you are not attacking. What type of power you use to do this is irrelevant. Some utility powers attack, some attack powers do not attack. "Attack Power" and "attack" are not synonymous.

Magic Missile has no exception to this rule. Yes, I know about that text, no example text written before the errata that would also make a burst attack with a bow ranged attack is not a rule. 

And I'm _really _not going to respond to anyone who argues.


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## doctorhook (Jul 12, 2010)

I was also unsure about the reason for the revision to Magic Missile, but I accepted it. I haven't made a Wizard in a while, and so I didn't realize how much the old version had slid out of favour on the CharOp boards.

I was fine with the attack-roll-style of MM, and so I'm mildly confused about the revision (or rather, reversion) of MM to auto-hit. That said, I like updates, and I trust where WotC is going with this, so I remain cautiously optimistic, as always.



Dungeoneer said:


> I'm very interested to hear how a power that is an automatic hit never hits.
> 
> Please continue.



It's a semantics issue. In conversational English, yes, the new Magic Missile can "hit" a monster, but in 4E rules jargon, it merely "has the effect of damaging" a monster. When you're talking about what your Wizard character has done, you can say "hit", but when you're talking about the specific rules of 4E, you can't say "hit", because "hit" has a specific meaning which does not apply to the new Magic Missile in a rules sense.


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## KidSnide (Jul 12, 2010)

I like the fact that they added an power like the new Magic Missile to the list of wizard at-will powers.  I strongly suspect that they came up with this power (and play-tested it) as a part of the Essentials goal of a more "classic" D&D feel.  9 times out of 10, WotC would just introduce this as a new power and leave the old magic missile alone.  Their problem was that the "new" magic missile is so much more like the AD&D/2e/3e magic missile than the "old" 4e magic missile ever was, so it would look weird as a "arcane missile."  Thus, they made an exception to their usual technique of improving powers through addition rather than errata.  

I think their explanation was fine.  There _is_ no rationale, except that Magic Missile is an iconic power and they wanted to match it up with the iconic effect.

-KS


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## Otterscrubber (Jul 12, 2010)

This change fels like a smokescreen.  Like when they are passing a law about gay marriage or anti smoking to distract folks when there ia a big corporate deregulation law about to pass under the radar.  What are you up to WotC?  What are you up to?.....


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## Vaeron (Jul 12, 2010)

I think it's a terrible decision.  They caved into the people who said magic missiles should always hit.  Yeah, but back in the day magic missile was essentially a DAILY power (ie a 1st level wizard had 1 magic missile per day).  The new version was much more powerful as it was, in that it could be used over and over.  I think this was a silly, silly decision.  They caved to a portion of the populace that was being irrational, and now that they have it seems, spontaneously, people have realized they were being irrational in complaining about it in the first place.

It was such a totally unnecessary change.  BUT they have been saying for a while that many wizard abilities are underpowered as they were the first controllers designed (and it seems that Essentials is making all wizard encounter powers have miss effects (suggesting wizard is one of the classes where dailies might be being altered in regards to dailies)) so what we're seeing is an attempt to beef wizards up.

I appreciate that... But this auto-hit thing sits poorly with me.  It seems to be throwing everything about 4e design out the window to placate a subset of the gaming population t hat is going to complain NO MATTER WHAT.


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## BrokeAndDrive (Jul 12, 2010)

Repeat after me please:

"It's only a game.  It's only a game."


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## doctorhook (Jul 12, 2010)

Vaeron said:


> ...Back in the day magic missile was essentially a DAILY power (ie a 1st level wizard had 1 magic missile per day).  The new version was much more powerful as it was, in that it could be used over and over.



Ever played Baldur's Gate? Ever cheat at it? Slap a pair of Rings of Wizardry on a decent-level Mage, and you became a Magic Missile machine gun, because it was arguably the best 1st-level spell around. Hell, even if you weren't cheating, you would usual try to memorize as many Magic Missiles every day as you could. It wasn't a superpower by a long shot, but it was a strong spell and it was plenty better than throwing daggers.

...I'm not really sure what I'm arguing here. I'm mostly just sharing. 



Vaeron said:


> ...This auto-hit thing sits poorly with me.  It seems to be throwing everything about 4e design out the window to placate a subset of the gaming population t hat is going to complain NO MATTER WHAT.



I agree with you about not pandering to "that crowd", but I think you're wrong about this case. Magic Missile needed a revision, in order to keep up with the Joneses, but because it's such an iconic part of D&D, it got special treatment, where other powers would simply be replaced. The fact that the revision made it more like previous edition's Magic Missile is probably incidental.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 12, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> Attacking, by RAW, requires an attack roll to see if you hit versus a defense. If you do not roll to see if you hit, you are not attacking.




Not according to the PHB page 57 under the Attack section:



> *Most* attack powers that deal damage require you to make an attack roll.






Aulirophile said:


> And I'm _really _not going to respond to anyone who argues.




Feel free to not respond since the PHB RAW disagrees with your opinion.


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

Sigh, can't help it.

"Attack Power" and "attack" are not synonymous. See the word power in your quote? See it? Attack powers are not necessarily attacks. It helps, when quoting text, that you actually read it. Guess what reading it properly means? That your quote has zero relevance!

*Admin here. News flash: it's possible to disagree with someone without being a jerk. Heck, it's mandatory. Please do so. - Pcat *


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## Mengu (Jul 12, 2010)

I didn't like magic missile before, I don't like it now, so not much has changed as far as I'm concerned. What I would have preferred to see is the old magic missile become a class feature for the wizard, so every wizard got it, and it didn't count toward at-will powers.

I don't understand the concept of a character without a basic attack. All characters should have a free basic attack of some sort that uses their primary stat. It makes no sense to me that when the warlord says "hey you wizard, blast that guy," the wizard without magic missile has to say, "sorry boss, no can do." Same with a cleric, a bard, an invoker, etc. A charisma paladin trained in how to use his weapon, can't hit the broad side of a barn with a basic attack if he doesn't have a specific at-will power or feat. An avenger, swordmage, or battlemind has to have a feat. While they are supposedly trained on how to use a weapon, they can't exactly prove it when they are forced to use strength as an attack stat.

To get back on topic, magic missile becoming a class feature I think would have been received with more open arms, than the change to auto-hit.


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## Aegeri (Jul 12, 2010)

Nifft said:


> There is actually quite a lot of debate over whether the new MM is "an attack".




Greg Bilsland posted this on his twitter, which I think is definitely going to blow the debate on "What is an attack" wide open:



			
				kilpatds said:
			
		

> @gregbilsland:  is "Magic Missile" an attack? If so, Why? (Rules lawyer's on pin  question: PHB p.269 says all attacks have attack rolls)




And the response



> @kilpatds It's an  attack power. Rules lawyers are reading it too literally. "When you  attack, you make an attack roll" does not mean atk pwr



So it appears that those saying attack powers do not require an attack roll to be counted as one might be correct. It's definitely something we could use a FAQ ruling on, but I am personally willing to go with what Greg says here as something that is logical. It does however have some nasty repercussions.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 12, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> Attack powers are not necessarily attacks.




Only with one interpretation of the rules.

If attack powers are not attacks, then what are they? If most attack powers have attack rolls to hit, but not all of them, then what are the attack powers that do not have attack rolls to hit? Non-attacks?

That sentence is in the Attack: line description of attack powers. It effectively states that not all attack powers have Attack: line rolls to hit. You, on the other hand, are claiming that if it does not have an attack roll to hit, it is not an attack.

Sorry. There is no such explicit rule. You made that up.

*You know those times that we've had to remind you that you can disagree with someone without being a jerk? Please go reread them. I am really, really tired of this. You know the rules; scale back the aggression and the rudeness dramatically. I don't give a damn if someone disagrees with you are not, you do not have license to be rude.*


Attack powers are still attacks, even if they do not have Attack: line descriptions.

Magic Missile is still classified as a Wizard Level One At Will Attack power, even though it now doesn't have a roll to hit.

If a Fighter marks a Wizard and the Wizard does Magic Missile on a creature other than the Fighter, the Fighter gets to both do an Opportunity attack against the Wizard for using a ranged power, and he also gets to do a Combat Challenge attack against the Wizard for doing an attack without also targeting the Fighter with it.

Combat Challenge says "makes an attack", not "makes an attack roll". Without a crystal clear definition of what an attack is, this is up for interpretation.

So unless you have some explicit rules to back up your POV, I would suggest that you stop telling other people to actually read what they quote. The moderators frown on that type of behavior dude.

*And do NOT try to use us as a club to tell other people what to do. If you see a problem you should report it, but we have no patience for this behavior at all.  ~ PCat*

The words attack and attacks are a bit nebulous in 4E. There are sections in the rules that discuss attacks with attack rolls, and sections in the rules that do not.

Dispel Magic has an Attack roll. Would you state that it makes sense that the Wizard who targets a zone with the Utility Dispel Magic provokes a Combat Challenge, but the Wizard who targets an enemy with the Attack Magic Missile does not provoke a Combat Challenge. That's backwards.

It would be great if WotC stated that "all attack powers are attacks", or stated that "any power with an Attack: line is an attack, attack powers without an Attack: line are not attacks", or even "all attack powers and any power with the attack: line is an attack". So far, they haven't explicitly done so with an update.

So until they do, your interpretation on the subject at the moment is merely like mine, an interpretation. You like yours. I like mine. But, yours isn't RAW. It's one interpretation of RAW.


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

"An attack targets AC, Fortitude, Reflex, or Will" 

Rules quote. See if you can find it. Betcha can't! Attack rolls specify /gasp, that you target a defense and roll to see if you hit. 

So, no, I didn't make anything up, and you're wrong _and _insulting. Good for you.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 12, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> "An attack targets AC, Fortitude, Reflex, or Will"
> 
> Rules quote. See if you can find it. Betcha can't! Attack rolls specify /gasp, that you target a defense and roll to see if you hit.
> 
> So, no, I didn't make anything up, and you're wrong _and _insulting. Good for you.




Yup. The section in the Monster Manual which discusses, heaven forbid, Target Defense. Therefore, this rule only applies to Monster Attack powers that have a Target Defense. Duh!

Do all monster attack powers have attack rolls? Nope. Yet, that Target Defense definition is in the Attack Powers section of the MM.

And, your claim is that it isn't a monster attack unless it has an attack roll.

Same page:



> Attack Powers
> Attack powers are presented so that basic attacks appear first, followed by the monster’s other powers.
> Type
> Each power has an icon that indicates *what type of attack it is*: melee (M), ranged (R), close (C), or area (A).




This implies the exact opposite of your POV. Whoops.



> A swarm takes half damage from melee and ranged attacks. It is vulnerable to close and area attacks, as indicated in the monster’s stat block.




How does Magic Missile affect a Swarm? Half Damage? No Damage? Full Damage?

How about Close and Area effects that do not have an attack roll? Are they not vulnerable to those?

It is still an interpretation dude. Can't help it that you have blinders on.

*Since I'm going through the thread, this is another example of being deliberately insulting. Everyone reading this? This is an excellent example of what not to do.* - PCat


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

You're welcome to your opinion. I would point out that the rule only applies to monsters isn't written anywhere, nothing in the MM says it only applies to monsters. Except one thing, in the MM3, which says "Monster powers that have attack rolls are attack powers." I wonder why they phrased it that way.... odd. So my "claim" is correct. 

Also in the PHB Melee, Ranged, Close, and Area individually specify that melee attacks, ranged attacks, close attacks, and area attacks all have an attack roll. So yes, if it is a close attack, and you reference close attack, and close attack says it has an attack roll.... mmmm. 

"Blinders." How is this for blinders? Any zone that does auto-damage on entering it is now an auto-kill power with the selection of two feats and one item, since "all attack powers are attacks." There are several encounter powers like that. They last for one round, but that is all you need. 

I think I'll stick with a rule that doesn't break the game.


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## Aegeri (Jul 12, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> "An attack targets AC, Fortitude, Reflex, or Will"
> 
> Rules quote. See if you can find it. Betcha can't! Attack rolls specify /gasp, that you target a defense and roll to see if you hit.




That's from MM1 I recognize that, but it's worth noting it's been "updated" a bit and so isn't as definitive anymore.

From MM3 on attacks:



			
				Monster Manual 3 said:
			
		

> A monster power that has an attack roll is an attack power. Sometimes an attack entry includes special information about a component of that entry




Personally I think that still supports your core argument, but it does specifically say that it's for monsters if someone wants to bring a quibble to it.

Edit: CURSES, YOU WIN THIS TIME AULIROPHILE, BUT NEXT TIME I WILL GET YOU AND YOUR BAND OF MEDDLING KIDS!!!!


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

Thanks for the XP Aegeri. 

I am dead serious though, if that ruling sticks I am going to show up at Gencon and do the delve's table with a group of two PCs, and end every fight in 1-2 rounds. Greg is fundamentally unaware of the shenanigans he just said were legal.

EDIT: I'm bad with names.


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## Aegeri (Jul 12, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> Thanks for the XP Aegeri.
> 
> I am dead serious though, if that ruling sticks I am going to show up at Gencon and do the delve's table with a group of two PCs, and end every fight in 1-2 rounds. Mike is fundamentally unaware of the shenanigans he just said were legal.




That's not Mike, it was from Greg Bilsland. I actually have just 'houseruled' that certain things are attacks, because what you can do with some forced movement and storm pillar at epic with certain items can be pretty ridiculous. I do realize though that if things that don't make attack rolls count as attacks, then we end up with some very interesting problems like infinite slide automatic damage and similar.


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

Aegeri said:


> That's not mike, it was from Greg Bilsland. I actually have just 'houseruled' that certain things are attacks, because what you can do with some forced movement and storm pillar at epic with certain items can be pretty ridiculous.



Storm Pillar has to be on their turn, to conditional for infinity damage. 

And you beat my edit time.


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## Aegeri (Jul 12, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> Storm Pillar has to be on their turn, to conditional for infinity damage.




There are powers to use forced movement at the beginning of the creatures turn, such as by readying an action to use said power. With suitable triggers you can - before they can take an action on their turn - slide them through multiple storm pillars for a ginormous amount of damage quickly.

An example turn and powers:

Standard: Charm of Puppet Strings (Encounter power, or a daily or whatever)
Minor:  Time Stop (Can be turned into an encounter power in various ways).
Move: Storm Pillar (Quickened Spell)
Extra Standard Actions: 3 Storm  Pillars

With an "optimized" Storm pillar of around 2d6+40 using this, you can do 2000+ damage easily.



> And you beat my edit time.



I told you I would get you next time.


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

Yeah, but that requires team work, or an AP, etc., I'd rather just solo everything in a 5x5 area as a standard action (hoping I can make that bigger, but not At-Will... encounter would be doable). Now the trick is going twice in the first round in case things are spread out.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 12, 2010)

Aulirophile said:


> You're welcome to your opinion. I would point out that the rule only applies to monsters isn't written anywhere, nothing in the MM says it only applies to monsters.




Exception based rules.

Rules for monster powers might be similar to rules for PC powers, but they aren't the same rules.

Pretending that monster attack rules apply to PC attacks is a logical fallacy.



Aulirophile said:


> Except one thing, in the MM3, which says "Monster powers that have attack rolls are attack powers." I wonder why they phrased it that way.... odd. So my "claim" is correct.




Monster powers that have attack rolls are attack powers says nothing about PC powers that have attack rolls. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

You cannot seriously believe that this sentence supports your supposition that PC rules can be derived from monster rules.

The noun phrase of this sentence is "monster powers", not "powers". It has nothing to do with any type of powers except monster powers.

This is your argument? Seriously?



Aulirophile said:


> Also in the PHB Melee, Ranged, Close, and Area individually specify that melee attacks, ranged attacks, close attacks, and area attacks all have an attack roll. So yes, if it is a close attack, and you reference close attack, and close attack says it has an attack roll.... mmmm.




Page numbers???

Pages 270 and 271 on the major sections of Melee Attacks, Ranged Attacks, Close Attacks, and Area attacks never discuss attack rolls at all with the exception of when attacks on multiple foes are done. Hmmmm.

Your claim here is suspect. You're grasping at straws.

You have yet to quote an explicit rule that applies to PC powers and states that powers with an Attack: line in them are attacks and Attack Powers without an Attack: line are not attacks.

Without an explicit rule, all you have is an interpretation and your claim that you are stating RAW is inaccurate.

There are rules that people can infer your interpretation. There are rules that people can infer my interpretation. But without explicit rules one way or the other, there is no explicit RAW on this.



Aulirophile said:


> "Blinders." How is this for blinders? Any zone that does auto-damage on entering it is now an auto-kill power with the selection of two feats and one item, since "all attack powers are attacks." There are several encounter powers like that. They last for one round, but that is all you need.
> 
> I think I'll stick with a rule that doesn't break the game.




Again, page numbers? Anyone can make a claim.


There are lots of rules that break the game. Cloak of Courage can hand out over a thousand free PC temporary hit points a day. That breaks the game, but it is still legal. This argument of yours is unsound.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 12, 2010)

Mengu said:


> I didn't like magic missile before, I don't like it now, so not much has changed as far as I'm concerned. What I would have preferred to see is the old magic missile become a class feature for the wizard, so every wizard got it, and it didn't count toward at-will powers.
> 
> I don't understand the concept of a character without a basic attack. All characters should have a free basic attack of some sort that uses their primary stat. It makes no sense to me that when the warlord says "hey you wizard, blast that guy," the wizard without magic missile has to say, "sorry boss, no can do." Same with a cleric, a bard, an invoker, etc. A charisma paladin trained in how to use his weapon, can't hit the broad side of a barn with a basic attack if he doesn't have a specific at-will power or feat. An avenger, swordmage, or battlemind has to have a feat. While they are supposedly trained on how to use a weapon, they can't exactly prove it when they are forced to use strength as an attack stat.
> 
> To get back on topic, magic missile becoming a class feature I think would have been received with more open arms, than the change to auto-hit.



I would have liked to give you some xp for this but i can´t...

My rationale would have been, that every class that uses a melee weapon should use strength... now, that time has passed i am more or ok with the way it is now...

And when you are at it, maybe each class should have a melee or ranged basic attack power as a class feature, like the warlocks eldritch blast, and 2 other at-wills.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 12, 2010)

Dungeoneer said:


> If you prefer the old Magic Missile you can certainly still use it.




Sure you can. And just like all other changes that have been made the more you use "outdated" versions of things the less useful the CB is as a tool. This is one thing that really bugs me about the system overall. 
The penalty for customization is spending an undue amount of time writing out character powers by hand. 



Vaeron said:


> I think it's a terrible decision. They caved into the people who said magic missiles should always hit. Yeah, but back in the day magic missile was essentially a DAILY power (ie a 1st level wizard had 1 magic missile per day). The new version was much more powerful as it was, in that it could be used over and over.




Keep in mind though that at low levels especially, that small amount of auto hit damage meant more. You didn't have swarms of kobolds with 25+ hit points running around and a magic missile would often take out a combatant. Even if it wasn't an instant kill, the amount of damage it inflicted in proportion to the HP totals of most creatures was much greater.  6-7 points of damage now isn't as kick ass as it used to be.


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## Colmarr (Jul 12, 2010)

Re: the OP, and without reading anything between then and now, this is what I had to say on my blog when I heard about the reasoning:



> Word is slowly spreading around the internet about one particular portion of the July 2010 update to the 4e rules; the fact that magic missile is once again an auto-hit spell.
> 
> 
> As far as I was concerned, one of the most pleasing things about 4e was that WotC was willing to kill some sacred cows; notably vancian spellcasting, uneven comparative power between classes as they levelled, and _magic missile auto-hitting_.
> ...


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 12, 2010)

MM has aways been mainly for minion killing, disrupting spellcasters and attacking incorporal foes, and attacking at long range.

3 of those 4 are better with the new, updated MM. The old one was rather boring. MM now has a real role in a mages arsenal, unlike its former version. I like it.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 12, 2010)

UngeheuerLich said:


> MM has aways been mainly for minion killing, disrupting spellcasters and attacking incorporal foes, and attacking at long range.




Disrupting spellcasters and attacking incorporeal foes? Magic missile does nothing particular special in these areas. Long range auto damage and minion killing are nice though.


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## Aegeri (Jul 12, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> Disrupting spellcasters and attacking incorporeal foes? Magic missile does nothing particular special in these areas. Long range auto damage and minion killing are nice though.




The original MM had inescapable force, which does normal damage to insubstantial enemies and an additional 1d10 damage. One of my PCs had it and the feat, until he realized I rarely used insubstantial enemies and didn't bother with it anymore.


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## Dice4Hire (Jul 12, 2010)

Marauder_POV said:


> I was going to retrain my bard out of magic missle(as the dillatante power) but using one of the later feats you can use your dillatante power as a basic attack with a power.
> 
> always hit ranged daily power anyone?




I was thinking a wand with an encounter MM just got a whole lot nicer for a whole bunch of classes. Yeah, it is not much damage, but sometimes one point is all you need.


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## Gradine (Jul 12, 2010)

I like the new magic missile; as others have pointed out, players now have a greater reason to take the power.

As to the "is it a hit or not a hit" debate, it seems the RAI is more clear than the RAW; thank you modern instantaneous online communication for that. But even without designer confirmation it does not take an incredible leap of logic to rule that a wizard actively sending out a bolt of energy to strike a target is not the same as nor should it be treated the same as a zone or aura. I sense that one of 4e's design goals  was to leave as little up to interpretation as possible, which has done  nothing but spawn endless arguments over semantics and make "rules-lawyer"-esque DMs even more finicky and restrictive than before. 

The problem I think lies with WotC's choice of vocabulary. There's that classic Order of the Stick comic regarding the many uses of the word "level", and that's what's going on here. When you attach firm definitions to words like "Attack" or "Hit", you make it impossible in the eyes of a "rules lawyer" to ever use those words again in their basic dictionary definitions. So when a feat or power says it does something on a "hit" does it mean just a generic "character performs an attack* that does damage" or does it require something under the line item Hit? Note that the above generic examples also uses a word(attack*) that can either have a generic or game-specific definition, leading to even more semantic confusion. If anything that is RAW only ever uses the terms Hit and Attack by their strict definitions, then Magic Missile is not an Attack and it does not constitute a Hit. But since this flies in the face of common sense and clearly stated designer intent, it is clear that in the RAW any instance of the word "hit" or "attack" might just be the generic use the word.

I think the sentiment both of the designers shared regarding "rules  lawyers" is their lack of willingness to read between the lines and  adjudicate based on common sense.


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## Baumi (Jul 12, 2010)

I like the new Version, it makes the power more distinct to the others. Before there was nearly no reason to take it, a Phantom Bolt, Cloud of Daggers or Ray of Frost (single target At-Will's) were simply far more interesting and the damage was only marginally worse.


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## Piratecat (Jul 12, 2010)

*Karinsdad, Aulirophile, see my warnings earlier in the thread. *


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 12, 2010)

Aegeri said:


> The original MM had inescapable force, which does normal damage to insubstantial enemies and an additional 1d10 damage. One of my PCs had it and the feat, until he realized I rarely used insubstantial enemies and didn't bother with it anymore.




It was the feat that did that, not the MM itself right? 



Gradine said:


> As to the "is it a hit or not a hit" debate, it seems the RAI is more clear than the RAW; thank you modern instantaneous online communication for that. But even without designer confirmation it does not take an incredible leap of logic to rule that a wizard actively sending out a bolt of energy to strike a target is not the same as nor should it be treated the same as a zone or aura. I sense that one of 4e's design goals was to leave as little up to interpretation as possible, which has done nothing but spawn endless arguments over semantics and make "rules-lawyer"-esque DMs even more finicky and restrictive than before.
> 
> The problem I think lies with WotC's choice of vocabulary. There's that classic Order of the Stick comic regarding the many uses of the word "level", and that's what's going on here. When you attach firm definitions to words like "Attack" or "Hit", you make it impossible in the eyes of a "rules lawyer" to ever use those words again in their basic dictionary definitions. So when a feat or power says it does something on a "hit" does it mean just a generic "character performs an attack* that does damage" or does it require something under the line item Hit? Note that the above generic examples also uses a word(attack*) that can either have a generic or game-specific definition, leading to even more semantic confusion. If anything that is RAW only ever uses the terms Hit and Attack by their strict definitions, then Magic Missile is not an Attack and it does not constitute a Hit. But since this flies in the face of common sense and clearly stated designer intent, it is clear that in the RAW any instance of the word "hit" or "attack" might just be the generic use the word.
> 
> I think the sentiment both of the designers shared regarding "rules lawyers" is their lack of willingness to read between the lines and adjudicate based on common sense.




Yes. This is a problem when words are given specific definitions in game that do not match the more well understood definition. 

The semantics of this remind of some stuff that came up while playing the storytelling card game _Once Upon a Time. _The cards used in the game had specific items named on them. When another player used one of these "keywords " during play, an opposing player holding a card with that object or named concept could play it as a sort of immediate interrupt and take over the story. Certain words and phrases became pitfalls to avoid while playing . You didn't want to say "old man" during your story. That would be asking someone to steal your turn. Instead, "gentleman of advanced age", or other such nonsense was used to get around the use of the keywords. 

It was pretty silly.


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## Aegeri (Jul 12, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> It was the feat that did that, not the MM itself right?




Yes, that is correct.


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## Scribble (Jul 12, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> The semantics of this remind of some stuff that came up while playing the storytelling card game _Once Upon a Time. _The cards used in the game had specific items named on them. When another player used one of these "keywords " during play, an opposing player holding a card with that object or named concept could play it as a sort of immediate interrupt and take over the story. Certain words and phrases became pitfalls to avoid while playing . You didn't want to say "old man" during your story. That would be asking someone to steal your turn. Instead, "gentleman of advanced age", or other such nonsense was used to get around the use of the keywords.
> 
> It was pretty silly.




I don't know... to me that sounds kind of fun. Like those improv exercises. Work your storytelling muscles.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 12, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> Disrupting spellcasters and attacking incorporeal foes? Magic missile does nothing particular special in these areas. Long range auto damage and minion killing are nice though.



My bad: MM of ADnD 2nd edition could do all this. 

First appearance in 4e wasn´t all that good at minion killing, and disrupting spellcasters is mainly a thing of the past!

edit: and inescapable force is so good now, that it is more or less an autowin against insubstantial creatures, because it adds a damage roll to MM, which means everything that applies on rolls does so. 

A good feat, very situational, but very rewarding


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## MrMyth (Jul 12, 2010)

I don't think the change needed to be made in any way. I don't think the new version is especially stronger or weaker than the old version, just different. 

I am a little sad at the change, because while I am a big fan of WotC producing regular errata, providing it for something that didn't need it isn't really the best approach. 

But overall, a group can easily ignore it or not, as they desire. There is nothing really to be worried about here, save for those who want to make a mountain out of a magic molehill.


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## Maximilia (Jul 12, 2010)

We had our first game session after the errata and as a wizard who took MM... I hate the change. It's _boring_. We often have situations where we fight at range, and I and our seeker (I think that's his class) are the ones with range. I only have a couple spells with range 20, and one of them is MM... and this last session was completely unfun with it. I barely made any combat rolls, it was just "This guys takes 7. And then I take a nap until my next turn."

Another thing to consider is that the damage is NOT modified by any items now--it's just the base 2+Int modifier.

EDIT: Our GM already said he would move it back to the old version for us, but if he hadn't, the next level I would have dropped MM like a hot potato.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 12, 2010)

MrMyth said:


> But overall, a group can easily ignore it or not, as they desire. There is nothing really to be worried about here, save for those who want to make a mountain out of a magic molehill.




I haven't checked yet but you can choose either option in the CB? 

If not then these kind of changes ARE kind of a big deal.


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## Nifft (Jul 12, 2010)

Aegeri said:


> (discussion of "what is an attack")
> 
> So it appears that those saying attack powers do not require an attack roll to be counted as one might be correct. It's definitely something we could use a FAQ ruling on, but I am personally willing to go with what Greg says here as something that is logical. It does however have some nasty repercussions.



 Yeah, I'm not sure they've really weighed the consequences here.

Again, I'm not taking any particular side in the debate over whether MM is an attack or not. If it is, a lot of other things are going to need an update. If it's not an attack, then Greater Invisibility becomes a rather strong tactic.

Cheers, -- N


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## Zaran (Jul 12, 2010)

Nifft said:


> Yeah, I'm not sure they've really weighed the consequences here.
> 
> Again, I'm not taking any particular side in the debate over whether MM is an attack or not. If it is, a lot of other things are going to need an update. If it's not an attack, then Greater Invisibility becomes a rather strong tactic.
> 
> Cheers, -- N




Hasn't it already been said that auto damage instances like Rain of Steel and Cleave are not attacks?  Because if they were than a fighter could use their marking ability in those instances.


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## Shazman (Jul 12, 2010)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Ah...stuff I pay no attention to.




It's not like it would be easy to keep up with them anyway since a lot of things get changed every two months.  Even without essentials, I think we have already crossed the line into 4.5 territory.


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## Mythtify (Jul 12, 2010)

I am grateful for all the replies. Though I am not really concerned about the benifits and mechanics behind the new MM. What concerns me is the changing of a game rule/power in an established game for no stated reason other than they want to change the way the game "feels". 

I don't by into the concept that the current designers care about "classic" D&D. 4e is so far beyond the previous editions, and plays so differently, that any claim of a desire to see the game play in a "classic" way just rings false to me. I don't want to start a essentials is 4.5 argument, though I think that people who said the change may have something to do with essentials may be on to something. I am going to take WoTC at their word, and assume that there was no mechanical reason for changing MM. 

For me, changing the rules two years after publishing just to provide a different "feel" to the game is a violation of the trust that I have in the designers. I expect a game to continue to be updated, and changes to be made to fix problems in the game mechanics that are having an effect on game play. This far into 4e, I am invested in the way the game plays, and have expectations on how the rules are going to work together. My understanding of the rules of the game and how they flow get turned about when something changes for no mechanical reason. My expectations, and ability to spot a rule or a mechanic that may be "broken" gets twisted about when the designers are striving to change the feel of an established game instead of making the mechanics work as best they can. 

I am a guy who will buy a product because of the designers, not just because of the product brand. I'll support some designers just like I'll suppurt a music artist. I know their work, they have built a trust in me toward their work. WotC has broken some of that trust by changing a rule "just because". If they do it once, they will do it again. So, it isn't about MM, its about why WotC decides to make a change, and if it is acceptable to the people that support their efforts.


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## DracoSuave (Jul 12, 2010)

Draco walks in to the discussion on the new magic missile being good, bad... 

Draco looks at Cloud of Daggers, realizes he's had all the utility Magic Missile has now, plus more, all along...

Draco wonders to himself why they needed to repeat the auto-hit utility while taking away a slightly harder hitting damage spell that could be enhanced to push things...

Draco muses that changes for the sake of returning things to a 'classical form' are only okay when said changes actually add something to the game...

Draco mourns the loss of an at-will that didn't try to compete with a different at-will.


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## keterys (Jul 12, 2010)

Part of me is surprised they didn't just do it by just adding a Miss: Int damage line. Or if they _really_ wanted minions to die, remove Int from the hit line and add Effect: Int damage.

Heck, then they could even give a greater nod to 'classics' and make it
Hit: 1d4 + 1 damage
Effect: Int damage

Though I think it would have been more fun as:
Special: Add a second target at 11th, third target at 21st.
Effect: One of the targets takes Int damage.


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## Otterscrubber (Jul 12, 2010)

Vaeron said:


> I appreciate that... But this auto-hit thing sits poorly with me.  It seems to be throwing everything about 4e design out the window to placate a subset of the gaming population t hat is going to complain NO MATTER WHAT.




Testify Brother!!!


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## Gradine (Jul 12, 2010)

Maximilia said:


> We had our first game session after the errata and as a wizard who took MM... I hate the change. It's _boring_. We often have situations where we fight at range, and I and our seeker (I think that's his class) are the ones with range. I only have a couple spells with range 20, and one of them is MM... and this last session was completely unfun with it. I barely made any combat rolls, it was just "This guys takes 7. And then I take a nap until my next turn."




Something definitely sounds boring here, and I don't know I'd say it was the power.

I think it's pretty obvious that any encounter that requires you to spam the same at-will over and over again is going to make it seem pretty boring, _especially _if there's no roll attached to it. But there is such a thing as too much. I may like a spoonful of sugar with my breakfast, but I'm not about to eat a bowl full of sugar.

I think the problem comes from the fact that the new MM means you're not rolling any dice. Even the Magic Missiles of yore had damage rolls. I think sometimes players get the feeling that if they're not rolling dice they're not really _playing_, and that, in my opinion, is quite unfortunate.


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## Mengu (Jul 12, 2010)

There have been many encounters, where after a string of bad rolls, we start hoping for crits to speed up the encounter. Every attack a player rolls is a chance for a crit. So the party crit pool is something to pay attention to. The new magic missile takes one action out of five out of the equation for generating crits. Not sure if it's something to cry over, but certainly something to consider, especially when fighting zombies


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## renau1g (Jul 12, 2010)

Even more during encounter's with Wizard's Fury activated, which if you took Magic Missile, you would likely want this power.


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## Klaus (Jul 12, 2010)

circadianwolf said:


> This is even more true than it was before, though. The new version is decent damage at heroic but pretty terrible at anything above (and of course doesn't have any controller effects).



Couple it with Master's Wand of Magic Missile (every target hit by your magic missile is pushed one square) and you have a very decent Controller ability.


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## The Human Target (Jul 12, 2010)

The original 4E magic missile was well liked by me and my group. Great range and good damage. It is in my mind a main at-will for war wizards. 

The new version I don't see being taken by anyone.


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## jbear (Jul 12, 2010)

I'm not sure where I stand on the change.

If I was making a wizard, I wouldn't have chosen MM, not even if I was human and could choose three: Thunder Wave, Winged Horde take the first two without a doubt for me... and MM just doesn't cut it for the third. 

As an automatic damage dealer, does it become interesting to me... as a third for my wizard... maybe. If I'm blinded or the target has superior cover etc etc an auto hit is handy.

Is it how I would have changed the power to make it more attractive and 'old school'... umm, I don't think so. What about just 3 attacks that do 1d4 damage. If all three hit add Int Dmg. If all three miss do INT damge. Feats could allow to choose seperate targets for the attack. I'm no expert. If that is overpowered then 2 attacks, a third at lvl 21?


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## Camelot (Jul 12, 2010)

Mechanics aside, I do agree that the beach mages' reason for the change is not a good one.  As one who has never played "classical" D&D, I don't mind either version.  But if they want to give that classical element to those who've been playing longer, they should come out with a new power in a new book (like Essentials).  Changing an old power that had no problems with it* is not cool, because the original 4e version had become a classic to 4e players like me.

*If Magic Missile had problems with it, then they should have told us that they changed it for mechanical purposes, with the classical element as a bonus.  I'm not commenting on it's problems or lack thereof.


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## bagger245 (Jul 12, 2010)

So Grognards are going to start playing 4e now that MM is back to how it was?


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## keterys (Jul 12, 2010)

Magic Missile is horribly unpopular as an at-will... the new version is probably as popular for people currently playing as people who liked the old version, even if they'll often be different people. So if it gains _any_ grognards it probably is a net positive.


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## Runestar (Jul 12, 2010)

I dunno - the new magic missile seems designed to fill in a specific niche, if you are a player who doesn't mind trading damage for accuracy. I wonder if this may be a sign of things to come. Wotc contemplating auto-hit powers, and magic missile is simply them testing the waters?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 12, 2010)

bagger245 said:


> So Grognards are going to start playing 4e now that MM is back to how it was?



Real grognards liked it the way it was - which was similar to the MM in OD&D.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 12, 2010)

Klaus said:


> Couple it with Master's Wand of Magic Missile (every target hit by your magic missile is pushed one square) and you have a very decent Controller ability.



Strictly speaking, the new MM doesn't "Hit" anything, it just damages it. So by RAW Master's Wand of Magic Missile doesn't work any more. Additional errata?


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## Aulirophile (Jul 12, 2010)

The Wand was also errata'd in the same batch of errata. Still works. Staff of Missile Mastery still had extra damage on a Magic Missile crit, which doesn't work, and the errata team twittered that they failed to edit it properly. Somehow that doesn't reassure me.


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## Gradine (Jul 12, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Strictly speaking, the new MM doesn't "Hit" anything, it just damages it. So by RAW Master's Wand of Magic Missile doesn't work any more. Additional errata?




Again, this is such an unnecessarily narrow interpretation of the RAW that it borders on the absurd. Of course Master's Wand of Magic Missile still works; just because WotC can't (or didn't think it needed to) come up with a synonym for the word "hit" doesn't mean a magic item designed to work with a specific power no longer works with the power it was designed for. No DM in their right mind is telling their player their favored magic wand doesn't work any more until WotC produces additional errata to clear up a slight issue with semantics.


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## keterys (Jul 12, 2010)

All the magic missile items were errata-ed so they work with the magic missile change, as part of the same errata. You may need to read to the appropriate parts of the file to see it.

I still don't see the crit errata as being particularly necessary, as it's an extra line of edit that makes literally no (zero, none, zilch) difference in gameplay, at all.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 13, 2010)

Gradine said:


> Again, this is such an unnecessarily narrow interpretation of the RAW that it borders on the absurd. Of course Master's Wand of Magic Missile still works; just because WotC can't (or didn't think it needed to) come up with a synonym for the word "hit" doesn't mean a magic item designed to work with a specific power no longer works with the power it was designed for. No DM in their right mind is telling their player their favored magic wand doesn't work any more until WotC produces additional errata to clear up a slight issue with semantics.



Considering that WotC found it necessary to errata "hit" to "damage" in the description of Master's Wand of Magic Missile, they don't seem to think that it is absurd either.

And it is not absurd. The thing about exception based design is that those exceptions trigger of specific keywords. "Hit" is such a keyword. Anything that requires you to "hit" your target no longer works with MM. That's neither narrow nor absurd, but just the way the rules work. Of course, you can play it any way you want in your campaign.


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## Artoomis (Jul 13, 2010)

Piratecat said:


> I love it. I'm not so sure about changing it with errata, since it wasn't actually broken, but I (and my players) vastly prefer the new version.




It's *not* errata.  It's a rules update, as such, everything is pretty much fair game.

Personally, I like the change.  But that's besides the point, really.  Sure, MM was not "broken," but it was pretty lousy and not much fun (well, in my opinion anyway).

Now it's pretty cool.


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## Klaus (Jul 13, 2010)

The good thing about the new MM is that it's now a unique spell in the wizard's repertoire, instead of just being a reskinned arrow (apologies to Oldtimer  ).


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## Bold or Stupid (Jul 13, 2010)

I like it particularly as it still works with Inescapable Force which never mentions the word hit...

Also Half Elf Warlocks may like it for getting curse damage on a hard to hit target.


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## Aulirophile (Jul 13, 2010)

Isn't really unique, Cloud of Daggers is auto-damage (and actual damage, and hits). 

@Bold: doesn't work, you have to hit to trigger Curse.


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## Nifft (Jul 13, 2010)

Bold or Stupid said:


> Also Half Elf Warlocks may like it for getting curse damage on a hard to hit target.



 Warlock extra damage triggers off a hit, not off mere damage, due to an early errata update.

Very sad, I used to love using Hammer Rhythm to get guaranteed curse damage every round.

@*Aulirophile*: If only Cloud of Daggers was a range 20 basic attack.

Cheers, -- N


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## Plane Sailing (Jul 13, 2010)

Mythtify said:


> I was looking through the July Update, and was frustrated by the reasoning behind the update of Magic Missile.  The given reason:
> "This update reflects an effort to retore the power to its classical form."





One must wonder whether this means that Fireball might see a similar "effort to restore the power to its classical form".

After all, Fireball was THE iconic wizard spell, above all others. In 4e it is a paltry mess, inferior in pretty much every way to stinking cloud. Stinking cloud! I ask you!

Lets see Fireball restored to its classical form, thats what I say!


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 13, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> One must wonder whether this means that Fireball might see a similar "effort to restore the power to its classical form".
> 
> After all, Fireball was THE iconic wizard spell, above all others. In 4e it is a paltry mess, inferior in pretty much every way to stinking cloud. Stinking cloud! I ask you!
> 
> Lets see Fireball restored to its classical form, thats what I say!




I certainly hope so!!  

While we are at it _Sleep _needs some love too. _Leomund's Lethargic Shuffle _just isn't cutting it.


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## keterys (Jul 13, 2010)

Personally, I'd like to see Fireball as an encounter power - kinda like the Fire Burst power, but y'know, actually good.

As a daily, though, sure - at least bump it to 5d6.


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## Zaran (Jul 13, 2010)

keterys said:


> All the magic missile items were errata-ed so they work with the magic missile change, as part of the same errata. You may need to read to the appropriate parts of the file to see it.
> 
> I still don't see the crit errata as being particularly necessary, as it's an extra line of edit that makes literally no (zero, none, zilch) difference in gameplay, at all.




I think they should have made the Crit for that staff just be 1d8 per +1 for all spells because it does nothing else but enhance magic missile.



> One must wonder whether this means that Fireball might see a similar "effort to restore the power to its classical form".




For Planar Sailing's Xp I said: i totally agree with you. My idea for fireball was to make it have ongoing damage that one could not save against unless they did not take a move action.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 13, 2010)

In the interests of full disclosure, I have to say I'm not 4Ed's biggest fan.

However, retconning spells to their classic forms (within 4Ed's design boundaries, of course) is probably a fool's game.  If they're already good enough for the game as is, you're exchanging something that works for something that _might_ work, and that is really only going to appeal to a certain subset of players.

I don't think it will draw non-adoptors back into the fold- paltry changes like that wouldn't change my opinion of 4Ed, and for all my dislike of it, I'm still willing to _play_ it (player only, *never* DM).


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## BryonD (Jul 13, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> Lets see Fireball restored to its classical form, thats what I say!



A Sphere?


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## KarinsDad (Jul 13, 2010)

BryonD said:


> A Sphere?




Hexes. Sphere shapes are easy in hexes.


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## Christian (Jul 13, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> I haven't checked yet but you can choose either option in the CB?
> 
> If not then these kind of changes ARE kind of a big deal.



You cannot. I opened a character I'd previously built with the Magic Missile power, and the power on his sheet was changed to the new version. There is no longer even an option. 

I really wish that they'd made a new power with another name, or something. If the old version was really underpowered, that wouldn't break anything. I like the new version, but it's annoying not to have the choice in CB. (And what happens in, say LFR, when someone brings an existing character to the table with the old version printed on it?)


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## Kingreaper (Jul 13, 2010)

I like the new power. But I don't get why it couldn't co-exist with the old one.

Update the old one to a new name, and then add this one as well.

Two options for ranged basic. One autodamage, one more damaging.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 13, 2010)

Kingreaper said:


> I like the new power. But I don't get why it couldn't co-exist with the old one.
> 
> Update the old one to a new name, and then add this one as well.
> 
> Two options for ranged basic. One autodamage, one more damaging.




Force Missile.


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## keterys (Jul 13, 2010)

Force Bolt - Bolt sounds more 'fantastic' than missile.


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## DracoSuave (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> Hexes. Sphere shapes are easy in hexes.




Dungeons are not, sadly

Hexes+Right Angles = messy.

And don't say 'But you can' cause whatever you do... it's still messy.  I like my walls straight, not with strange nooks that make you impossible to flank by creatures that are diametricly opposite to each other around you.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 13, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> Dungeons are not, sadly
> 
> Hexes+Right Angles = messy.
> 
> And don't say 'But you can' cause whatever you do... it's still messy.  I like my walls straight, not with strange nooks that make you impossible to flank by creatures that are diametricly opposite to each other around you.




I like my diagonal corridors curvy, not with strange nooks that make you impossible to flank by creatures that are diametrically opposite to each other around you.


We solved all of the hex problems decades ago for any shape or size area.

WotC introduced the concept of "almost all dungeons have right angles to them and north/south east/west dimenions completely divisible by 5 feet" and a large chunk of the D&D gaming community bought it hook, line, and sinker for the most part.

Squares in 4E still have buggy problems. For example, if a medium sized creature is flanked diagonally, he can shift 5 feet and be 5 feet away from the foes, allowing him to range atack either of them.

If he is flanked north/south or east/west and shifts 5 feet away from the foes, then he cannot use a ranged attack without provoking an opportunity attack from one foe or the other or both.


Hexes are vastly superior, you just have to get people past the small learning curve on how to use them correctly (regardless of shape or size of the room). Once you do that, Fireballs appear to be spherical again and diagonal movement across a room is back to being more movement than north/south, or east/west, and would assist with the Defender concept of defending easier.

WotC would be smart to have optional hex rules. There are some players out there still bothered by the movement and area rules of 4E that might play the game with hexes. That might not be you, but I've played with a lot of people with hexes over the years in a wide variety of games where it quickly becomes second nature.


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## MarkB (Jul 13, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> One must wonder whether this means that Fireball might see a similar "effort to restore the power to its classical form".
> 
> After all, Fireball was THE iconic wizard spell, above all others. In 4e it is a paltry mess, inferior in pretty much every way to stinking cloud. Stinking cloud! I ask you!
> 
> Lets see Fireball restored to its classical form, thats what I say!




Ah, but which classical form? I'm not sure 4e is ready for 'blast-back' area calculations resulting from dropping a Fireball in a narrow corridor.


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## eamon (Jul 13, 2010)

MarkB said:


> Ah, but which classical form? I'm not sure 4e is ready for 'blast-back' area calculations resulting from dropping a Fireball in a narrow corridor.



A classical form that deals significant damage for the first half of a PC's carreer - in 4e; the equivalent of remaining relevant in levels 5-15.  A bump to 5d6 might do it.  That would make it weaker than the Sorcerer's Sun's Illumination Power (which deals comparable damage thanks to the sorcerer's class feature but has a more useful damage type and a nice effect), but with a huge (but ally-inclusive) area...


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## DracoSuave (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> WotC introduced the concept of "almost all dungeons have right angles to them and north/south east/west dimenions completely divisible by 5 feet" and a large chunk of the D&D gaming community bought it hook, line, and sinker for the most part.




Actually, classic architecture brought the 'right angles' aspect, simply due to squares and right angles being the best and most efficient use of space.

Can't blame something on D&D that was old when Khufu made his pyramids that way.


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## Runestar (Jul 13, 2010)

Well, I do feel that fireball is currently a fair weak spell, so I see little harm in making it auto-hit as well.


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## DracoSuave (Jul 13, 2010)

Runestar said:


> Well, I do feel that fireball is currently a fair weak spell, so I see little harm in making it auto-hit as well.




Auto-hit AoE blast eh

Dragon Sorcerer

+

Arcane Initiate

+

Adept Power

=

Burst 3 unavoidable massive damage.

....

When you have the Arcane keyword and an Effect line with a damage roll on it, you have the potential for abuse.


----------



## Zaran (Jul 13, 2010)

Runestar said:


> Well, I do feel that fireball is currently a fair weak spell, so I see little harm in making it auto-hit as well.




It has a miss effect so techinically it does do auto-hit to anything but a minion.   It probably just needs a little damage boost.  I'd be down with a 5d6 +Int damage.  

Does anyone think that the update in October will change more than just Wizard encounter powers?  I'm wondering if we will see alot of revision with other portions of the PHB.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 13, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> Actually, classic architecture brought the 'right angles' aspect, simply due to squares and right angles being the best and most efficient use of space.
> 
> Can't blame something on D&D that was old when Khufu made his pyramids that way.




True.

But how many caves and swamps have classic architecture?

How much did Khufu's pyramid follow the "divisible by 5" model? For that matter, how many streets in the world follow the "divisible by 5" model?

In their attempt to simplify things, they actually made many things less plausible. There's nothing wrong with throwing a grid over the environment and having edges that don't meet, but it's to the point that one cannot even have a diagonal corridor anymore because there are no rules for when the grid does not match the corridor.


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## Scribble (Jul 13, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> Actually, classic architecture brought the 'right angles' aspect, simply due to squares and right angles being the best and most efficient use of space.
> 
> Can't blame something on D&D that was old when Khufu made his pyramids that way.




I've been making my dungeons pretty much right angles and divisible by 5 since my early basic D&D days... 

Explaining anything else to the party mapper was an exercise in insanity.


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## Bold or Stupid (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> True.
> 
> But how many caves and swamps have classic architecture?
> 
> ...




Oddly I have several diagonal dungeon tile corridors, they seem to work fine to me.


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## doctorhook (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> How much did Khufu's pyramid follow the "divisible by 5" model? For that matter, how many streets in the world follow the "divisible by 5" model?



Wait, are you actually complaining about the scale that reality uses? 

Hexes and squares are just lines on paper, aren't they?


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## Infiniti2000 (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> How much did Khufu's pyramid follow the "divisible by 5" model? For that matter, how many streets in the world follow the "divisible by 5" model?



 Does this comment mean that you don't have 5ft hexes?


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 13, 2010)

To me, Magic Missile may have been nerfed but at long last has a place.  The times you need a RBA or range 20 are rare.  And for damage, MM lost out to Cloud of Daggers (assuming Wis 14 - which is pretty normal IME).  But making it autohit gives it a niche to shine in.  (The only strength I can think of for Magic Missile is if you've got something like a tattoo of vengeance).


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## Dan'L (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> ...it's to the point that one cannot even have a diagonal corridor anymore because there are no rules for when the grid does not match the corridor.




Except for the DMG p. 113, "Drawing Diagonal Walls" tip:


			
				DMG page 113 said:
			
		

> Here's a tip for drawing diagonal walls on the battle grid: Don't draw the walls through the corners of squares.  Instead, start at the middle of a square's edge and go through the middle of the adjacent square's edge.  This way, where creatures can stand is always clear: A square with a corner cut off is a leagal square, but a creature can't occupy a space that's just the corner of a square.




I'm not sure how this would be any more difficult than learning to square of hexes?

In my (admittedly short) time DMing, I've already made several encounter spaces with diagonals and erose caverns and circular/curved walls.  It's only taken a minimal effort to ensure that I can clearly adjudicate what is occupiable and what is not, and that there is a clearly available line of movement.

-Dan'L



-Dan'L


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## Zinovia (Jul 13, 2010)

Hexes are sexy and squares are for squares,
When mapping round rooms and spiraling stairs,
Twisty caverns and labyrinths hexes define,
Much better than anything ruled by straight lines,
Hexes cause you to waddle to left and to right,
When you walk one direction, but the other's alright,
Diagonal movement is easy to do,
Untroubled by issues with square root of two,
No fire cubes here, all your spells will be round,
Or cone-shaped for blasts made of thunderous sound,
Yes hexes are fun, I prefer them by far,
And leave tiles and squares just to run LFR.


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## Steelwill (Jul 13, 2010)

Originally Posted by *Plane Sailing* 

 
_One  must wonder whether this means that Fireball might see a similar  "effort to restore the power to its classical form".

After all, Fireball was THE iconic wizard spell, above all others. In 4e it is a paltry mess, inferior  in pretty much every way to stinking cloud. Stinking cloud! I ask you!

Lets see Fireball restored to its classical form, thats what I say!_



Just a suggestion...

New Fireball: Area burst 3 within 10, creatures within the blast take 5d6 fire dmg + int.   

Effect:  Creatures take int mod ongoing dmg per round (save ends) and are knocked prone. 
Miss: Half dmg and knocked prone.


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## Plane Sailing (Jul 13, 2010)

If I was upgrading fireball, I think a suitable upgrade would be to add Ongoing 5 fire to it.

That means that it kills minions as effectively as stinking cloud (surely the minimum it should be capable of!) and it would add an average of 8.5 damage or so to targets hit by it (5, 50% +5, 50% another +5 etc)

That would make it a useful and flavourful spell. The best option at 5th level for killing minions, and a fireball that sets stuff on fire.

That would meet my needs.

Of course, I'd have no objection to fireballs squeezing through corridors and filling their appropriate volume - would even be easier to calculate in square-based geometry than in the old days, I presume!

Cheers


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## AFGNCAAP (Jul 13, 2010)

*as posted on the WotC forums*

FWIW: 

Caveat: I have not read all of the posts in this thread—a 39-pg. thread makes that daunting. I apologize if I have retread valid points discussed earlier in this thread, but it's my $0.02 worth. In addition, I do not intent to have a belligerent tone in this post.

I do not care for the changes made to the Magic Missile at-will power. Yes, it wasn't the "classic" spell of prior editions, but the classic spell was an artefact of an older system that worked within that older system.

I understand the new system has options that can "thwart" Magic Missile just as well as the older systems did, but this change on an at-will power seems like a waste to me. The relative pittance of damage (though auto-damage) does not seem worth the trade-off of the potential with critical hits for the wizard with the power that can serve as a ranged basic attack.

The wizard's option for a decent damaging ranged basic attack has been eliminated with this revision. Yes, it's a way to "clean up the board" of minions, but frankly, not every battle has minions in it. 

Cloud of Daggers may have this autohit effect to it, but:


it cannot be used as a ranged basic attack;
its range is half that of magic missile (the range can make a difference at times; 10 squares is dangerously within a simple move+change attack distance for most opponents, something that cannot always be thwarted by an ally in the way all of the time; or, there is a distance greater than 10 sq. that cannot be easily closed due to 1 factor or another [pit, flying opponent, too many enemies, etc.]);
its automatic damage is reliant on a build where a character has a 14+ Wisdom score (which a player may or may not opt to go with) to really extract damage potential for this power against any non-minion foe, if said foe actually enters or starts its turn in that area (otherwise, you're relying on a missed attack vs. a minion to work with the minion staying in place, or having a DM just "burn a minion" by having it go through said sqaure);
its area is 1 square (not a burst 1—1 square); unless there is a "choke point" that can work out during a fight, this threatening area can easily be avoided by a foe.
to be better than magic missile on a crit, it relies on: the wizard having a high (if not max) Wis score, the opponent in question being within 10 squares; and the opponent staying in the same square by the start of its next turn (which is not guaranteed if other party members use forced movement on the opponent, or the opponent has an immediate interrupt that allows movement before its next turn).
it still requires an attack vs. Reflex for the bulk of its damage. Honestly, Phantom Bolt is a better option as a non-basic ranged attack at-will, because it targets the often-weaker Will defense of a foe, and grants a slide which can move a foe into a setup for an Area attack by another player, or base to base with an ally.

If the "spirit" of Magic Missile is meant to be kept, then the Shield utility power should utterly stop its damage, and it should last longer. There should be the Globe of Invulnerability spells that thwart powers of X level and lower, etc. Then again, why not bring back 3/2 attacks per round? Or level limits based on character race? Implements having "charges"? etc.

If this is made in an attempt to lure back older players to the new version of the game, I do not see much potential wisdom in this choice, since older players (presumably) still have their older versions of the game to continue playing, or left D&D because of the structure & format of the system of the game and have adopted a competitor's game system instead (such as WoD or GURPS) as there system of choice, if the player did not leave due to "growing out of" the game in the first place. To be honest, if I wanted to have the effects/workings of an older edition of the game, I'd simply play an older edition of the game.

I honestly liked how the original 4e version of Magic Missile worked (in a way, it became a wizard's eldritch blast), and I would prefer that the power return to its original 4e format (as well as all of the ancilliary game elements related to it, such as the related magical wand implement, etc.).


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## KarinsDad (Jul 13, 2010)

Infiniti2000 said:


> Does this comment mean that you don't have 5ft hexes?




No. It means that I have rules for when a hex is partial.

4E has no rules (TMK) for when a square is partial. A 7 foot wide 35 degrees off diagonal corridor will be run differently by multiple groups because the game system is so focused on "stay between the lines".


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## Infiniti2000 (Jul 13, 2010)

AFGNCAAP said:


> Caveat: I have not read all of the posts in this thread—a 39-pg. thread makes that daunting.



 Surely, you jest.  Do you view only 3 posts per page?


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## Infiniti2000 (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> A 7 foot wide 35 degrees off diagonal corridor will be run differently by multiple groups because the game system is so focused on "stay between the lines".



 God forbid I should ever require that much accuracy.  Hell, people play without grids at all and here you not only want grids, you want them at a high enough resolution to support foot-level increments and angles at 35 degrees.

Also, you're comparing your houserules to official rules.  Of course your houserules will meet your requirements so it's not a fair comparison.  The only argument I can see you make legitimately is if your partial hex rules (and any other rules) cannot be extrapolated to square grids or square grids simply don't support what you need (no matter how you tweak it).  Let's be honest, though, both methods have advantages over the other.


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## ExploderWizard (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> How much did Khufu's pyramid follow the "divisible by 5" model? For that matter, how many streets in the world follow the "divisible by 5" model?




I wouldn't want you designing my Stonehenge monument Mr. Tufnel.

5" indeed.


----------



## AFGNCAAP (Jul 13, 2010)

Infiniti2000 said:


> Surely, you jest.  Do you view only 3 posts per page?




See title of said individual post.


----------



## Infiniti2000 (Jul 13, 2010)

AFGNCAAP said:


> See title of said individual post.




Ah, so you didn't even have the common courtesy to revise your post before cross-posting?  Thanks for that.  Regarding your post itself, tl;dr. *<= a recent rude addition to practice which we don't like to see. Thanks. Plane Sailing*


----------



## keterys (Jul 13, 2010)

AFGNCAAP said:


> because it targets the often-weaker Will defense of a foe




This statement doesn't make sense. Will is not appreciably weaker in monsters than Reflex. 

Unless you mean it in the useless fashion, where you could _also_ say 'because it targets the often-weaker Reflex defense of a foe', because some enemies are high Reflex or Will, or low Reflex or Will, so having the ability to pick the right defense is good. I'm all for having attacks against multiple different defenses, absolutely.

Really, the only thing is that Fort attacks are worse against frontline bruiser types. That's the only FRW angle you can really reliably make.


----------



## KarinsDad (Jul 13, 2010)

Infiniti2000 said:


> God forbid I should ever require that much accuracy.  Hell, people play without grids at all and here you not only want grids, you want them at a high enough resolution to support foot-level increments and angles at 35 degrees.




If I pull a map of a cave system or an area off the Internet, I just want to puck down the grid on top of it and go. I don't want to adjust it.

I think plausible looking maps (either real world places, or artist conceptualized places) are sexy and fun.

I think hand drawn dry erase on a square grid board is a lot less sexy and fun.

I prefer that the grid system work best, regardless of the source of the encounter area.

Grids have certain advantages in certain very 90 degree restrictive ways. Hexes have the rest of the advantages, hands down.


And even better than hexes are the offset squares. All you need then is a half square rule and a partial square rule.


----------



## keterys (Jul 13, 2010)

Maps that a DM intentionally designs to be interesting and a better combat experience work better than anything copied from anywhere real.

The trick is to have the functionality, then make it look good. But if you just take an area that looks really nice, and it's too small, too crowded, or too open and boring... then you're not leveraging the encounter as much as you could.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 13, 2010)

keterys said:


> Maps that a DM intentionally designs to be interesting and a better combat experience work better than anything copied from anywhere real.




Not necessarily.

Not all DMs are artists. The DM can always add features to a map that he wants to, but the ability to actually craft a nice map in the first place that doesn't just look like grids on a gray surface are beyond some of us.


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## DracoSuave (Jul 13, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> No. It means that I have rules for when a hex is partial.
> 
> 4E has no rules (TMK) for when a square is partial. A 7 foot wide 35 degrees off diagonal corridor will be run differently by multiple groups because the game system is so focused on "stay between the lines".




If a hex is partial, you have one of two situations with your standard room with standard 90' corners.

One-  half hexes don't exist, and you cannot stand in them.  Then you have the situation where standing beside the wall on the hexes that do exist five feet away means that you can never be flanked, even by two people exactly the same distance from the wall from you, for no reason other than trying to apply hexes to square areas.

Two-  half hexes do exist and can be occupied, in which caose those hexes do exactly the same thing as above, and they are more advantages for no reason other than an artifact of trying to apply hexes to square areas.

Three-  Some nonintuitive f'd up flipper baby stuff that requires knowing how it works just to get 'stuff flanks you if it's across from you.'


The point is, you're doing nothing but a kludge just to make your fireballs rounder in, what is essence, an abstraction of things.  Are squares mathematically elegant for the 45' angles?  No.  But neither are hexes!  Both are kludges for the natural world, but only one is a kludge for artificial constructs.


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## Insight (Jul 13, 2010)

With area of effect powers, all it comes down to is who is affected and who isn't.  What difference does it make what the effect's shape is?  Unless you're willing to fundamentally change how these powers work, just state "the Fireball hits these squares" and forget whether the fireball is a square, a sphere, or a trapezoid.

EDIT: If it bothers you a lot, just imagine that the "corner squares" in the area are "rounded edges" and that you're still affected if you're standing there.  That should solve the problem.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 13, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> The point is, you're doing nothing but a kludge just to make your fireballs rounder in, what is essence, an abstraction of things.  Are squares mathematically elegant for the 45' angles?  No.  But neither are hexes!  Both are kludges for the natural world, but only one is a kludge for artificial constructs.




Specifically SIZED and ORIENTED artificial constructs. Squares are still a kludge for a wide variety of artifical constructs.


And, it's not just to make fireballs rounder. That's a pleasant side effect.

It's to make diagonal movement cleaner. Creatures do not fly across the room, just because they move diagonally. And creatures need extra movement to try to avoid the Defenders that 4E drops on the floor.

It's to allow weird shaped rooms of any size and any orientation next to each other. The DM can have diamonded shaped rooms next to square rooms next to circular rooms, in any orientation and it all just works.

It's to eliminate weird flanking problems like the diagonal flank versus the horizontal flank shift opportunity attack example that I mentioned earlier.


This is also why I mentioned that offset squares are better than even hexes or squares. They have many of the advantages of both hexes and squares and few of the disadvantages.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 13, 2010)

Christian said:


> You cannot. I opened a character I'd previously built with the Magic Missile power, and the power on his sheet was changed to the new version. There is no longer even an option.




That_ is_ disappointing, but predictable.  I, too wish they had had the foresight to let people choose which version of the spell they liked, but after all, this IS the official update.  You should pretty much expect them to do this.

Yet another reason to keep buying books.  All those discussions about preferred editions of games over the years that included retorts of "They can't come into your house and take your books, can they?" has just gotten a new line, "No, but they sure can edit them!"


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## fba827 (Jul 13, 2010)

"official reasons" aside, I like the fact that they did update MM.
I was finding it too bland and lacking, especially when compared to stuff like Hand of Radiance (Invoker at will) that came out later.
Now, I find MM to have its own niche, so I don't completely ignore it now.


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## DracoSuave (Jul 14, 2010)

KarinsDad said:


> Specifically SIZED and ORIENTED artificial constructs. Squares are still a kludge for a wide variety of artifical constructs.




Anything common and sensible? 



> It's to make diagonal movement cleaner. Creatures do not fly across the room, just because they move diagonally. And creatures need extra movement to try to avoid the Defenders that 4E drops on the floor.




At the expense of perpendicular movement.  Yes, going west by north west is easier now... but going west?  Now you have to use an even -less- elegant method of staggering hexes.



> It's to allow weird shaped rooms of any size and any orientation next to each other. The DM can have diamonded shaped rooms next to square rooms next to circular rooms, in any orientation and it all just works.[/qupte]
> 
> Except, of course, for the diamond and square shaped rooms actually being shaped with jagged weird unstraight sides.
> 
> ...


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## Nifft (Jul 14, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> Hex:
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



 So, using hexes, it's sometimes hard to flank a guy with his back against the wall.

I'm okay with this.

Note that there's a feat in 4e which tries to replicate this defensive bonus. If we eliminate that and use tactical positioning instead, it should work out reasonably well.

Cheers, -- N


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## DracoSuave (Jul 14, 2010)

Nifft said:


> So, using hexes, it's sometimes hard to flank a guy with his back against the wall.
> 
> I'm okay with this.




I'm not.

If North and South have different physics than East and West, then whats the point about caring about other directions?  the physics of the universe change based on how far you are from a corner, whether that corner is of one 'polarity' or another... 

Really.  It's a big damn mess, and doesn't make any sort of sense...all to make fireballs and rocks rounder.


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## KarinsDad (Jul 14, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> In exchange for:
> 
> Square:
> 
> ...




Well, it's obvious that you have never played with offset squares or hexes using the proper rules because you make the "cannot flank" claims.

The wall rule is simple for hexes and offset squares. If half or more of the hex is against a wall or surface, you can use that hex as if it were a full hex. Caveat: If you are in a 5 or less foot wide corridor, you use up multiple "half or partial hexes".


Square:


```
--------------------  <-  Wall
     F O F       <- the Fs are flanking the O
     F F F
```

Hex:


```
------------------- <- same wall
     F O F       <- the Fs are flanking the O
      F F
```

No difference with regard to the flank. A slight difference with regard to how many foes can surround O.

And offset squares basically work the same way.

And before you go into the non-intuitive argument or any other, it works. Ask Zinovia. She's been using them for years.

I used to use them and my group had a long and hard discussion on whether we should use them for 4E because they are much easier to use. What swayed us to try 4E with squares is because all of the new WotC adventure material is in squares. That was the main reason to use squares in 4E. In every previous edition, it depended on the people in the group. I've used both in every edition with the exception of 4E.


I suspect that your strong opinion is not based on a lot of experience using them. Or at least using them correctly.


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## Nifft (Jul 14, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> I'm not.
> 
> If North and South have different physics than East and West, then whats the point about caring about other directions?  the physics of the universe change based on how far you are from a corner, whether that corner is of one 'polarity' or another...
> 
> Really.  It's a big damn mess, and doesn't make any sort of sense...all to make fireballs and rocks rounder.



 Nah, hexes help *distance* make more sense. Round fireballs are just a cosmetic perk.


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## BrokeAndDrive (Jul 14, 2010)

So I come to a thread about magic missile, and every post on the last page is about hex vs. squares...


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## DracoSuave (Jul 14, 2010)

Well played.

You did -exactly- what I anticipated you would.

You took a wall I told you you could take, made it work... but then did not answer my challenge of 'Now try the wall perpendicular to it.'

So, I shall do so, and demonstrate my statement holds perfectly.







As you can clearly see, the example I gave is very accurate given the 'half-hex' rule you have provided.  Anyone against the east or west wall cannot be flanked by others along the same, parallel wall, and every five feet, someone against what is supposedly a straight wall cannot be flanked in any direction whatsoever.

You can have all the hex-rules you want, but you cannot avoid the simple mathematical equation 60x cannot equal 90 if x is an integer.


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## Piratecat (Jul 14, 2010)

Agreed. There's a new thread about the spell that's just been started - I'm closing this one, and the other will preferably stay on target.

If anyone wants to start a new thread on hexes vs squares that'd be fine. Hijacking this one is a bit iffy, though.


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