Magic Missles (NO METAMAGIC)

[Tr011]

Ok, most of u will know the old "I wanna cast magic missles" thread where it was shown how you can deal thousands of damage with magic missles by using metamagic cheese.
Now what I want is to know how high you can get effects & damage of a SINGLE casting of magic missles WITHOUT using metamagic at all.
Something to start with would be that Force Missle Mage (PrC from dragon compendium): He got two interesting abilities:

1. Bonus Missles
2. Energy Missle: "a force missile mage may add either the acid, cold, electricity, or fire descriptor to any magic missile he casts."

[wotmaniac]

without any metamagic at all, the only option left (that I can think of) is the feat Reserves of Strength, from Dragonlance (I forget which book specifically).

Okay, so that's 7+ (depending on how you interpret that feat) missiles.   that each do 1d4.
Metamagic (ab)use is the only real way to make blasting viable.


unless I'm missing something.

[dipolartech]

Well is there anything out there that multiplies force type effects? Would energy substitution and multiplying that type invalidate the "hit everything" nature of magic missile because its no longer "force"?

[Ithamar]

Argent Savant from Complete Arcane lets your [Force] spells deal a little bit more damage.  And the War Mage PrC from Dragon Lance adds damage to all blasting spells in general.  Combine with the War Mage base class, a really high INT, those PrC's.  Still pretty pathetic without any metamagic.

[sirpercival]

You can also do some CL shenanigans to use Reserves of Strength (as mentioned above).  Warmage edge would be nice, but multiple missiles is better.

For example: spont div evoker 5/knight of the weave 1/ultimate magus 10/force missile mage 1/war mage 1/archmage 1 (spell power +1)/argent savant 1

Evoker CL: 18 class + 4 UM + 1 archmage = 23
KotW CL: 8 class + 23 evoker + 4 UM + 1 archmage = 36.  Makes sure you port magic missile over to the KotW list.

Add 3 for RoS and you get 21 missiles (including +1 for FMM), each does 1d4+3.  Still not super-impressive, but that's what you get for using magic missile.

EDIT: Added argent savant, fixed math.

[wotmaniac]

yeah, but all that depends on the RAW -vs- RAI of RoS.
just sayin'. 

[sirpercival]

yeah, but all that depends on the RAW -vs- RAI of RoS.
just sayin'. 

Well, yeah, but that's true of a lot of stuff on this board.

[wotmaniac]

yeah, but all that depends on the RAW -vs- RAI of RoS.
just sayin'. 

Well, yeah, but that's true of a lot of stuff on this board.

True.
I just spend so much attention to RAI for my games, that I am oftentimes completely oblivious to the RAW T.O. thought process.



Meh, I guess I'm game.  I'll but up a build sometime this weekend.

[Tr011]

I'm sorry but Reserves of Strength shouldn't count as "no cap" just as "increased cap by 1, 2 or 3 CL".
OK, so until now we got:
Argent Savant 1 deals +1 damage / dice.
Reserves of Strength adds one magic missle.
Force Missle Mage 5 adds two magic missles.
War Mage 5 (Age of Mortals) adds +3 damage / dice.
Warmage 1 (CArc) adds his Int to damage, but only for his spells, not the spells of his other classes :/


If you add up all the above without Warmage Edge, you get a total of 60 average damage, but I'm sure there must be some damage increases to fire/cold/acid/electricity spells.

@dipolartech: It wouldn't change the style how you hit your enemies and thus still auto-hit. Btw is the Energy Missle class feature from FMM much better than energy substitution because it keeps the [Force] descriptor.

[SorO_Lost]

yeah, but all that depends on the RAW -vs- RAI of RoS.

Actually RAI is debatable which makes it worse.

Great feat either way of course.

***

Also, Snowcasting.
*ahem*

Snowcasting

Adds the [Cold] descriptor.
Cold Spell Specialization isn't Metamagic and that's +2 per die.
Cold Snap isn't Metamagic and that's +1 per die.

Come to think of it, an Archmage's Mastery of Elements isn't Metamagic either. Apply Snowcast for valid target and go [Fire] for...
Caustic Mire & Raging Flame for another +2 per die.

Greater Arcane Fusion is one spell. So even if three instances of Magic Missile was the result, I still only cast one spell.

1d4+9 per missile (savant don't apply), 8 missiles per spell (ros+1/prc+2), 276 damage (92 per).