magic missle launcher

[big teej]

a comment in another thread named something called

"the macross magic missle massacre"

upon questioning, they directed me to this youtube clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxnC6jkJyEM


I became curious....

is this possible to pull off (in number of missles and relative destruction)?


and if so.... how?

to summarize,

char-op challenge: generate the greatest number of magic missles in a single round possible.

maximum destruction per missle for bonus points.



extra credit challenge: make build viable by level 10

[Flickerdart]

1st level Human Wizard (domain Wizard, Evocation domain).
Trait: Spellgifted (Evocation)
Feats: Dark Speech, Spell Thematics, Primitive Caster, Spell Power, Domain Focus.
Items: Arcanist's gloves
Total CL: 9.
Total Magic Missiles: 5.

CL can be jacked up more, but stock MM caps out at 5 so there's no point.

[Urpriest]

1st level Human Wizard (domain Wizard, Evocation domain).
Trait: Spellgifted (Evocation)
Feats: Dark Speech, Spell Thematics, Primitive Caster, Spell Power, Domain Focus.
Items: Arcanist's gloves
Total CL: 9.
Total Magic Missiles: 5.

CL can be jacked up more, but stock MM caps out at 5 so there's no point.

If you're willing to go a little esoteric, Force Missile Mage (Dragon Compendium) and Reserves of Strength (Dragonlance) will both increase that cap. And anyway, stuff like Quicken, Twin, Double Wand Wielder, and Split Ray (combined with Ocular or the like) are pretty basic ways to boost that number.

[big teej]

1st level Human Wizard (domain Wizard, Evocation domain).
Trait: Spellgifted (Evocation)
Feats: Dark Speech, Spell Thematics, Primitive Caster, Spell Power, Domain Focus.
Items: Arcanist's gloves
Total CL: 9.
Total Magic Missiles: 5.

CL can be jacked up more, but stock MM caps out at 5 so there's no point.

it's a good start. to be sure...

now, do I read this correctly in that this is a first level wizard casting magic missle as a 9th level wizard?


EDIT: bloody ninjas...

If you're willing to go a little esoteric, Force Missile Mage (Dragon Compendium) and Reserves of Strength (Dragonlance) will both increase that cap. And anyway, stuff like Quicken, Twin, Double Wand Wielder, and Split Ray (combined with Ocular or the like) are pretty basic ways to boost that number.

forgive my ignorance, as I'm fairly certain I only have acess to a few of those metamagics and/or feats and/or sourcebooks.


would you mind elaborating on this a bit?

[Prime32]

You could also try a rod of many wands to cast the spell thrice as a full-round action, or get an extra standard action per turn via swiftblade.

[Flickerdart]

it's a good start. to be sure...

now, do I read this correctly in that this is a first level wizard casting magic missle as a 9th level wizard?

Yup. 2/day (limit on the gloves) CL9 magic missiles. After that you have another shot with a CL7, after that you're probably comatose.


If you're willing to go a little esoteric, Force Missile Mage (Dragon Compendium) and Reserves of Strength (Dragonlance) will both increase that cap. And anyway, stuff like Quicken, Twin, Double Wand Wielder, and Split Ray (combined with Ocular or the like) are pretty basic ways to boost that number.
Ah yes, that's right, Reserves of Strength. Swap Dark Speech for that (doesn't have any prerequisites IIRC) and that's six missiles instead.

Wanted to stick to a 1st level build, party for the challenge and party so that someone could take Leadership and have these guys as followers.

[Luca]

In theory the only limit is how much gold an experience you want to loose per blast. If I recall there is a spell which lets you activate a completion item at range like wands, be an artificer and apply the chain metamagic to this. These wands trigger further wands of the same type in bundles, which when the number of your choice are activated in turn fire of wands of magic missile.

I recommend strapping them together into a two handed cannon-like arrangement with a single wand as the trigger near the handle. Call it the wandzuka.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'll use Chain Missile from Spell Compendium, it makes one missile per two caster levels up to 10, they all strike the same target, but then each one bounces to a secondary target within 30 ft. No secondary target can get hit by more than one, they don't all have to have a secondary target. It's a 3rd level spell.

Gray Elf, Martial Wizard (Evoker) 3/ Master Specialist 2/ Incantatrix 5, Enchantment, Necromancy, and Illusion prohibited, Iron Will via the Otyugh Hole, Elf Wizard 3 substitution level, Hummingbird familiar.

Improved Initiative (B), Spell Focus: Evocation (1), Fell Drain (3), Skill Focus: Spellcraft (B), Twin Spell (B), Arcane Thesis: Chain Missile (6), Invisible Spell (9), Easy Metamagic: Fell Drain (B). Lesser Metamagic Rods of Maximize.

Cast an Easy Fell Drain, Twinned, Invisible, Rod of Maximized, Chain Missile, Arcane Thesis increases it to caster level 12: 12 missiles, 5 damage each (maximized) plus one negative level, the initial target only takes one negative level per spell regardless of the number of missiles. Third level spell slot (3 base, +2 fell drain -1 easy, +4 twin, +0 maximize, +0 invisible, -5 thesis).

That means the primary target gets hit with 12 missiles for 60 damage and two negative levels, and up to six secondary targets get hit by 2 missiles for 10 damage and two negative levels each (or up to 12 secondary targets, 12 secondary missiles total no more than two per secondary target).

Edit: With one flaw you can get Sanctum Spell and replace Invisible Spell with Easy Metamagic: Twin, so it will only take a 2nd level spell slot without even using a metamagic rod. (3 base, +2 fell drain -1 easy, +4 twin -1 easy, +0 sanctum counts as a 2nd level spell, -5 thesis.)

[TwylyghT]

Well with 5 levels of Force Missile Mage and liberal reduction cheese you could...

Cast a twin repeating (greater?)arcane fusion to cast two twin repeating magic missile spells each.

Youd get 32 total castings of magic missile at 7 missiles each for 224 magic missiles released over 3 rounds.

For one spell slot.

[Lord.Sorasen]

How about doing it as a cleric with the force domain? That makes magic missile a level 2 spell (I know, what) but now of course you can divine metamagic. Quicken spell, chain spell, twin spell... But that makes a level 13 spell. I don't know... Will divine metamagic allow you to metamagic a spell of a higher level than you can cast? If you could get your cha high enough (wisdom 12 would work if the above question is yes because magic missile is your thing and that has no save) than you could theoretically cast 15 missiles on a single target and 5 missiles on a bunch of secondary targets. Force missile mage might be arcane only, but if not then that prestige class gives inevitably 7 missiles, making 21 on one target and 7 on other targets (given chain spell would work that way).

Unfortunately I see no way for this concept to be anything other than lackluster, even if it could be fun.

To people who know more than me: What spells would work in terms of firing the most projectiles in a round?

[Fouredged Sword]

A belt of battle would give you 3 extra swift actions. If you use these to cast quicken magic missile three more times.

You could theoretically get 6 (twined magic missile wands in a rod of many wands) + 8 (quickened magic missile x 4 swift actions) - 12 times. Then you can use celerity to get another action to get maybe another 2 or 4. (at least one casting of twined magic missile)

You are looking at 14 or so magic missile castings, 8 missiles per casting (force missile mage + reserves of strength).

So something like 112 missiles.

[Flickerdart]

A belt of battle would give you 3 extra swift actions. If you use these to cast quicken magic missile three more times.

Uh...a) you can only cast a quickened spell once per round, no ifs ands or buts, and b) the belt of battle doesn't give you any swift actions at all; it requires a swift action to activate.

[big teej]

In theory the only limit is how much gold an experience you want to loose per blast. If I recall there is a spell which lets you activate a completion item at range like wands, be an artificer and apply the chain metamagic to this. These wands trigger further wands of the same type in bundles, which when the number of your choice are activated in turn fire of wands of magic missile.

I recommend strapping them together into a two handed cannon-like arrangement with a single wand as the trigger near the handle. Call it the wandzuka.

ya know... before this I was never that crazy about the artificer....

now?

I must have the book it's in!


Well with 5 levels of Force Missile Mage and liberal reduction cheese you could...

Cast a twin repeating (greater?)arcane fusion to cast two twin repeating magic missile spells each.

Youd get 32 total castings of magic missile at 7 missiles each for 224 magic missiles released over 3 rounds.

For one spell slot.

I approve of this.

this is excellent.

[Luca]

Course you can have all sorts of ammo (read wands strapped in the ball at the end) loaded into your wandzuka. Whilst firing off enough negative levels to drop a great wyrm is more effective, there's always bonus style points for the solid wall of magic missiles.

Heck, why not load the barrel with all kinds of wands, your not touching any yourself to use them so fill up on options.

[warning] Each shot uses up a potentially crazy amount of resources, whilst hilarious this 'aint a good idea for a real character. Would murder arena's like no-one's business however.

[DiBastet]

I would do like this...

Sorcerer 5 / War Mage 5 (Age of Mortals), with anti-feat (villain design handbook. Don't yell, it's official wizards material).

1- Combat Casting (pre-req)
2 (Anti-Feat)- Schew Materials (pre-req)
3- Weapon Focus (pre-req)
4 (Anti-Feat)- Whatever?
6- Intensified Spell
6 (Anti-Feat)- Arcane Thesis
7 (Bonus)- Maximize Spell
8 (Anti-Feat)- Easy Metamagic (maximize)
9 (Bonus)- Empower Spell
9 - Practical Metamagic (maximize)
10 (Anti-Feat)- Easy Metamagic (empower)

Something along these lines. Without the extra feat from human, flaw, and 10th level to improve CL (you can do this by yourself) Empowered Maximized Chain of Missiles OR Magic Missile will be dealing Empowered 6d4+24 or 60 of damage (then 10 to the 6 secondary targets if Chain of Missiles), as spells of their basic levels; 3rd for chain of missiles or 1st for magic missile.

But this is just from the top of my head...

[Flickerdart]

The Villain Design Handbook is a third party product published by Kenzer & Company. Nothing to do with WotC.

[DiBastet]

It's kingdom of kalammar. It is licensed thing. You got the idea: WotC stamp.

I remember a guy who could make incredible things from dragonlance and made me buy a book or two. He had all the arguments about how official dragon, dungeon, kalamar, ravenloft and kalammar were valid and whatever.


Edit: The guy was from gleemax. Don't rememeber his name.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

According to the cover picture on Amazon, the Villain Design Handbook has the D&D logo. It's officially D&D material, making it more legitimate than Dragonlance or even Forgotten Realms since none of those bear anything more than the d20 logo.

[Hiro Protagonest]

It's kingdom of kalammar. It is licensed thing. You got the idea: WotC stamp.

I remember a guy who could make incredible things from dragonlance and made me buy a book or two. He had all the arguments about how official dragon, dungeon, kalamar, ravenloft and kalammar were valid and whatever.


Edit: The guy was from gleemax. Don't rememeber his name.

But these anti-feats sound like a variant like gestalt, just more obscure.

[Flickerdart]

Reading the intro sample, it clearly labels anti-feats as an NPC Villain option - and while the OP didn't specify these being PC builds, the use of NPC options means that now you're going to have spellweavers everywhere.

[Claudius Maximus]

Kingdoms of Kalamar material is exactly as official as Dragon magazine and the Dragonlance books other than DLCS.

Which is to say that they are books published by companies other than WotC but given a certain stamp of approval. They are still considered 3rd party in the eyes of most.

[big teej]

Reading the intro sample, it clearly labels anti-feats as an NPC Villain option - and while the OP didn't specify these being PC builds, the use of NPC options means that now you're going to have spellweavers everywhere.

well then allow me to clarify.

this is NOT a theoretical build.

I wanna play a character who unleashes auto-hit balls of force. as many as possible per round.

[tyckspoon]

I would do like this...

Sorcerer 5 / War Mage 5 (Age of Mortals), with anti-feat (villain design handbook. Don't yell, it's official wizards material).


..Kalamar is not official Wizard's material. It's 3rd-party material that was given a very unusual licensing scheme so it has the same tags on it as the usual Wizards stuff, but it was not developed in-house by Wizards; Kalamar is the work of Kenzer Co (and I'd love to know who they bribed to get the licensing to use the Dungeons & Dragons plate instead of the d20 System logo most of the other 3rd party publishers got). Although I suppose it's about as official as Dragon Lance campaign setting stuff, which has basically the same relationship.

[DiBastet]

char-op challenge: generate the greatest number of magic missles in a single round possible.

maximum destruction per missle for bonus points.

extra credit challenge: make build viable by level 10

The actual book has a part that includes the possibility of allowings pcs to use it.

However, this is not the point, as it is valid material, and even if it was only for npcs, the OP didn't mention this.

Those who don't agree with the rules as written by the OP, may use RAI as they wish.

Edit: Rules changed. :smallbiggrin:

[Urpriest]

forgive my ignorance, as I'm fairly certain I only have acess to a few of those metamagics and/or feats and/or sourcebooks.


would you mind elaborating on this a bit?

Most of those are Complete Arcane. In fact, I think all of them are, though I could be misremembering.

[Claudius Maximus]

I'll note that DLCS was made by Wizards of the Coast, so unfortunately such gems as Reserves of Strength and Magic of Hunger are still fair game.

[Fizban]

I once heard someone suggest that if a summoner wanted simple brute force unavoidable damage, he should summon a pile of Avorals. They have CL 8 for 4 missiles (and Empower SLA) and you can get 1d4+1 Avorals with any old Summon Monster IX. They also have True Seeing for targeting. Apply quicken and summoning multipliers to taste for an average of 12 empowered missiles for every Summon IX you manage to drop (not counting the missiles on rounds 2-17 of the spell).

Edit: and throwing in on other builds, I'll support Arcane Fusion, though I wouldn't use reduction cheese. Without cheese, a simple 5th level Arcane Fusion containing Magic Missile and Twinned Magic Missile will get you 15 missiles. Using Arcane Spellsurge and something like Heighten or Cooperative Spell you can get another out for 30 total missiles at level 14. Use Greater Arcane Fusion to drop an Empowered Arcane Fusion while also casting Assay Resistance so you have a chance of beating SR. This should net you 15 empowered missiles with +10 to beat SR on round one, followed by 30 missiles per round after that for as long as you have 5th level or higher slots. With Force Missile Mage the basic Fusion increases to 21 missiles, doubled per turn to 42 with Spellsurge.

Hmm. Greater Fusion with Chain Missile and Twinned Chain Missile should also be 30 missiles (at CL 20 anyway), which you could double to 60 with Arcane Spellsurge. You'll burn through slots reaaal fast though, and you'll have to ask permission if you want bonus missiles.

Oh, and do remember to pack a Greater Dispel Magic for when someone realizes they can shut you down with a 1st/3rd/4th level spell (Shield, Lesser Globe of Invulnerability, Force Ward). And that's not counting Spell Immunity or Spellblades. And don't pick any fights with angels.

[Greylond]

..Kalamar is not official Wizard's material. It's 3rd-party material that was given a very unusual licensing scheme so it has the same tags on it as the usual Wizards stuff, but it was not developed in-house by Wizards; Kalamar is the work of Kenzer Co (and I'd love to know who they bribed to get the licensing to use the Dungeons & Dragons plate instead of the d20 System logo most of the other 3rd party publishers got). Although I suppose it's about as official as Dragon Lance campaign setting stuff, which has basically the same relationship.

They didn't bribe WOTC. They won that right due to mediation of a threatened lawsuit that WOTC was sure to lose. Storytime kids, gather around..

Back in the mid-1990's Jolly Blackburn, creator of the gamer comic book Knights of the Dinner Table(KODT) joined Kenzer&Co and brought along the copyrights and trademarks of KODT into K&Co ownership. Jolly is still with K&Co and not only still does KODT but is a designer and writer on the team that continues to support Kingdoms of Kalamar. Soon after K&Co struck a deal with TSR to sell custom made KODT strips for inclusion to Dragon Magazine. They were really popular and Jolly eventually did some full page KODTs for Dragon. Part of the original contract with TSR included language that K&Co retained all rights to everything KODT related, specifically including rights to first "Electronic Media" publish rights. So, in other words, the strips in Dragon Magazine were wholly owned by K&Co and only they had the right to re-publish them electronically(unless they gave prior permission). This was negociated by K&Co and agreed to and signed by both parties.

Flash forward a few years to after WOTC purchased TSR. WOTC wanted to do a Dragon Magazine CDROM that had everything from Dragons #1 to #250. WOTC failed to get permission from K&Co to include the KODT strips. According to K&Co they were never even contacted about it and first learned about it when they purchased their own copies of the Dragon CDROM. Apparently no one at WOTC realized that the KODT strips didn't use the standard TSR Contract that would have assigned all rights over to TSR. You see, David Kenzer, President and CEO of Kenzer&Company happens to be a Lawyer in his regular job for a major electronics manufacturer. His specialty happens to be contract law(IP, Trademark, Copyright, Software Licenses, etc, etc...) and knew specifically what language to negotiate for in the contract.

So, K&Co contacted WOTC legal and informed them that they had cause to sue WOTC and produced copies of the original, signed contracts. WOTC didn't want it to go to court and decided on meditation by GAMA. The mediation agreement that resulted was that K&Co would drop the lawsuit and WOTC would allow K&Co to use all AD&D game products to produce a parody game called HackMaster, which is the game that is played in KODT and also K&Co got the rights to produce Kingdoms of Kalamar (which was first produced to be compatible with AD&D in 1994) material and have it published as Official D&D Rules. If you look closely on the early KoK books it actually says, "Official D&D Rules." This special license, HackMaster using AD&D and KoK as Official D&D3.0, had an agreed lifespan of 7 years. At the end of the 7 years neither party wanted nor asked for an extension. In fact over the years K&Co slowly stopped using the WOTC logo on their KoK products as they were in the process of losing that identity as they began to develop the new version of HackMaster and the new Kingdoms of Kalamar products that they are currently producing.

So, in this one case it is a very special situation in which you have game rules that are produced by a 3rd Party, but at the same time it is labelled "Official Rules."

Moral of the story: Always, Always, Always, consult your legal team when dealing with any IP related business issues. Asking someone who is not a lawyer doesn't cut it...

[ILM]

It's kingdom of kalammar. It is licensed thing. You got the idea: WotC stamp.
It's got the Irresistible Spell feat in it. That alone should make it invalid :smalltongue:.

[Greenish]

ya know... before this I was never that crazy about the artificer....

now?

I must have the book it's in!Nifty class, excellent setting.


well then allow me to clarify.

this is NOT a theoretical build.Should have started with that. :smalltongue:

(Also, you don't have access to most of the stuff mentioned.)


It's got the Irresistible Spell feat in it. That alone should make it invalid :smalltongue:.If having poorly thought out abusable options was grounds for invalidating a book…

[candycorn]

Well, let's see.

Wizard 20. (No extra Credit)

Time Stop (Rod empowered) =2d4+2 rounds of stop. Assume 4 rounds (minimum).

Rod Maximize Summon monster 9 (1d4+1 Avorals = 5)
Rod Quicken Summon monster 9 (1d4+1 Avorals =3)

Rod Maximize Summon monster 9 (1d4+1 Avorals = 5)
Rod Quicken Summon monster 9 (1d4+1 Avorals = 4)

Rod Maximize Summon monster 8 (1d3 Avorals = 3)
Rod Quicken Summon monster 8 (1d3 Avorals = 2)

Summon monster 7 (1 Avoral)

23 Avorals coming out of time stop, each does an empowered magic missile (4 missiles), for 92 missiles.
Player does: Twin Repeat Empowered Magic Missile
Rod Quicken Twin Repeat Empowered Magic Missile
Each is 20 missiles, 40 total.

That is 132 empowered missiles, at (1d4+1) x1.5.
Total damage (132d4+132) x1.5, or 693 average damage.

[ZombiePunch]

I have a Force Missile Mage.
I went with
Wizard5/Mindbender1/Force Missile Mage5/Argent Savant5/Abjurant Champion4
Gray Elf
lvl 1 Elven Wizard substitution-Generalist Wizard
Evocation Domain Wizard

Feats
Combat Casting
arcane thesis-magic missile
silent spell
innate spell-magic missile(using still missile in lieu of still spell)
twin spell
maximize spell
easy metamagic-twin spell
easy metamagic-maximize spell
blade of force
invisible needle

Might not be as optimized as some of these other builds but I like it.

[DoctorGlock]

I forgot which monster manual it was, but the spellweaver could fire 6 spell levels spells per turn, it was an SU ability I beleive, so with assume SU feat, you get a lot more missile. With metamagic reduction your missiles get terrifying.

[DarkestKnight]

this is really more of a compilation of some of the previous posts, but still...

acquire a rod of many wands. put three wands of chain missile in it. take the chain spell metamagic, as well as the twin metamagic. use artificer ability to apply to metamagics. fire. reload.

Note: i have played with people who discuss the feasibility of chaining chain missile. chain missile targets one person then splits with a cap, but this is all in the target part of the description. i understand both sides of the argument, but frankly to disallow this many bursts of pure energy blasting its way around a battle is an infringement of the rule of cool.

[Fizban]

Just realized I forgot to properly twin my twins last time:

Arcane Fusion containing Magic Missile and Twinned Magic Missile will get you 15 missiles for a 5th level spell. Which itself can be Twinned, giving you 30 missiles [105 damage] for a 9th level spell. With Arcane Spellsurgre you can cast two per round for 60 missiles [210 damage per round]. That's the same number as Chain Missile/Twinned Chain Missile in a Greater Fusion, but takes a higher level slot while saving you two spells known. The twinned basic fusion does explicitly get the bonus missiles, going up to 82 [287 damage] per round at the cost of two 9th level slots per round, but if you can get bonus missiles to apply to Chain Missile then you'll get a lot more bang per day by running the Greater Fusion instead of the Twinned Fusion (six 8th level slots and six 9th level slots, instead of just the six 9th, for double the damage per day). And having Greater Fusion lets you get your Assay Resistance in there without much hassle, which is also good. Having both available even if you can't get your bonus missiles into the Chain is still probably a good idea, just for more options to get as much damage as possible per slot and per round.

I also recommend a custom Runestaff, along with the Raiment of the Four, a Robe of Mysterious Conjuration, and maybe a Drake Helm. You're gonna be way low on top tier spells known with everything tied up in Fusions and Surges and Chain Missiles and Orbs. But on the bright side, when you don't want to plink with the missiles you can turn on the big guns and throw down the Orbs instead.

Hmm. I wonder. . . CL 20 Hailstones/Twinned Hailstones in Greater Fusion, 60d6 [210] damage in an 8th level slot without much in the way of cheese. Only ~15 more dice than Orb/Max Orb [142], and it allows SR, but I prefer my style. Or triple Unicorn Arrows for 15d8+120 [187] force damage with no SR, and bull rush for your trouble (of course the orbs force two saves or lose your next action). This is what happens when you print spells that scale past the normal cap while also printing spells that let you triple (or sextuple) your spells. And these comparisons are what happen when you take the spells a mailman uses and combine them with something else (they get compared to the original mainstays).

[NecroRick]

There are some old threads on other boards that discuss this. Try searching for Force Missile Mage to get some ideas.

------

The Divine Force Missile Mage aka the not a mage force missile mage works like this:

Step 1: take the force domain
Step 2: take spontaneous domain casting
Step 3: ???
Step 4: profit!



To qualify to become a force missile mage, a character must fulfill the following criteria.
Skills: Concentration 9 ranks, Spellcraft 9 ranks.
Feat: Combat Casting.
Spells: Ability to cast magic missile once per day.
CLASS SKILLS
The force missile mage's class skills {and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Spot (Wis).
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier


FMM is a 4/5 (any) caster progression, with d8 hit dice.

At level 1 you get a bonus missile and still spell automatically applied to all magic missiles for free (more important for an Arcane Caster I guess, as this lets you avoid ACF)

At level 2 you get the ability to ADD AN ENERGY DESCRIPTOR to your magic missiles.

Congratulations, you may now Energy Admixture them, Lingering Spell them, make them burning/blistering piercing or whatever. Did I mention Energy Admixture???

At fifth level you get another bonus missile.

Force Domain comes with a built in reroll 1/day of any damage roll.
Spell Domain might serve just as well (I haven't looked into it)

There's enough metamagic out there that once you can cast magic missile off your main spell slots you can be a cleric who blasts away all day, with everything except the orisons and level 1 spells filled with versions of magic missile