Can magic missile be abused at all?

[CyberThread]

So can magic missile be abused at all besides force missile mage vpr

[Asrrin]

A simple "abuse" of MM is to stack metamagics on it like Fell Drain, Fell Weaken, Fell animate, ect. It'll hit anything that doesn't have SR.

[Phelix-Mu]

Hmm. Well, it's pretty straightforward. I guess there might be some stuff we could come up with involving automatically striking things. Nothing terribly exploitative, but this does seem to indicate that it might be useful for targeting things that are usually almost impossible to hit.

EDIT: Yeah, the poster above mentions carrier effects. It's definitely useful for that, as, aside from SR, it's pretty much guaranteed to hit and do at least a little damage.

There used to be a really awesome spell called...magic missile reflection, back in 2e. That had some nifty interaction with the spell itself. But the spell itself was a bit different back then.

[Nettlekid]

Hey CyberDrag (or CyberThread now), do you Google your questions before you make threads about them? Just wondering. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7802)

[Fouredged Sword]

If I remember right, someone stacked metamagic on it to fire off something like 128 magic missiles a round.

Lets see, force missile mage gets us to 7 per casting.

Twin and repeat gets us to four sets of 7, so 28. Then you quicken a set for 56...

Oh, right, you also want to use spellsurge to throw out multiple castings. I think that is how you get hundrends. I don't remember the whole combo. It is worse that other optimization one can do, but it is rather funny.

Then you have 100 followers with eternal wands of magic missile. That is really funny to spring of a bbeg. Had an epic level character die because he tried to take over a guild of tons of level 1 characters.

[AMFV]

Hey CyberDrag (or CyberThread now), do you Google your questions before you make threads about them? Just wondering. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7802)

It's possible he's read the guide and had other optimization related questions. Also many of those guides are outdated, not included all the 3.5 material. Linking is probably fine, but snarking is probably a little uncalled for.

For example that guide includes no material from Complete Mage as far as I can tell, and that's missing out on the War reserve feat, which boosts caster level on Force Effects. Although that may have been Complete Champion too. So there are clearly things missing from that guide.

Furthermore the guide doesn't discuss Force Missile Mage, which is official content, and certainly a useful source in this particular project. Also it only deals with direct damage optimization and no "delivery" type optimization.

It's really frustrating to have somebody link outdated guides, or semi-related optimization challenges and then act like the OP hasn't done any research, that's a frustrating and very negative trend I've been seeing recently.

[Nettlekid]

It's possible he's read the guide and had other optimization related questions. Also many of those guides are outdated, not included all the 3.5 material. Linking is probably fine, but snarking is probably a little uncalled for.

For example that guide includes no material from Complete Mage as far as I can tell, and that's missing out on the War reserve feat, which boosts caster level on Force Effects. Although that may have been Complete Champion too. So there are clearly things missing from that guide.

Furthermore the guide doesn't discuss Force Missile Mage, which is official content, and certainly a useful source in this particular project. Also it only deals with direct damage optimization and no "delivery" type optimization.

It's really frustrating to have somebody link outdated guides, or semi-related optimization challenges and then act like the OP hasn't done any research, that's a frustrating and very negative trend I've been seeing recently.

I linked the guide and made the comment because I've noticed especially this OP creating several threads which are basically the same as this one. They consist of usually three lines or less, primarily "Hey I saw X can I use X?" Some (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320754) examples (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319525) from (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320576) the (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320384) first (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320325) few (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320350) forum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320061) pages (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320053). Many of them have the question posed and then the OP doesn't actually come back to remark on any answers given or more importantly clarification requested, of which there is quite a lot given the low description of the actual post. If the OP mentioned "I read X guide, saw these tips which say Y, but was still wondering if Z could be feasible" then I'd be less suspicious that I'm just going to be digging up some random thing for no reason. In short, if as you said, it's possible he read the guide and had other questions, then let those questions be asked. I agree that it is frustrating to have others assume you've done no research on your own before turning to the forum, but it's also quite frustrating for those others if you don't actually give them a reason not to think that.
(By the way the OP specified no use of Force Missile Mage, so if that guide didn't mention it then no loss. But the guide does also mention it. So.)

[AMFV]

I linked the guide and made the comment because I've noticed especially this OP creating several threads which are basically the same as this one. They consist of usually three lines or less, primarily "Hey I saw X can I use X?" Some (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320754) examples (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319525) from (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320576) the (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320384) first (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320325) few (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320350) forum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320061) pages (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=320053). Many of them have the question posed and then the OP doesn't actually come back to remark on any answers given or more importantly clarification requested, of which there is quite a lot given the low description of the actual post. If the OP mentioned "I read X guide, saw these tips which say Y, but was still wondering if Z could be feasible" then I'd be less suspicious that I'm just going to be digging up some random thing for no reason. In short, if as you said, it's possible he read the guide and had other questions, then let those questions be asked. I agree that it is frustrating to have others assume you've done no research on your own before turning to the forum, but it's also quite frustrating for those others if you don't actually give them a reason not to think that.
(By the way the OP specified no use of Force Missile Mage, so if that guide didn't mention it then no loss. But the guide does also mention it. So.)

It also isn't actually a guide, it's more of an optimization challenge, which is useful but as easily sorted, and not quite as useful. Since it is a TO challenge, and therefore not typically acceptable in play, and since it is a Level 20 challenge, and therefore also not common in play.

Also they don't discuss using it as delivery system, which is probably the most common PO use of Magic Missile. I just find that guide to be a little bit on the weak side. There's no harm in re-asking the same questions again, as the community of optimizers is constantly changing. By trying to bring back the same old answers we're defending an old order that no longer exists and preventing any innovation in how we look at problems, and that's poor optimization in and of itself.

[Nettlekid]

It also isn't actually a guide, it's more of an optimization challenge, which is useful but as easily sorted, and not quite as useful. Since it is a TO challenge, and therefore not typically acceptable in play, and since it is a Level 20 challenge, and therefore also not common in play.

Also they don't discuss using it as delivery system, which is probably the most common PO use of Magic Missile. I just find that guide to be a little bit on the weak side. There's no harm in re-asking the same questions again, as the community of optimizers is constantly changing. By trying to bring back the same old answers we're defending an old order that no longer exists and preventing any innovation in how we look at problems, and that's poor optimization in and of itself.

You're the one that called it a guide, not me. I was just using your terms for it. Besides, he didn't ask for a guide, he asked for abuse. That is a perfect example of MM abuse.

There's no harm in asking the same questions again, but unless you specifically exclude old answers as being irrelevant to your situation, the old answers are the default. It would be like someone saying "Is there a way to get a Cohort of your level?" Someone would quickly respond with Dragon Cohort, the old but true answer. If the initial question was "Is there a way to get a Cohort of your level? I looked around and found Dragon Cohort, which seems to work, but I don't know if I can justify the flavor of having a dragon following me around. Ideally I'd like to have a cohort of *this* race and class, so hopefully someone can point me in the direction of something that can make that happen," then they'd bypass the old and get to the change quicker, more efficiently, and with less wasted time on all fronts.