Fixes to poorly scaling spells

[Thrasher92]

Does anyone have any "Fixes" to spells that scale very poorly, like Magic Missile?

For Magic Missile I'm playing with the idea of adding an equivalent amount of missiles for the number of all spell levels added together. for instance if cast at 3rd level, instead of 3 missiles it would be 1+2+3, or 6 missiles. Of course that damage would be 6d4+6 or an average of 27 points of damage which, is still less than average but it would drastically help Magic Missile scale better.

Any others? Any thoughts on my fix?

[DivisibleByZero]

Magic Missile does less damage on purpose, because it requires no attack roll or saving throw. It's guaranteed damage, so that damage scales poorly in comparison to other spells which might be cast and wasted by a bad roll (or a good roll, in the case of a save).
Other spells require a roll of some sort, and usually become all or nothing unless it's an AoE.
Magic missile requires no roll, so it falls somewhere in the middle of the all-or-nothing spectrum for damage.
This is by design.

[Maxilian]

I have never seen MM as one of those spells that need a fix, as its one of those spells that just hit (and that's extremely good in some cases), Flame Blade on the other hand (its nice at lvl 4 -though you get it at lvl 5, so yeah)

[zeek0]

Magic missile cast at 3rd level would be 5d4+5. But still, looking at the numbers, magic missile could use a boost.

It starts out on-scale with the DMG recommended damage for a single target. But past level 2 it's off the mark.

Now, magic missile should probably do less than the average spell. It deals force damage, auto-hits, and the damage can be allocated among enemies as one chooses. I'd estimate that the damage should be 3/5-3/4 what a normal damage spell does.

Your solution gimps magic missile before level 3, and makes it super powerful after level 3. Not quite what we're looking for...

I looked at 2 additional darts/level, but that keeps the damage too close to par.

My best solution is to change the level 1 damage to 2 missiles, each dealing 2d4+2. This way, we stay within established parameters all the way up to 8th level (and your 9th level spell slots could be used better on other things).