The D&D/d20 Spell Conversion Thread

[A Ladder]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Here's my "magic missile"

Force Missile
Missile
Prerequisites: Magery 1.
College: Meta-Magic (for want of a better college)

This spell creates a single projectile made of solid magical energy, which is then fired at its target, up to a range of 50 yards. In all other respects, it follows the standard missile spell rules.

Cost: 1-3, can be held for up to Magery seconds. Double cost to create a second missile, triple cost to create three missiles, etc., up to a total of five missiles. The missiles do 1d burn damage per point of energy.

Item
Wand, staff, or rod: 200 energy.


Basically, it's a missile of pure magical energy, which is why I put it in Mega-Magic. Part of me wants to put it in the Energy sub-college, but that didn't seem to properly fit. If you can find a better college for it, I'm open to suggestions.

What I always liked about Magic Missile was that it never missed (unless they had a shield spell). I would put that back into interpretation. I'm deviating from the original idea of striking multiple targets because that's crazy. Here's my build:

Mana Missile
Missile
College: Meta-Magic
Lets the caster fire a projectile made of pure magical energy. This has 1/2D 25, Max 50, Acc 0. Determine your odds to hit using Innate Attack (Projectile) skill. If your effective skill is 3+, you hit, no roll necessary. Your target can only defend with Blocking spells and being behind an Utter Dome/Wall.
Cost: Any amount up to twice your Magery level per second, for three seconds. The mana bolt does 1d-2 burning damage per full 2 points of energy. This cannot start fires.
Time to Cast: 1-3 seconds.
Prerequisites: Magery 1, and two other missile spells.


Now not being able to miss is kind of crazy, but I think the damage and cost is fair. According to Powers Cosmic: Ignores DR is the same price point as Cosmic: No die Roll required. However, according to Kromm's quote (below) the To Hit / Defense Roll is a balancing factor in missile spells.

Originally Posted by Kromm

... In general, Missile spells are fairly generic, and interchangeable but for a few special effects. It's hard to make them overpowered as long as they involve time to charge up, a roll to hit, and an enemy defense, and provided that damage is 1d per energy point and has no armor divisor (if it's impaling or can ignore armor, make it 1d-1 per die).

Let's triple the penalty, since we're breaking a major balancing rule to 1d-3 damage per FP. Push that up to 2d-6 (for 2 FP), modify with Dice + Adds, and you have 1d-2 per 2 FP. Give it another penalty just for giggles: If protected by an utter dome/utter wall/blocking spell, the missiles cannot strike they target.
I believe that the damage is also balanced against high defense characters (besides mages). A high dodge/parry can be gotten around by using area of effect attacks. An explosive fireball (or other area spell) would still get a PC with high defense in the blast radius. Those typically cost twice as much as single target spells, and Mana Missile cannot harm multiple subjects.