Reverse Missiles / not an "attack"

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The other option is that the missile is "reversed", that is, turned around and sent back on the path from whence it came. This is my favorite opinion, and its supported by the name of the spell, but its hardly an unassailable one.

This is a tempting reading, but it runs into the problem that, due to air resistance slowing the projectile both coming and going, a strict reversal of its direction would almost certainly fall well short of a shooter firing from anything greater than point-blank range [EDIT: I assume, at least- can anyone who knows about ballistics analyze this?]. Unfortunately, this may ultimately be one of those spells that "does exactly what it says on the tin by inexplicable magic"- it works out where the attack came from, and uses the incoming missile for counterbattery fire.

The question is complicated by the fact that some Protection and Warning spells do throw in a mind-reading effect as a free bonus- Watchdog, for example, explicitly checks whether an intruder has "hostile intent" (which raises a host of problems itself- does it fail to warn you when mindless zombies or golems close in to attack, to say nothing of question of using magic or Mind Block to mask hostility).

EDIT: As to the particular question the OP asks, I would rule that "attack" in no way implies "particular hostile intention", and an incoming projectile is returned to its source with no regard for the reason the source lobbed it. If there were any doubt, the Kromm quote mentioned up thread (saying that even shrapnel is deflected back to the site of its source explosion) would force us to conclude that the "attacker" doesn't need to have any intent at all, so hostile intent is clearly not a requirement.