Hit by your own magic missile [Archive] - Wizards Community

Hit by your own magic missile [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
couchmonkey
03-20-07, 06:30 PM So I have this coworker who plays in another group. The DM is a second edition vet but I'm not sure if this rule comes from that edition or just his cruelty.

My coworker and I were sharing warstories On a slow night. He mostly plays sneaky skill monkeys and never casters so he doesn't understand the mechanics involved with spells. My guess is that this is the reason why he defended his DMs ruling.

So Heres the story-

My coworker and his fellow players were in a combat situation and a Spellcaster in his group decides to cast magic missile. This is where it gets hairy. The DM requires casters to roll a D20 to determine the success or failure of a spell regardless if it doesnt require an attack roll in its description. I am sure you all know that this negates the only real strength of magic missile, the auto hit. The caster rolls a 1. So the DM consults his "unfairness chart" and determines that the character consumes the magic missile during the casting of the spell. The character takes the full damage of the spell, gets dropped below 0 Hit Points and subsequently loses the ability to cast the spell for a month.

I was horrified to hear this story, tried to explain the balance issues of penalizing casters this way and utterly nerfing Magic Missile but the coworker, having never played a caster, just didn't get it. What happens with Save or Die spells?

What are your opinions on this? Have you ever encountered something so mean spirited and devoid of balance?
Dragonsblood
03-20-07, 06:35 PM No, but if I did encounter that houserule I wouldn't play in that campaign (nor would I play in a campaign with critical fumbles).
Evil DM Mk3
03-20-07, 06:39 PM Remember the DM has the right to change any rules he wants, and the players have the right to walk out that door.

I would really consider the latter.
Prator_the_Legendary
03-20-07, 07:33 PM I would pull out my trusty hammergun, level it at the DM's head, and say "Are you sure you want to do that, Steve?"

Note that I will say this regardless of whether or not the DM is actually named Steve.
Matthew77
03-20-07, 07:49 PM I played with a DM once who personally loved Fighters with big weapons, so he made all sorts of house rules to benefit large weapons (like great axes and mauls and such) and penalized everyone else.

He also made us "roll to hit" with all spells, including area of effect spells.

It was aggravating and pointless, but his campaigns were pretty fun so we mostly just made fighters with big weapons and spellcasters that only did buffs and healing, and had a good time.

I'm kinda rambling now, but I guess my point is..

Yes, this sort of ruling severely penalizes spellcasters, but if the game is otherwise fun, just adjust your playing style and get on with it.

Edit: Oh, if you are looking for an argument to try and sway the DM or your friend, ask him how he would feel if there was a houserule that made you roll percentile every attack with a 10% chance of your weapon shattering.
Bruunwald
03-20-07, 07:59 PM So I have this coworker who plays in another group. The DM is a second edition vet but I'm not sure if this rule comes from that edition or just his cruelty.

Just to reiterate, lest we end up with some of the newbs ragging older editions over this:

No, it is not a 2nd Edition thing. Magic missile has ALWAYS been an automatic hit.
Aeromus
03-20-07, 08:07 PM Just to reiterate, lest we end up with some of the newbs ragging older editions over this:

No, it is not a 2nd Edition thing. Magic missile has ALWAYS been an automatic hit.

Unless in a wild magic zone. If they all have fun who cares what rules they use.
mlund
03-20-07, 08:10 PM There are all manner of farcical things you can do for entertainment purposes in a game. Heck, that's pretty much the only reason the D30 ever existed.

The important question to ask he is not, "Is this fair," but rather, "Are you not entertained?" / Gladiator.

- Marty Lund
celtredleg
03-20-07, 08:16 PM Actualy, that sounds like a rolemaster rule ported over to DnD. Particulary the lose casting ability for a month. Thats one of the more hated results on that table.

It works OK in RM, as there are al sorts of balances on everybody. Definatly cuts down on pointless casting. Or sword swinging for that matter.

But just moveing part of it over never works very good. Want to play RM, then play it. Want DnD, then play that. Mixing most of the time has poor results.
aotrscommander
03-20-07, 08:25 PM My coworker and his fellow players were in a combat situation and a Spellcaster in his group decides to cast magic missile. This is where it gets hairy. The DM requires casters to roll a D20 to determine the success or failure of a spell regardless if it doesnt require an attack roll in its description. I am sure you all know that this negates the only real strength of magic missile, the auto hit. The caster rolls a 1. So the DM consults his "unfairness chart" and determines that the character consumes the magic missile during the casting of the spell. The character takes the full damage of the spell, gets dropped below 0 Hit Points and subsequently loses the ability to cast the spell for a month.

That sounds suspicously like the DM is using rules imported from Rolemaster.

There you do roll to see if you cast the spell correctly (usually for a non-offensive spell it's 01-03 on percentiles) and all offensive spells require attack rolls and can fail (i.e. fumble) just like weapon attacks fumble. If you do fluff your roll you then roll on the Spell Failure table; upon which, guess what, if you roll open-ended and high enough, you can lose all spellcasting ability for extended periods of time!

In fact, I'm damn sure the result you described is a near direct quote from one of the tables including both the spell affecting you and losing spellcasting capacity for a month.

*checks Spell Law* Okay, not exactly, but there are some pretty close results on the table.

The worst result - for an attack spell - for a total of 301+, by the by is: "Massive internalization of power. Brain death. Caster dies instantly."

Gotta love Rolemaster!
seldom_seen
03-20-07, 10:10 PM Ouch!!! That's just too harsh for me! I would not like gaming with your DM.
Critical misses and fumbles are fine, and can sometimes be humerous in retrospect, but I don't believe they should actively harm the poor player just 'cause he rolled a 1.
Now, if a player gets jacked by the BBEG because he dropped his weapon or somesuch,(just to use an example), that's a little different. The player has to think up something real quick to save his butt, or simply take the hit until he regains the dropped item.
couchmonkey
03-21-07, 01:23 PM Thanks for your opinions and insight. RoleMaster doesn't sound fun to me although I am sure that the rules are balanced within the system.

I think that a physical equivalent for fighters would be a second roll after every attack to see if your sword shatters and a percentage roll to see what part of your body the shards fly into.

Or for skill monkeys a second roll to see if you sprain your wrist with tumble or bite your tongue off with diplomacy or... you get the idea.

I don't believe I would play with this group.
danielinthewolvesden
03-21-07, 03:02 PM Well, it IS fair if your DM is making the Fighters roll for Fumbles on their attacks. If a fighter can fumble his greatsword, then a Wizard should be able to fumble his Fireball.

Of course, I do not like ANY fumble rules, but fair is fair.
kelvinaw273
03-21-07, 04:21 PM Hmm. Was this a role to hit or a cencentration check?
aotrscommander
03-21-07, 06:56 PM Thanks for your opinions and insight. RoleMaster doesn't sound fun to me although I am sure that the rules are balanced within the system.

I think that a physical equivalent for fighters would be a second roll after every attack to see if your sword shatters and a percentage roll to see what part of your body the shards fly into.

Or for skill monkeys a second roll to see if you sprain your wrist with tumble or bite your tongue off with diplomacy or... you get the idea.

I don't believe I would play with this group.

That's Rolemaster for you! good old Rolemaster, where, if you roll badly enough (or well enough for that matter), nearly anything can happen! (It frequently does, actually, with our group's rolls!)

(Note, it is almost if not actually impossible to kill yourself with your own weapon in Rolemaster (you'd have to like roll three 100s in a row, and I'm not even sure you could do it then without digging the crit tables out, unlike a lot of systems; mostly what you lose of fumbles is time and a bit of Stun 9which is far less severe in Rolemster thab 3.5). In order to fluff really badly outside of attack rolls, you need to roll 05 or less, followed by one or more 96+s and not have a high enough skill modifier to bring the total far enough out of the negatives.)
Bloodbat
03-21-07, 09:07 PM I had a DM rule that Magic Missile's automatic hit was subject to my caster being able to distinguish the target from the rest of the event. In the specific case my dwarven fighter companion was in a pool of water a bit over his head and fighting an undead crocodile. Because the dwarf was engaged in close combat with the croc and breaking the surface sporadically for air (and we were in a poorly lit cave) I could see only objects and not really tell them apart. The DM let me cast MM but I had to roll to see if what I identified as my intended target was croc or dwarf.

So, Round 1 (actually Round 12 or something like that; it was a long fight with lots of crazy occurrences), dwarf and croc are fighting and I hit the croc. Croc hits the dwarf and he is at -8 HP. Round 2.... I roll my wisdom check (or whatever it was we were using - this was 2 years ago) and fail... one dead dwarf.

For the remainder of our gaming (about another year), that was one of the most memorable and amusing deaths ever.
couchmonkey
03-21-07, 09:21 PM Well, it IS fair if your DM is making the Fighters roll for Fumbles on their attacks. If a fighter can fumble his greatsword, then a Wizard should be able to fumble his Fireball.

Of course, I do not like ANY fumble rules, but fair is fair.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The fighter and skill monkey example rules were satire. He just cripples casters...

And yeah, it was a role to hit, not a concentration check. Let me say that again. A role to hit for Magic Missile.
Merestil Haye
03-23-07, 07:58 AM The worst result - for an attack spell - for a total of 301+, by the by is: "Massive internalization of power. Brain death. Caster dies instantly."

Gotta love Rolemaster!It's been 19 years, but I still remember the result of my first ever ESF roll in Rolemaster. I got a result of over 500 on that table trying to cast a level 8 or 9 spell in one round instead of three (I was 10th).

With my brain matter spilling on the floor, another character tried for divine intervention on my behalf, beseeching his God to bring me back. (He was a martial type and worshipped a wargod, while I was a Warrior Mage with a very large build thanks to background rolls). He described his actions, and the GM agreed, giving him a 1% chance.

He made it... so I was restored.

That campaign didn't last too much longer, as we were playing in the backroom of a rugby club, so I never got to roleplay my now dirty-minded character. But it was fun.

(The player of the fighter has a bad habit of succeeding on absurdly-low-chance dierolls. One of his characters in my game - 2e then - once managed to pickpocket Sirrion.)
Geoste
03-23-07, 08:31 AM Sorry, I wasn't clear. The fighter and skill monkey example rules were satire. He just cripples casters...

And yeah, it was a role to hit, not a concentration check. Let me say that again. A role to hit for Magic Missile.

I use the Rolemaster crit charts in my 3.5 game and I can honestly say that I do not use the result of losing spellcasting ability. However, I do use spell points because I prefer them and they are compatible with some of the Spell Failure results from Rolemaster.

Anyway, Magic Missile explicitly states that it always hits. Other than that, I allow all spellcasters to roll their spell DC (replaces the base 10), and then a Spell Targeting roll. Nat 20s pretty much allow the spells to be cast for free (no points used up; or no slot/prepped spell used up for those using default slot system).

As for Fumbles, I only allow one fumble in a round. All else is a normal miss. See my house rules for more info if you are interested (see sig).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
couchmonkey 03-20-07, 06:30 PM	So I have this coworker who plays in another group. The DM is a second edition vet but I'm not sure if this rule comes from that edition or just his cruelty. My coworker and I were sharing warstories On a slow night. He mostly plays sneaky skill monkeys and never casters so he doesn't understand the mechanics involved with spells. My guess is that this is the reason why he defended his DMs ruling. So Heres the story- My coworker and his fellow players were in a combat situation and a Spellcaster in his group decides to cast magic missile. This is where it gets hairy. The DM requires casters to roll a D20 to determine the success or failure of a spell regardless if it doesnt require an attack roll in its description. I am sure you all know that this negates the only real strength of magic missile, the auto hit. The caster rolls a 1. So the DM consults his "unfairness chart" and determines that the character consumes the magic missile during the casting of the spell. The character takes the full damage of the spell, gets dropped below 0 Hit Points and subsequently loses the ability to cast the spell for a month. I was horrified to hear this story, tried to explain the balance issues of penalizing casters this way and utterly nerfing Magic Missile but the coworker, having never played a caster, just didn't get it. What happens with Save or Die spells? What are your opinions on this? Have you ever encountered something so mean spirited and devoid of balance?
Dragonsblood 03-20-07, 06:35 PM	No, but if I did encounter that houserule I wouldn't play in that campaign (nor would I play in a campaign with critical fumbles).
Evil DM Mk3 03-20-07, 06:39 PM	Remember the DM has the right to change any rules he wants, and the players have the right to walk out that door. I would really consider the latter.
Prator_the_Legendary 03-20-07, 07:33 PM	I would pull out my trusty hammergun, level it at the DM's head, and say "Are you sure you want to do that, Steve?" Note that I will say this regardless of whether or not the DM is actually named Steve.
Matthew77 03-20-07, 07:49 PM	I played with a DM once who personally loved Fighters with big weapons, so he made all sorts of house rules to benefit large weapons (like great axes and mauls and such) and penalized everyone else. He also made us "roll to hit" with all spells, including area of effect spells. It was aggravating and pointless, but his campaigns were pretty fun so we mostly just made fighters with big weapons and spellcasters that only did buffs and healing, and had a good time. I'm kinda rambling now, but I guess my point is.. Yes, this sort of ruling severely penalizes spellcasters, but if the game is otherwise fun, just adjust your playing style and get on with it. Edit: Oh, if you are looking for an argument to try and sway the DM or your friend, ask him how he would feel if there was a houserule that made you roll percentile every attack with a 10% chance of your weapon shattering.
Bruunwald 03-20-07, 07:59 PM	So I have this coworker who plays in another group. The DM is a second edition vet but I'm not sure if this rule comes from that edition or just his cruelty. Just to reiterate, lest we end up with some of the newbs ragging older editions over this: No, it is not a 2nd Edition thing. Magic missile has ALWAYS been an automatic hit.
Aeromus 03-20-07, 08:07 PM	Just to reiterate, lest we end up with some of the newbs ragging older editions over this: No, it is not a 2nd Edition thing. Magic missile has ALWAYS been an automatic hit. Unless in a wild magic zone. If they all have fun who cares what rules they use.
mlund 03-20-07, 08:10 PM	There are all manner of farcical things you can do for entertainment purposes in a game. Heck, that's pretty much the only reason the D30 ever existed. The important question to ask he is not, "Is this fair," but rather, "Are you not entertained?" / Gladiator. - Marty Lund
celtredleg 03-20-07, 08:16 PM	Actualy, that sounds like a rolemaster rule ported over to DnD. Particulary the lose casting ability for a month. Thats one of the more hated results on that table. It works OK in RM, as there are al sorts of balances on everybody. Definatly cuts down on pointless casting. Or sword swinging for that matter. But just moveing part of it over never works very good. Want to play RM, then play it. Want DnD, then play that. Mixing most of the time has poor results.
aotrscommander 03-20-07, 08:25 PM	My coworker and his fellow players were in a combat situation and a Spellcaster in his group decides to cast magic missile. This is where it gets hairy. The DM requires casters to roll a D20 to determine the success or failure of a spell regardless if it doesnt require an attack roll in its description. I am sure you all know that this negates the only real strength of magic missile, the auto hit. The caster rolls a 1. So the DM consults his "unfairness chart" and determines that the character consumes the magic missile during the casting of the spell. The character takes the full damage of the spell, gets dropped below 0 Hit Points and subsequently loses the ability to cast the spell for a month. That sounds suspicously like the DM is using rules imported from Rolemaster. There you do roll to see if you cast the spell correctly (usually for a non-offensive spell it's 01-03 on percentiles) and all offensive spells require attack rolls and can fail (i.e. fumble) just like weapon attacks fumble. If you do fluff your roll you then roll on the Spell Failure table; upon which, guess what, if you roll open-ended and high enough, you can lose all spellcasting ability for extended periods of time! In fact, I'm damn sure the result you described is a near direct quote from one of the tables including both the spell affecting you and losing spellcasting capacity for a month. checks Spell Law Okay, not exactly, but there are some pretty close results on the table. The worst result - for an attack spell - for a total of 301+, by the by is: "Massive internalization of power. Brain death. Caster dies instantly." Gotta love Rolemaster!
seldom_seen 03-20-07, 10:10 PM	Ouch!!! That's just too harsh for me! I would not like gaming with your DM. Critical misses and fumbles are fine, and can sometimes be humerous in retrospect, but I don't believe they should actively harm the poor player just 'cause he rolled a 1. Now, if a player gets jacked by the BBEG because he dropped his weapon or somesuch,(just to use an example), that's a little different. The player has to think up something real quick to save his butt, or simply take the hit until he regains the dropped item.
couchmonkey 03-21-07, 01:23 PM	Thanks for your opinions and insight. RoleMaster doesn't sound fun to me although I am sure that the rules are balanced within the system. I think that a physical equivalent for fighters would be a second roll after every attack to see if your sword shatters and a percentage roll to see what part of your body the shards fly into. Or for skill monkeys a second roll to see if you sprain your wrist with tumble or bite your tongue off with diplomacy or... you get the idea. I don't believe I would play with this group.
danielinthewolvesden 03-21-07, 03:02 PM	Well, it IS fair if your DM is making the Fighters roll for Fumbles on their attacks. If a fighter can fumble his greatsword, then a Wizard should be able to fumble his Fireball. Of course, I do not like ANY fumble rules, but fair is fair.
kelvinaw273 03-21-07, 04:21 PM	Hmm. Was this a role to hit or a cencentration check?
aotrscommander 03-21-07, 06:56 PM	Thanks for your opinions and insight. RoleMaster doesn't sound fun to me although I am sure that the rules are balanced within the system. I think that a physical equivalent for fighters would be a second roll after every attack to see if your sword shatters and a percentage roll to see what part of your body the shards fly into. Or for skill monkeys a second roll to see if you sprain your wrist with tumble or bite your tongue off with diplomacy or... you get the idea. I don't believe I would play with this group. That's Rolemaster for you! good old Rolemaster, where, if you roll badly enough (or well enough for that matter), nearly anything can happen! (It frequently does, actually, with our group's rolls!) (Note, it is almost if not actually impossible to kill yourself with your own weapon in Rolemaster (you'd have to like roll three 100s in a row, and I'm not even sure you could do it then without digging the crit tables out, unlike a lot of systems; mostly what you lose of fumbles is time and a bit of Stun 9which is far less severe in Rolemster thab 3.5). In order to fluff really badly outside of attack rolls, you need to roll 05 or less, followed by one or more 96+s and not have a high enough skill modifier to bring the total far enough out of the negatives.)
Bloodbat 03-21-07, 09:07 PM	I had a DM rule that Magic Missile's automatic hit was subject to my caster being able to distinguish the target from the rest of the event. In the specific case my dwarven fighter companion was in a pool of water a bit over his head and fighting an undead crocodile. Because the dwarf was engaged in close combat with the croc and breaking the surface sporadically for air (and we were in a poorly lit cave) I could see only objects and not really tell them apart. The DM let me cast MM but I had to roll to see if what I identified as my intended target was croc or dwarf. So, Round 1 (actually Round 12 or something like that; it was a long fight with lots of crazy occurrences), dwarf and croc are fighting and I hit the croc. Croc hits the dwarf and he is at -8 HP. Round 2.... I roll my wisdom check (or whatever it was we were using - this was 2 years ago) and fail... one dead dwarf. For the remainder of our gaming (about another year), that was one of the most memorable and amusing deaths ever.
couchmonkey 03-21-07, 09:21 PM	Well, it IS fair if your DM is making the Fighters roll for Fumbles on their attacks. If a fighter can fumble his greatsword, then a Wizard should be able to fumble his Fireball. Of course, I do not like ANY fumble rules, but fair is fair. Sorry, I wasn't clear. The fighter and skill monkey example rules were satire. He just cripples casters... And yeah, it was a role to hit, not a concentration check. Let me say that again. A role to hit for Magic Missile.
Merestil Haye 03-23-07, 07:58 AM	The worst result - for an attack spell - for a total of 301+, by the by is: "Massive internalization of power. Brain death. Caster dies instantly." Gotta love Rolemaster!It's been 19 years, but I still remember the result of my first ever ESF roll in Rolemaster. I got a result of over 500 on that table trying to cast a level 8 or 9 spell in one round instead of three (I was 10th). With my brain matter spilling on the floor, another character tried for divine intervention on my behalf, beseeching his God to bring me back. (He was a martial type and worshipped a wargod, while I was a Warrior Mage with a very large build thanks to background rolls). He described his actions, and the GM agreed, giving him a 1% chance. He made it... so I was restored. That campaign didn't last too much longer, as we were playing in the backroom of a rugby club, so I never got to roleplay my now dirty-minded character. But it was fun. (The player of the fighter has a bad habit of succeeding on absurdly-low-chance dierolls. One of his characters in my game - 2e then - once managed to pickpocket Sirrion.)
Geoste 03-23-07, 08:31 AM	Sorry, I wasn't clear. The fighter and skill monkey example rules were satire. He just cripples casters... And yeah, it was a role to hit, not a concentration check. Let me say that again. A role to hit for Magic Missile. I use the Rolemaster crit charts in my 3.5 game and I can honestly say that I do not use the result of losing spellcasting ability. However, I do use spell points because I prefer them and they are compatible with some of the Spell Failure results from Rolemaster. Anyway, Magic Missile explicitly states that it always hits. Other than that, I allow all spellcasters to roll their spell DC (replaces the base 10), and then a Spell Targeting roll. Nat 20s pretty much allow the spells to be cast for free (no points used up; or no slot/prepped spell used up for those using default slot system). As for Fumbles, I only allow one fumble in a round. All else is a normal miss. See my house rules for more info if you are interested (see sig).