Evocation Wizards and Magic Missile

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

GrrHero

Sep 06, 2015 12:52:05

Howdy y'all, my players just reached level 10, and the Wizard gained the ability to add his Int. modifier to evocation spells. I was wondering with this and Magic Missile, do each of the missiles gain the Int. modifier bonus to their damage?

#2

Tempest_Stormwind

Sep 06, 2015 13:35:32

A quick search would have answered this. Or rather, revealed the arguments about it.

 

Here's the errata: Empowered Evocation applies to one damage roll. This, most clearly, prevents it from amplifying things like Scorching Ray, and in theory should extend to Magic Missile as well, so only one target you hit with it gets the +Int. (This ruling would be consistent with other similar abilities.)

 

The problem is, the wording on multiple targets' damage rolls for things like Fireball say you roll damage once and apply it to each affected target. Although this is most clearly talking about AoE effects, Magic Missile is weird, and people have taken it to mean you roll damage once and apply it to every dart individually, and since you're rolling one damage roll, Empowered Evocation should kick in on all of them.

 

Personally, I fall in the former camp, although I wouldn't be opposed to an alternative take on Empowered Evocation said something like "each target you hit with an evocation spell takes damage equal to your Intelligence modifier" (as with that wording, it wouldn't be cumulative if you focus-fired the magic missiles, but it would work if you did a dramatic missile storm). But I do tend to read Empowered Evocation, as written with errata, to imply the former interpretation.

 

You're the DM. Make the call.

#3

Bloodscythe

Sep 08, 2015 13:14:01

Here you go:

 

(Reply to #2)

Coredump00

Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
#5

Lord_Kadarian

Sep 09, 2015 9:57:09

At my gaming table (so home game) we defined it as each target can only take the bonus damage once. 

so if we shoot one guy with two missiles and another with one missile (int of 16 we will say)

first target takes 2d4+5, and the other takes 1d4+4

 

Still those above are correct for how it is being treated at official games I have played at.