Mordenkainen's Force Missiles
I never considered just how much damage this spell can do.
For instance, at level 13 it will do up to 6d4+39 and at level 25 14d4+175!
Of course the catch is the saving throw which can negate the damage after the + but as its a separate save for each missile some damage will go through on average.
Also worth mentioning is that the damage after the + is AoE so in a tightly bunched group you can have up to 9 enemies making up to 7 saves each to avoid up to 175 damage.
I figure that if I combine recitation+Malison+Prayer via sequencer it should get good traction. Can add a minor doom+curse if needed for a total -8.
Seems a good reason to play an Invoker really.
Thoughts? Any ways I've missed to leverage the huge possible damage? Imagine this spell in a sequencer: 28d4+525 damage after 21 saves. I can't wait to see that go off. Even HoF enemies would go splat.
For instance, at level 13 it will do up to 6d4+39 and at level 25 14d4+175!
Of course the catch is the saving throw which can negate the damage after the + but as its a separate save for each missile some damage will go through on average.
Also worth mentioning is that the damage after the + is AoE so in a tightly bunched group you can have up to 9 enemies making up to 7 saves each to avoid up to 175 damage.
I figure that if I combine recitation+Malison+Prayer via sequencer it should get good traction. Can add a minor doom+curse if needed for a total -8.
Seems a good reason to play an Invoker really.
Thoughts? Any ways I've missed to leverage the huge possible damage? Imagine this spell in a sequencer: 28d4+525 damage after 21 saves. I can't wait to see that go off. Even HoF enemies would go splat.
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Comments
But if you want to leverage force missiles against regular melee hordes, one way I know of is to cast death fog to get them to clump up a bit. Position them at a chokepoint of some sort. The thing about force missiles is that even if they save against most of the missiles, just a couple of failed saves will result in dealing a fair bit of damage.
Hmm... I'm not sure if the "protection from magic energy" can work with this spell. Send your spellsword up front with pro magic and let the enemy surround her. Then unload with horrid wilting and force missile. I've not tried this, but it seems possible in theory.
Flame Arrow is good but it's 49 damage vs a possible 210 damage (at level 25). Sure, in BGII Flame Arrow is better but in IWD with the prevalence of melee hordes I think Force Missiles will take the cake.
Plus I've got Skull Trap for level 3, why would I need Flame Arrow?
As I said, when force missiles starts to get strong, that's later game where less enemies clump up. 5 feet radius is really bad. A large number of monsters almost fill 3 feet with their hitbox alone so you need a prefect cluster. 5 feet means its practical aoe is less than 10% that of skull trap.
And they always save completely against almost all the missiles concussive damage anyway which means most of the time force missiles do just 14d4 non-aoe. I only use force missiles against spellcasters resistant to fire damage. There's one or two in the whole game. For the melee mobs, skull trap is much better reliable damage without much set up. If you know where in the game it would be useful, let me know since I've tried to make this spell work due to the damage potential you mentioned but eventually found flame arrow to be more practical.
Hmm.. maybe the spectral guards, if you can lure them near the room to the south and choke them there at totl. I've heard someone on this forum do this so maybe there you can unload with this spell. Spectral guards are one of the few lategame monsters that are "thin". Or the oozes later in the dungeon that try to ambush you. They naturally clump up.
Also, the best practitioner of this spell will probably be your bard due to her quick leveling since levels matter here much more than most spells.
MFM isn't the best spell around but there isn't a huge amount of better choices at 4th level and I think it's quite useful, especially as I'd prefer to save the 3rd level slots for ST and MMM.
I'd tend to have the emotion spells taking up a bards 4th level slots and they're not really that far in front level wise compared to a sorcerer.
There's actually a huge gap between sorc/mage and bard. Bard reaches 25 when sorc is only about 18. But I do the same thing as you regardless due to the usefulness of emotion spells and only sometimes keep force missiles as a nuke. IIRC, the evil mage guy at the tower in totl resists fire damage so I take him out using force missiles sequencer.
The dragon disciple kept casting incendiary cloud which the shamblers are immune to. The bard and fmt repeatedly cast force missiles while priests debuff the enemies saving throws and heal the shambler. The druid also cast the odd aoe or two since the shambler doesn't need healing every round.
The spectral guards didn't save as often so the force missiles worked as you speculated it would with the full combo (but you had to target well). My party wiped them out with purely spell damage and very quickly due to the stacks of clouds and repeated force missiles and druid aoe. My only regret was that I didn't also aggro the kitchen guards since I didn't expect the tactic to work so well. I also wonder if it's possible to rush up the stairs and aggro the rakshasa up there so that the invisible stalkers can follow me down. Possibly with the use of dimension door to get out of any pathing issue.
I also forgot to preequip sunray which should work against the guards since they are undead. So the rate of clearing should be even faster. (Hmm.. I actually had my blackguard equip amaunator's legacy but forgot about its sunray.)
In this way, perhaps it's possible to kill the entire area plus the rakshasas in one single battle. Has anyone tried this?
Props to you wowo for bringing this spell up. I'd given up on it at first.