Talk:Magic Missile Revolver (3.5e Equipment)

Ugh
This is... an incredibly bad idea. Basically, you're giving a weapon with both Force and Brilliant for "free" in one weapon for only 1,200 gp. Add on things that deal decent damage with ranged attacks (like this for one example) and you've got a very overpowered weapon--without stacking more enchantments on it. --Ghostwheel 07:41, February 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * Even with the increased cost, I still don't see it working too well--what with the whole, "wealth is a river" thing that goes on in 3.5... --Ghostwheel 01:05, February 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's only 100 feet, and it doesn't give you anything you couldn't already get some other way. --Foxwarrior 02:18, February 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * 2000g per bullet for only 1d4+1 AND an attack roll? I must object.... dunno which version Ghost was seeingm but I see an underpowered/overprised one.


 * It has been my experience that "spellguns" work best when you treat the ammo as wand chrges, perhaps with a small discount since you need to buy the "focus" (your gun, a feat-eating focus at that) to use it, unlike normal wands. For a single magic missile bullet, CL 1 and all that, its 15g, less if you discount for focus-gun and removing magic missile's draw: the fact it autohits. -- Eiji Hyrule 07:02, March 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * Imagine a sharpshooter with that kind of weapon. High damage... with no chance of missing. That's part of what makes them balanced for rogue-level games; that the chance of missing is there. Take two spell guns, and you're doing around 1d4+8d6+11 x6 (comes out to 249 damage on average) as touch attacks at around level 12. I just don't see most characters doing that kind of damage at that level easily all day long at level 11, especially not as touch attacks without wizard-level cheese. Even the halfling hurler does less than that, and it uses some wizard-level stuff. Realistically, add something like that to a very basic sharpshooter, and he's probably going to wipe out the SGT (apart from the first encounter, though there's even an ACF just for that) no problem. IMO, a single weapon shouldn't make the difference between passing the SGT and wiping it out. --Ghostwheel 07:56, March 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * Where you you getting those numbers? It you have no miss single magic missile effect (which is 1d4+1)... and multiply it by your BAB (let's say four attacks this round) that is.... 4d4+4, less magic missile than a real caster has been doing ages ago.  And in the particular case of magic missile since it is NOT an attack roll, you don't add anything special.  No dex to damage from crossbow sniper, no sneak attack from rogue, etc.  Because it's not an attack roll.  My optimizing-fu does see potential application in builds which maximize attacks, but even a TWFing magic missile spammer won't be able to exceed your blastificer magicmagicked wand user.


 * Perhaps we should be looking at a spell which does have an attack roll, and thus would have various bonuses from being a sharpshooter, crossbow sniper, etc. Then the question becomes...  how is it different from picking up a Wand of Scorching Ray and firing anyway?  Using the same four attacks a round, a single shot of scorching ray bullet four times is a respectable 16d6 fire danage, above the abilities of a wizard casting the same spell, though still burning through 4 charges a round.  With the maximized TWFing again, you can pull off some nice damage, but thats ~90g a shot.  That builds up, may be good for a nova.  -- Eiji Hyrule 10:44, March 31, 2010 (UTC)


 * The big difference is that the attacks from Scorching Ray are considered a single "volley", so you only add extra damage from SA and the like once; you can't add it to every attack made. On the other hand you can with the magic missile. In this case, magic missile does have an attack roll, and thus one can add SA and the like to it. This isn't a no-miss; it's a touch attack, which is why I said virtually no chance of missing. Read it again. Since it's an attack roll, you can add all the above.
 * As for how I got the damage: 1d4+1 (base) + 2d6 (Flaming and Frost? Whatever enhancements you want) + 9 (Dex) + 1 (Magical Enhancement) + 6d6 (Sneaky Shot); x6 because we're going with Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, and since they're all touch attacks they're bound to hit. Again, it's not an auto-hit as the original spell. You have an attack roll. Effectively, it's "free" Brilliant Light on a weapon.
 * Last, it's really bad to compare something like this to a blastificer. Artificers are already considered high wizard-level, while the sharpshooter is medium rogue level. Of course artificers are going to outperform the sharpshooter. But when a single weapon brings the sharpshooter up to the level of damage the artificer can do (16d6 comes out to "just" 56 damage, a little more than a fifth of what the above sharpshooter can do) then there's an obvious problem. --Ghostwheel 18:27, March 31, 2010 (UTC)