(Note: All images in this article are scanned from my own sources.)
In part two of this piece, we looked at Magic Missile's incarnation in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, as well as changes to the spell across the rest of the Basic Dungeons & Dragons (BECMI) timeline, from the Tom Moldvay ruleset to Aaron Allston's Rules Cyclopedia.
By 1988, Magic Missile had come into its own as the direct damage spell of choice for low-level casters in both the standard and Advanced rule sets. But that still leaves thirty years' worth of history to go, and no time to waste. On the horizon, we see:
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition
The 1980's was a period of robust expansion for TSR, but it was also a time to great upheaval. In 1985, thanks to a series of poor business expenditures and backdoor office politicking which deserves to be the subject of its own post, Gary Gygax lost control of the company he had helped create, and was replaced as CEO by another member of the board of directors. In 1986, he resigned from TSR and walked away from the game, the company, and the product line with which his name was synonymous.
With the change of management came the decree that Dungeons & Dragons had gotten too big for its britches, and needed to be brought back in line. A small design team headed by long-time TSR employee David "Zeb" Cook was tasked with the re-write, and in 1989, the new 2nd Edition Player's Handbook hit store shelves.
2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is a curious and unique beast among the game's various versions. TSR's approach was less a total rules re-write and more a set of rules codifications incorporating the best of the first edition game's content, while removing what the new company head saw as obstacles to the game's wider adoption, especially among younger gamers. As such, the Half-Orc racial option and character classes like the Monk and Assassin were removed. Likewise stripped were all references to 'demons' or 'devils'. while they were staple adversaries of high-level play in 1st Edition, in upper management's opinion they served only to open the game up to criticism from vocal religious organizations and concerned parents. In place of demons and devils, players found themselves confronted with "tanar'ri" and "baatezu" -- demons and devils by any other name, sure, but two made-up words which weren't likely to provoke instant parental reaction.
But the most impressive change wrought by Second Edition was, in fact, no change at all. TSR decreed everything going into Second Edition be built to be largely backwards-compatible with the game's first edition. The assumption was long-time users and collectors of 1E wouldn't look kindly on TSR if they made them throw out their old hardcovers and modules to play the new edition. Neither did TSR want to split the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons brand into two separate camps of old guard and new fish. As a result, 2E looks, feels, and plays almost identically to 1E, just with a lot more streamlining, expansions, and optional rules that fit on top of the original framework.
One of the largest areas where the rules saw expansion was the magic system. Whereas 1st Edition AD&D offered 30 first-level spells, prospective 2nd Edition mages found themselves perusing a total of forty-five choices for Apprentice's First Spell Book. Naturally Magic Missile was among them, but it did not escape the rules transition unscathed:
Magic Missile (Evocation)
Range: 60 yards + 10 yards/level
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
Casting Time: 1
Area of Effect: 1 or more creatures in a 10-foot cube
Saving Throw: NoneUse of the magic missile spell creates up to five missiles of magical energy that dart forth from the wizard's fingertips and unerringly strike their target. This includes enemy creatures in a melee. The target creature must be seen or otherwise detected to be hit, however, so near-total concealment, such as that offered by arrow slits, can render the spell ineffective. Likewise, the caster must be able to identify the target. He cannot direct a magic missile to "Strike the commander of the legion," unless he can single out the commander from the rest of the soldiers. Specific parts of a creature cannot be singled out. Inanimate objects (locks, etc.) cannot be damaged by the spell, and any attempt to do so wastes the missiles to no effect. Against creatures, each missile inflicts 1d4+1 points of damage.
For every two extra levels of experience, the wizard gains an additional missile--he has two at 3rd level, three at 5th level, four at 7th level, etc., on up to a total of five missiles at 9th level. If the wizard has multiple missile capability, he can have them strike a single target creature or several creatures as desired.
Holy spell description bloat, Batman!
If Magic Missile was a male dog, 2nd Edition AD&D was the vet who neutered him. While the spell's damage has remained the same from 1st Edition, it received a substantial range boost thanks to Cook's decision to use the three-foot 'yard' as the default spell range measurement (180 feet at first level, and an additional 30 feet per extra level beyond that). But it also took a significant downgrade in several other areas, most obvious being the number of extra arrows a high-level caster throws. Under 1st Edition rules, a 20th-level Wizard could impale a target with eleven separate magical projectiles. Now it doesn't matter if you're a 9th or 19th-level spell jockey, your potential damage output is capped at 5d4+5 per casting.
The other massive limitation placed upon Magic Missile here is the area of effect: "1 or more creatures in a 10' cube." Every previous version of the spell allowed the caster to select multiple targets as long as they were all within range, meaning a wizard could use Magic Missile like the Spread Gun from Contra, hitting targets all over the battlefield. Now, if those targets were not all within a single 10'x10'x10' area, your options were far more limited. Enemies spaced 15' apart forced a caster to focus on one specific creature. No more targeting an entire line of entrenched goblins or zapping every enemy fighting the rest of your party.
Also, note the added debuff with regards to line of sight, since now near-total concealment prevents the spell's use even if you can see only 10% of the target. Before, this was no problem. Now someone kneeling behind a wall with only his eyes and the top of his head showing is safe from any would-be 360 no-scoping spell lobbers. Its casting time is now also "instantaneous", meaning no cast-move-fire option is available to the mage like in previous editions. Magic Missile happens immediately.
What's also humorous to note in this inflated spell description is the number of other "thou shalt nots" clearly added to address questions TSR was sick of answering. You can't use it as a makeshift lock pick or door buster. You can't use it to disarm an enemy. You can't turn the missiles into "smart" weapons that know information you don't. You can't shoot the goblin specifically in the dong. Players are devious little things, and this was TSR issuing some preemptive smackdowns.
You might think that was all she wrote when it comes to Magic Missile in 2nd Edition. Subsequent works like the Tome of Magic don't cover spells which were already part of the game's standard rule set. But there's one last change waiting in the wings, though it won't show up for eight years.
The Wizard's Spell Compendium
The period between 1989's release of the 2E Player's Handbook and 1994's introduction of the Planescape campaign setting were among the most profitable in TSR's history. By 1995 however, the winds of gaming were blowing in a different direction. A little company called Wizards of the Coast had infiltrated the gaming world with a card game designed by a mathematician named Richard Garfield, where players took on the personas of powerful sorcerers who tapped the grounds they walked on for the mana necessary to cast their spells. Magic the Gathering set the world on fire, ushering in a new age of comparatively rules-light gaming mania, and TSR quickly found itself losing ground against the unstoppable juggernaut that was the collectible card game (CCG) industry.
By 1996, that slide had all but decimated TSR. Every attempt the company had made to match Wizards of the Coast's success with Magic the Gathering, from the me-too CCG Spellfire, to their collectible dice-rolling game Dragon Dice, to a series of hardcover novels set in the Forgotten Realms and written by R.A. Salvatore, had either fizzled or failed to live up to expectations which were far too lofty.
Product deadlines slipped. Shipments met with delays. Creditors went unpaid. Debts accumulated accordingly.
By 1997, it was all over.
Thirty million dollars in the red, unable to print new product, and facing lawsuits from freelancers over broken contracts and unpaid royalties, TSR folded and was sold to Wizards of the Coast for a fraction of its value just five years earlier.
The first thing Wizards did was clear the slate of TSR's debts with regards to printing and logistics. This freed them to ramp up production of core Dungeons & Dragons material (the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monstrous Manual) and establish a solid revenue stream. Following that was a directed effort to deliver on product which had been teased on inventory order slips but never materialized. Two of those projects were multi-volume sets designed to piggy-back off the success of 1994's Encyclopedia Magica, a four-book, A-Z undertaking which cataloged every magical item introduced in the game's twenty year history: every module, boxed set, magazine article, and rule book.
The Wizard's Spell Compendium was a four-volume version of the Encyclopedia Magica which cataloged spells for Magic Users. In volume 2 of the set, published in 1997, Magic Missile makes its final appearance in a 2E product.
The description is practically identical to the one from the Player's Handbook, but includes one notable change. Under Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, all magic-user spells have a specific philosophical "school" they belong to, and Magic Missile, as part of the 'Evocation' school (one concerned with channeling magical energy to create specific effects or materials), was no exception. Second Edition later introduced two optional, sub-schools for spell classification in the Player's Option: Spells & Magic softcover. These sub-schools further categorized spells by indicating how they manifested their effects, whether through elemental means like Fire, Shadows, and Air, or through the works of specific efforts like Artifice, Song, and Alchemy.
Prior to Spells & Magic, there was no classification of what type of damage a specific spell dealt unless it was plainly obvious: a Fire Ball dealt fire damage, and an Ice Storm dealt cold damage, but Magic Missile didn't correspond to any specific element -- it just hit like a +1 Dagger. It is here where the spell picked up the sub-school designation which would follow it through the next three rule revisions. Magic Missile, as a spell which manipulated magic to create fields of cohesive energy, no longer simply hurt its target.
Now it dealt Force damage.
A prophetic turn of events, considering what a 'force' Wizards of the Coast was about to unleash on the pen-and-paper gaming world in 2000. But that's a story to be told in the next installment of this series.
Leave your favorite Magic Missile memories down in the comments, and until next time, may all your hits be crits.
I’ve never played D&D, but not for lack of interest! As such, my favorite Magic Missile Memories would come from the TSR licensed comics published by DC in the late 80’s.
I loved Forgotten Realms, where Captain Dwalimor Omen would blast away at a rampaging Tarrasque... unfortunately ineffectively!
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