Missile Burst

I Have An Actual Game In 90 Minutes

So, Like A Contestant on Masterchef, I Will Serve What’s Ready When The Buzzer Goes Off

Gordon Ramsey Is Gonna Swear At Me, Isn’t He?

Important: In the interests of honesty, I did post this under my self-imposed deadline (approx 4:53PM EST on 4/5/2025) in roughly the same shape it is in now (the following morning), but I have since done (and am still doing) some minor editing, including adding this comment. The edits are not significant enough I feel some urge to preserve the original for comparison, nor do I think anyone but me cares. But that’s kind of the point — I mostly write for myself, and thus, what I care about is what gets written.

OK, a few weeks ago, I used a random spell name generator to produce some spells. I saved a list. You’ve already seen Chimeric Insanity, now, here’s the rest. Absolutely not promising I will do all of them, or any more, but who knows?

Aura of Binding
Lesser Cataclysm of Constructs
Dawning Pierce
Noxious Rhythm
Trap of the Theif (sic)
Missile Burst
Condensed Bullet
Bloody Torch

As you can probably tell from the title, today’s entree is “Missile Burst”. Had a few thoughts on this, mostly some form of “Magic Missile” variant, but then I got what I think is a marginally more original take. Only marginally, mind you. You want “originality” (or “quality”, “editing”, or “not full of pointless, allegedly (but not actually) humorous digressions”, this is the wrong blog.

First, let’s go real old school. In an alternate universe, this might have appeared in Supplement I, Greyhawk:

2nd Level
Missile Burst: Up to 10 arrows are enchanted to explode when they hit their target, dealing 1-3 points of damage to 2-5 creatures within 2″ of the target. Duration 2 turns or until the arrow is fired, whichever comes first.

Yeah, spells were pretty damn minimalist then!

Now, we advance our alternate universe timeline to when D&D was also Advanced…

Missile Burst

Missile Burst (Transmutation)
Level: 2
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 turn.level
Area of Effect: 2″ radius explosion
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 2 segments
Saving Throw: Special, see below

The magic-user holds up to 10 arrows, quarrels, or sling stones when casting this spell, which gives them an enchantment that will cause them to explode when they strike their target. Anyone can fire the arrows once so enchanted. If the arrow hits, it explodes, dealing 1d4 points of damage to all within 2″ of the target who fail a save vs. Breath Weapon. Friend and foe alike are included! If the arrow misses, it is consumed harmlessly. Magic arrows add their bonus to the damage done, but do not inflict their other effects, such as slaying.

The material component is a flint arrowhead, smashed into pieces.

Somewhat more verbose, and covers a few more possible things players would argue about. If I wasn’t a)in a rush, and b)trying to capture the zeitgeist¹ of the age, I could easily double or triple the description length to account for all the things I can imagine players asking about.

Side Note: I really miss Material Components. Like wool for phantasmal force, because you pull the wool over someone’s eyes. Get it? No one ever actually paid attention to tracking them or buying them, unless the DM was being a real dick (or the players were, and the DM wanted to smack ’em down like the they deserved), but they added color and flavor. Sigh. Sic transit gloria mundi.

OK, 38 minutes to go, got to see how fast I can do this for Pathfinder 2. I don’t want to plate an incomplete dish, but the timer shows no mercy. It also strikes first and strikes hard.

Missile Burst

Traditions Arcane, Divine
Range Touch Targets up to 10 pieces of ammunition
Defense basic Reflex Duration see below
You touch up to 10 pieces of ammunition, such as arrows, quarrels, sling stones, or bullets. Each item is charged with magical energy, which will endure for 10 minutes, or until the item is used, whichever comes first. The items deal an additional 1d4 piercing splash damage (basic Reflex; on a critical failure, they also gain 1 point of persistent bleed damage) to all creatures in a 10 foot radius burst around the target, if it hits. The ammunition is always destroyed, whether it hit or missed. Any effects imparted by the weapon using the ammunition (such as flaming) are not included in the splash.
The magic is activated only when the ammunition is fired, hurled,etc., and it must travel at least 10 feet – simply stabbing someone with an arrow or leaving a sling stone for them to tread upon will not trigger the spell.

Heightened (+1) The splash damage increases by 1d4.
Heightened (+2) The bleed damage on a critical failure increases by 1.

And here’s the pretty version:

Time!

OK, it’s 4:57, I’m gonna post. I think the damage for the PF2 version is on the low end, but it does affect a lot of targets, some of which will bleed. 

Additional Afterthoughts

(Posted 4/6/2025) Pathfinder 2e is harder to write for than most versions of D&D. With each iteration of the game from 3.0 onwards, including spin-offs like Pathfinder, the math has gotten tighter and more balanced, less an intuitive finger in the wind. The good part: Things are less ‘swingy’, and there’s fewer places where a single spell or ability is to overwhelmingly powerful that you’re an idiot not to use it if you can. (Which would you rather have as a 1st level MU in AD&D? “Burning Hands” which did 1 point of damage to a few monsters if they happened to be right in front of you (a dangerous prospect given how spell casting worked at the time), or “Sleep“, which could wipe out a room full of humanoids?) The bad part: You have to pay a lot more attention to existing spells and try to find a very narrow sweet spot between “no one will ever use this” and “no one will ever use anything else”.

In this case, the damage is well below the guidelines for an area effect of 3rd level (per the GM Guide for creating creatures and special abilities), at least on a per-arrow basis. But you are, in effect, creating up to 10 explosions, not one. They can be widely scattered over a large area (as far as an archer can fire and have a good chance of hitting). They can occur over several rounds, so they can be save for the perfect opportunity. Situationally, this spell is best for cases where the party is facing a large number of tightly-packed, slightly-lower-level creatures at range — defending against a siege, for example. It’s easy to imagine low-level NPC wizards/clerics enchanting/blessing bundles of arrows and passing them out to the best archers just as the enemy gets into bow range. So while I think the damage could be increased somewhat (perhaps start at 2d4) I’m not going to go back and edit it, esp. since it’s a PITA to get the ‘pretty’ version — I have to edit the text in the tool I use, then save it as a PDF, open the PDF, screen-cap the image, save the image, upload the image to here, and write some text. So, in the highly improbable event anyone uses this spell, feel free to fiddle w/the numbers and let me know what works. KTHXBAI.

1 It’s hard to do, they’re immune to sleep and paralysis and have 10 HD.²

2 I guarantee you I’ve used some form of this gag on this blog before, probably more than once. See above for my comment on “originality”. It ain’t gonna be found here, folks!