(3.5) Force Missile Mage
Dragon #328 (February 2005); Dragon Compendium, page 78
"Force Missile Mage? What's with that name?"
Because "magic missile mage" is redundant. Why they didn't go with "magic missile master" is beyond me, though.
Anyway:
The Good: This is a nifty five-level prestige class which makes magic missile more powerful and more useful while also providing defenses. For magic missile itself, you get +2 missiles, Still Spell applied for free, your choice of added energy descriptor on each cast (test out resistances or double your damage!), the ability to bypass shield spells (including those used in brooches of shielding), and better ability to bypass SR. For your defenses, you get shield as an immediate action (better than allowed through any metamagic) 1/day and spell turning on magic missiles, which is actually a great combo. For all that, you have a natural complement in Argent Savant (Complete Arcane), which further improves your use of (and defenses against) force effects like magic missile. Pretty much written specifically for the Sorcerer and Warmage.
The Bad: You lose a level of casting. This is a double-whammy, as Argent Savant is also a 4/5 casting class. You can regain one of those levels through the Favored Prestige Class and Prestigious Spellcaster feats if you're using Pathfinder, but otherwise that reduces you by two levels -- way too much for improvements to a first-level spell.
The Cool: The iconic FMM (well, the art used for the class) seems to be inspired by D'Raven, the P2 palette swap (green, with hat) of the magic-user from the D&D arcade game Shadow Over Mystara; see below the cut. It's an odd choice, as his distinguishing feature (besides appearance) is using death effects instead of only elemental attacks (he gives up conjure elemental [ifrit/leviathan] and meteor swarm for cloudkill and power word kill).
