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Melf's Minute Meteors

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The Melf's Minute Meteors spell allows the wizard to create up to 20 flaming projectiles which the wizard can then hurl at an enemy. The wizard must succeed with a ranged attack roll to hit.

Description[]

“

Melf's Minute Meteors

This spell creates several small globes of fire, one for each experience level the wizard has obtained, which are held in the wizard's hands in place of his usual weapons. The meteors can be hurled at targets up to 90 yards away and are treated as missiles with a +5 bonus to the attack rolls. Each meteor bursts into a 1-ft. diameter sphere upon impact, inflicting 1d4+3 points of damage plus an additional 3 points of fire damage to any [the] creature struck. The wizard may hurl up to five missiles per round. 		”

Gameplay[]

The caster applies this to oneself only.

After the spell is cast the caster is immediately supplied with a number of these magically created single-use meteors.

The meteors are not accessible or visible from the character's Inventory screen - they are instead shown on the character combat screen when selecting either the portrait or the sprite - the number of meteors is shown and decreases as they are used up.

The meteors automatically unequip any main hand weapon the character may have had in use. If the player tries to equip another main hand weapon while the meteors are still available, then a message text is displayed reading "Magical weapon in use".

  • Contrary to the description each meteor can only hit a single target, there is no "splash" damage.
  • This spell sets attacks per round to 5. Can be further increased to 6 with Haste or to 10 with Improved Haste, remains until all Meteors have been thrown.
  • The meteors are darts that do not require or take advantage of Weapon Proficiency in darts.
  • The ranged attack roll profits from high Dexterity, high base THAC0 and other bonuses to attack rolls. Pure wizards have the worst THAC0 progression of all classes and may find it hard to hit the enemy even with the +5-attack bonus from the meteors. In this regard, classes like Bard, Fighter / Mage or Cleric / Mage may find the spell more useful.
  • They will remain equipped permanently until thrown or dispelled.
  • Both piercing and fire damage ignore the target's Magic resistance.
  • A meteor can be completely fooled by a Reflected Image or Mirror Image - destroying an image instead of the real target.
  • While they get a +5 bonus to attack, they behave as a +6 Enchanted item, meaning they can bypass Absolute Immunity and can hit through every enemy's innate immunity.
  • The meteors are unaffected by Protection From Normal Missiles, Physical Mirror or the Reflection Shield. They count as magical weapons and are stopped by Protection From Magical Weapons.
  • The fire damage inflicted by a meteor has an assigned 3 Power level and unaffected by Magic resistance, whereas the Piercing damage inflicted is a physical attack. This means:
    • The fire damage is an on-hit effect of the Offensive damage type — blockable by the Cloak of Mirroring. The physical damage still applies and penetrates the cloak.
    • If the target is protected by a spell protection such as Minor Spell Deflection or Shield of the Archons, the physical damage applies but not the fire damage, and each meteor that hits accumulate 3 spell levels worth of protection - in this manner, the meteor user can "burn' through a spell protection by exceeding the protections capacity.
    • If the target has Minor Spell Turning or Spell Turning up, the physical damage will also apply, but the fire part of the projectile will be reflected and hit the original attacker; likewise, 3 spell levels of protection are consumed per hit.
    • When hitting Spell Trap, a meteor will remove 3 levels of protection from Spell Trap and recharge a single level 1-3 spell slot on the target. It only blocks the fire damage; piercing damage still applies.
    • (Minor) Globe of Invulnerability also blocks the fire damage, but not the physical damage. Same for enemies who are protected against level 3 spells (e.g. Liches).
    • Spell Immunity: Evocation also blocks the fire damage, but not the physical damage.
    • Stoneskin blocks the physical part of the damage, but not the magical fire damage, and each meteor consumes one skin.
    • Only someone who is completely protected to both the physical damage (Stoneskin) and the fire damage (100%+ fire resistance, or one of the above spell protections) will not get their spellcasting interrupted if hit by a meteor - a Protection From Magical Weapons spell will also prevent a meteor from doing anything as it cannot hit the target at all.
  • The meteors can attack enemies under Improved Invisibility (can be hit by weapon attacks, but not by single-target spells).
  • Abilities that modify attacks, like Poison Weapon of a dual class Assassin/Mage, also apply to the meteors.
  • If the caster is already equipped with some meteors and casts the spell again, the new meteors will replace the existing ones and not be added to them.
  • Despite this being a prohibited spell for Enchanters, they're still able to access one cast per day via the Cowl of the Stars.

Where to obtain its scroll[]

The Black Pits[]

Sold by[]

Baldur's Gate[]

Siege of Dragonspear[]

Shadows of Amn[]

Throne of Bhaal[]

Trivia[]

The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition ruleset for this Wizard Spell version of Melf's Minute Meteors is similar in some respects to the Bioware implementation - but it is not as highly powered as the BG game version. See the External Links section at the bottom of the page to read about the original spell version.

Gallery[]

Mod content[]

This section is about unofficial content that is only available via fan-made mods.

Regarding the spell, the Sword Coast Stratagems mod will do the following, but only if you do not install Spell Revisions:

Make Minute Meteors into +2 weapons (BG2EE,BG2,BGT)

In the unmodded game, the meteors created by the third-level Melf's Minute Meteors spell strike as +6 weapons, enough to penetrate any creature's resistances and to cut through even the Absolute Immunity spell. This strikes me as a bit overpowered for a third-level spell. This component makes meteors +2 - still enough to hit most creatures, but not enough to cut through any of the protection-from-magic-weapon spells.

With Spell Revisions installed, this is the equivalent spell description:

Melf’s Minute Meteors
Level: 3
School: Conjuration
Range: Personal
Duration: Special
Casting Time: 3
Area of Effect: Special
Saving Throw: None

This spell enables the wizard to summon small globes of fire (one for each level of experience of the caster), which, when thrown, burst upon impact and inflict 1d4 points of piercing damage plus 2d4 points of fire damage to the creature struck. The wizard gains a +5 bonus to hit with the missiles, and each meteor is considered to be of +2 enchantment to determine what it can hit. The wizard may discharge up to five missiles per round.

External links[]

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