Where is the Minor Reflection spell?

Question

Spell Compendium says on page 5 that minor reflection has been renamed ray deflection.

Where was the spell originally published as minor reflection?

Answer 1

The only source I can find for a spell named “minor reflection” is Dragon Annual #5, an extremely obscure source. Most of the stats and text for minor reflection are word-for-word identical to Spell Compendium’s ray deflection, with a few changes—some of them massive:

• Dragon Annual #5 is a 3.0e source, while Spell Compendium is 3.5e, and so each follows slightly-different formatting conventions, as appropriate to their respective editions.
• Dragon Annual #5 does not specify “Target: You”—the spell is printed without any Target entry, and the targeting is left implied by the “Range: Personal” entry.
• Spell Compendium added a second sentence of fluff to the beginning of the spell, “Small silver motes float within the field.”
• Spell Compendium increased the level of the spell to 4th.
• Dragon Annual #5 had minor reflection reflect the spell back at the caster. Ray deflection instead just has the ray “automatically reflected harmlessly away.” Note that zero details are given for how the reflected ray attack should be resolved in the original version.

In all other respects, the two are entirely identical.

Between being a spell level lower, and actually retaliating upon your attacker instead of “just” protecting you, minor reflection is a vastly superior spell. This is a problem, because ray deflection is, even with these nerfs, already one of the most powerful and popular defensive options in 3.5e.