D&D 5E Is the Wild magic Sorcerer as terrible as it seems?

[Rune]

A fun fix is to keep an extra d20 as a counter, starting with 1.

Each time the Sorcerer casts a spell that uses a slot roll a d20:
- if it's equal to or less than the counter die, a Wild Surge happens
- if it's not, increase the counter by 1 (or by the spell slot used, if you really want to go nuts)

To really keep with the theme, you could just have the number equal the last wild surge check you rolled. So, if you rolled a 20, you're definitely getting a surge next time.

 

[Tainted Powers]

Hello All!

I am totally new to D&D forums, but have been playing since... well since I can remember

In my opinion Wild Magic Sorcerer is mostly about fun. It's not something you can count on when theory crafting a character. But I guess that is the point of Wild Magic, isn't it?

The way I read it is basically when you cast a Sorcerer spell of lvl1 or higher roll D20. If you roll 1 roll the Wild Magic Surge Table. Pretty straight forward.

Tide of Chaos. Gain ADV on an attack, save, or ability check. Again straight forward. This resets after a long rest IF you don't cast any spells. IF you do, automatically roll on Wild Magic Surge Table. I think this is plain and simple. If you use Tides of Chaos you will be rolling on the table after every spell (which is absolute pure fun in game ). If you don't use Tides of Chaos at all there is still a chance to roll on the table if you roll 1 on D20 after you cast a spell.

I actually think they did a good job on this as you do have some control over the chaos, but it is still pretty random.

I would not pick Dragon over Wild in any scenario. Wild is just too damn fun!

 

[CapnZapp]

Welcome to the forums Tainted Powers! Here, have an XP

 

[Tainted Powers]

Heey!

Thank you!

Will figure out what its for. Apart from getting XP is always good!

 

[CTurbo]

Bend luck does sound like a pretty good feature, but that's about all the subclass has going for it IMO. Tides of chaos is good, but so limited. The Wild surge table sounds "fun" but it just seems like it would rarely be useful for anything. Overall, it still seems strictly inferior to the Draconic subclass. Te Draconic subclass not only has MORE features, they are all better suited for actually being a Sorcerer.

And about the 6th level Wild Sorcerer in my group who has never rolled off the wild surge table, I agree that the player/DM are to blame for that, and while I doubt rolling off the Surge table would make his character any better, it would at least be more fun.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is the Wild magic Sorcerer as terrible as it seems?

No, it actually seems kinda cool. It might be that its turned out to be somewhat less cool in play than it seemed.

So...

...yes? ...no? .... N/A? ...answer hazy, try again later?

You're not wrong. One of the issues is that the Wild Magic Surge is mostly based on DM Fiat.

It is very DM dependent. If your DM lets you refresh Tides of Chaos fairly often (and at interesting times), it can be really fun. So it's something to check with your DM about.

This is the DM Empowerment edition so /everything/ (well, everything potentially fun) is very DM-dependent. It is a lot more obviously and necessarily so with the Wild Sorcerer, though.

So, y'know, trust in the DM, and the DM will be with you.

 

[Caliban]

The Wild Mage doesn't really appeal to me, but the two players who've run them seemed to enjoy the unpredictability. (I've been fireballed by one of them, and we've gotten the Unicorn 2 or 3 times, and one turned into a shrubbery once)

 

[Tainted Powers]

Aaah the unicorn. Saved one of my party members more then once!

Sent from my SM-N910C using EN World mobile app

 

[dco]

It just seems SO lacking compared to the Draconic Sorcerer. I don't understand the draw. There is a Wild Magic Sorcerer in one of the groups I play with and we are almost level 7 and he has NEVER had to roll from his Wild surge chart or whatever it's called. What's the point? Am I missing something?

The class pivots indirectly on the wild magic surge table, if you don't use it then you are not using the class features and you'll find it lacking compared to other classes or subclasses.

For fights when people has more hit points the table is good, you should not be afraid of it, there are more opportunities to get good things and at level 14 you have more control. From 50 options there are 4-5 really bad things, 3-4 are damage to nearby creatures which can be good or bad depending on the situation, the rest is fluff or good things. It can also be funny for some people, personally I don't find it funny to roll on a table, after some point you'll get the same things.

Now the cons, the biggest problem is that if you roll in a social situation things can go very wrong, for example you may want to charm a person in the court using the subtle metamagic and you kill the guy with a fireball. This problem can limit the way you play if you don't want to take risks and it can be important depending on your campaign style.

The wild magic table also depends on the GM and it is not easy to see how much times a player should roll, if it helps I have my own numbers:
- Dragon bloodline gets 1hp per lvl (=1/2 feat), permanent mage armor (~1 feat or <1/3 of magic initiate feat x3 times) and a language (~1/9 feat).
- Wild mage, 3 advantages +2 rolls (mostly positive things) ~ 1 feat (Luck)

I think the wild mage should use Tides of Chaos around 5 times/day to be comparable to the Draconic bloodline, but it depends on the situations, with less fights or no fights where HP or AC means nothing the wild mage would be far better, around 3-5 times per day.
For reference as a DM I try to allow 1 Tide of Chaos per combat encounter and 1 more out of fights (2 if no fights) to a maximum of 5 Tides of Chaos and the player always gets the 5% chance after a spell. I think that way the wild sorcerer is balanced with the draconic bloodline. I find the rest of things more or less balanced, guaranteed extra damage for one type of damage vs non guaranteed extra damage for all magic (and this comes at higher lvls when more dice are usually thrown). Fly vs controlled chaos, I prefer fly. Bend luck vs draconic presence, I prefer bend luck and it comes sooner.

Hope this helps.

 

[Rune]

Now the cons, the biggest problem is that if you roll in a social situation things can go very wrong, for example you may want to charm a person in the court using the subtle metamagic and you kill the guy with a fireball. This problem can limit the way you play if you don't want to take risks and it can be important depending on your campaign style.

If you don't want to take risks, you aren't playing a wild sorcerer, anyway.