FormerlyHemlock
Hero
That's great! That's where diversity at the table comes from, different people having different tastes.
D&D 5E Is the Wild magic Sorcerer as terrible as it seems?
That's great! That's where diversity at the table comes from, different people having different tastes.
CapnZapp
Legend
No, nobody is arguing that plus points aren't good.Yeah, its pretty good when you absolutely must land a spell. Heighten + bend luck makes it almost certain to happen. Plus, there's a certain amount of satisfaction when the monster makes a save by one or two only to fail when it comes into play.
The issue here is the cost. Bend Luck is horribly expensive and stingy in comparison. A single d4 simply can't change much of anything, especially since you don't get to know by how much the enemy made its roll.
Look at Bards or Battlemasters or Warlocks to see how its done right. In fact, let me illustrate:
Bend Luck (I): Starting at 6th level, you have the ability to twist fate
using your wild magic. When another creature you can
see makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving
throw, you can use your reaction to roll 1d8 and apply the number rolled as a
bonus or penalty (your choice) to the creature’s roll. You
can do so after the creature rolls but before any effects
of the roll occur. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until
you finish a short or long rest.
Bend Luck (II): Starting at 6th level, you have the ability to twist fate
using your wild magic. When another creature you can
see makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving
throw, you can spend one or more sorcery points to roll that many d6s and apply the total rolled as a bonus or penalty (your choice) to the creature’s roll. You
can do so after the creature rolls but before any effects
of the roll occur.
Bend Luck (III): Starting at 6th level, you have the ability to twist fate
using your wild magic. When another creature you can
see makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving
throw, and makes or fails its roll by less than 5 points, you sense this, and can spend your reaction and 2 sorcery points to change the result from failure to success or vice versa. You
can do so after the creature rolls but before any effects
of the roll occur.
I: This version has a lower cost (your reaction only), but can't be used more than once per rest. Do note the bonus is still twice as high as in the original; much more in line with Dark One's Own Luck or Bardic Inspiration.
II: This version costs Sorcery Points, but allows you to potentially change a much larger range of results. It also does not cost you your reaction.
III: Here the cost remains the same, but the uncertainty has been removed: just the fact that you know your investment will have effect, that you won't roll badly and just waste your effory, is a huge bonus.
I stand by all these three variants as reasonable. You should easily see that the book version is much much too expensive for what you get.
Nebulous
Legend
We have a 12th level wild mage now, Serena. I myself forget about telling him the Tides of Chaos stuff, but long, long ago he got into the habit of just rolling it constantly,so we see lots of wild magic. The worst thing so far is that some necrotic damage has hit the party. Nothing too bad. We've seen the flumphs and the unicorn. No potted plant. Honestly, I wish there were official ALTERNATE wild magic tables, I'm not a huge fan of the one in the book, and he's been using it so long he has it practically memorized, which to me goes against the whole concept of random magic. Sure, I could make my own wild magic chart, but the player would probably balk at it.
I don't even really like the sorcerer class much, sometimes it seems too powerful, although she's definitely a glass cannon.
I don't even really like the sorcerer class much, sometimes it seems too powerful, although she's definitely a glass cannon.
jaelis
Oh this is where the title goes?
Bend luck should be about as powerful as a 1st or 2nd level spell, based on the point cost. I'd say that it is. You can compare to bless (often considered one of the best 1st level spells), which affects 3 people for a minute, but is limited to benefiting allies only and costs an action to cast and concentration to maintain. If you gave me a choice of Bend Luck or Bless as a first level spell, I'd take Bend Luck. So I'd say it is better than Bless and thus at least a 2nd level spell. Is it a top tier 2nd level spell? Probably depends a bit on how much your DM tells you about enemies' ACs and such.
CapnZapp
Legend
Nooo... that's incredibly backwards!
It's as if the stiff cost justifies the puny effect.
The way you should be going is instead "Bend luck costs you a 1st or 2nd level spell, so it really must be more powerful than that, or it's not a net gain".
You see? You're using the cost as if the ability read:
"Bend Luck: either gain 1d2 sorcery point, or [insert Bend Luck ability here]"
NOW you would have a valid comparison - do I want my sorcery points or the bend luck ability? "Hmm; since that's about the cost of Bless, but slightly different, I'll take Bend Luck"
But that is obviously not the case here. Bend Luck requires you to SACRIFICE your Bless spell. There is otherwise no direct connection between the two. But you're not really sacrificing a Bless spell, are you? You're sacrificing sorcery points enough for a spell slot! Your comparison is invalid.
Besides, the sorcerer is already tight on sorcery points. Each new use for them is only fewer left for the original usages. Add new ways to spend your sorcery points needs to be incredibly generous to actually add any value.
Instead, Bend Luck should be about as powerful as a level 6 class feature.
I have already compared it to other level 6 class features that allow you to modify a rolled result. The Wild Mage ranks very unfavorably here.
Even if Bend Luck cost you ZERO sorcery points, it would still not be a very good level 6 class feature (assuming some other limitation, of course; this doesn't even have to have a cost attached - simplest example: "Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until..."). As it is; it's one of the stingiest and least generous such feature in the entire book.
Hawk Diesel
Adventurer
In my games I've altered Bend Luck. The sorcery point cost has been removed, increased it to a d6, and it can be used twice per short or long rest (increases to d8 at level 14).
Personally, I hate when the sorcerer archetypes require sorcery points to function, and have removed all sorcery point costs for the archetypes in my games. I think the latest UA had that right. No other class or archetype requires you to use a resource shared between multiple abilities to benefit from the archetypes. How would the fighter like to have to choose between using second wind, action surge, or indomitable? And worse yet, what if the battle master had to choose whether he used one of his maneuvers or action surge? This would be the case if each ability had to share the same resource to function. Each one is self-contained, and so should it be with the sorcerer.
Personally, I hate when the sorcerer archetypes require sorcery points to function, and have removed all sorcery point costs for the archetypes in my games. I think the latest UA had that right. No other class or archetype requires you to use a resource shared between multiple abilities to benefit from the archetypes. How would the fighter like to have to choose between using second wind, action surge, or indomitable? And worse yet, what if the battle master had to choose whether he used one of his maneuvers or action surge? This would be the case if each ability had to share the same resource to function. Each one is self-contained, and so should it be with the sorcerer.
jaelis
Oh this is where the title goes?
You must really hate the 10th and 17th level abilities then. Just more stuff to spend points on?
CapnZapp
Legend
Not really.
The L6 ability is what all characters in nearly all campaigns will see and use.
Obviously the L10 could've been better, but the L17 hardly matters - you'll take that level for the 9th level spells.
Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app
I've never like either of the Sorcerer options listed. Wild Magic makes it seem like you are an out of control lunatic, and the other option is to be covered in scales and have wings spouting out of your back. If you're into that sort of thing great, but both are pretty niche flavors for a character if you ask me.
I started this post with my opinions based off of ONE not optimally played Wild Sorcerer. I didn't realize just how badly he has been played. We really have around 20,000xp and he has NEVER rolled from his wild surge table. No wonder his character seems so terrible. Not to mention he is ridiculously squishy and he only recently started to worth his weight in DPR probably at level 5. This character was especially terrible at lower levels. He has died 3 or 4 times, but being a new player, the DM has always come up with ways to save him. That will never happen again btw. But in our particular group, his character would have been so much better from the get go if he had been Draconic. Being tougher with better DPR is exactly what our group needed early on. There are countless times he would have greatly benefited from that extra spell slot too. Obviously, a reliable 1d10+4 from Firebolt would have been a tremendous improvement too. We rolled stats and he started with 18 in Char if you're wondering how it's +4. Of course he put a 12 in Con which is just terrible to me especially knowing he put a 15 in Wis and could theoretically started with a 16 in Con. 12 in Con is TERRIBLE for a squishy 1d6 caster IMO.
So again, a properly played Wild Sorcerer played by an experienced character probably would not have been THAT bad.
So again, a properly played Wild Sorcerer played by an experienced character probably would not have been THAT bad.
