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

[transtemporal]

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.

It is probably too expensive (I would be inclined to reduce the cost to reaction only) but the ability itself is fine for power-level of the game.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

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.

Not official, obviously, but I've adjusted the Wild Magic Surge table to make it more fun (at least for my table). Hope it helps/inspires you.

01 Roll twice, use both effects.

02 Skrillex appears and begins playing super loud, terrible music for the next minute. All creatures within 200 feet are deafened for the duration.

03-04 A massive, illusory explosion is centered on the caster. For the next minute, the caster can see any invisible creature if you have line of sight to it.

05-06 A Modron chosen and controlled by the DM appears in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of you, then disappears 1 minute later.

07-08 You cast fireball as a 3rd-level spell centered on yourself.

09-10 You cast magic missile as a 5th-level spell. The missiles are the fingers of the casters hand, but instantly grow back. Painful for the caster.

11-12 The caster’s arms become vines, but continue to function normally, for one hour. In addition, entangle is cast, centered on the caster.

13-14 The caster’s form becomes bright and vibrant, like a cartoon. Also confusion is cast centered on the caster.

15-16 For the next minute, you regain 5 hit points at the start of each of your turns. Any lost body parts grow back at the end of the duration.

17-18 You grow a long beard made of feathers that remains until you fall, at which your descent is slowed as if affected by feather fall. Once you land, you will sneeze and the feathers explode out from your face.

19-20 You cast grease centered on yourself, and your nose becomes a pig’s snout until remove curse is cast on you.

21-22 Creatures have disadvantage on saving throws against the next spell you cast that allows a saving throw.

23-24 Caster becomes a squirrel for the next hour. You take on all statistics of the cat as listed in the Monster Manual with the exception of your mental statistics and your hit points. All equipment is melded into your new form. However, you can still talk and are able to cast spells as normal.

25-26 An eye appears on your forehead for the next minute. During that time, you can cast a force ray from the eye as a bonus action using your spell attack bonus. Damage for the ray is 1d8.

27-28 For the next minute, all your spells with a casting time of 1 action have a casting time of 1 bonus action. Also, you must end each sentence with “giggidy” or you become a frog for an hour. If you become a frog, you take on all statistics of the Giant Frog as listed in the Monster Manual with the exception of your mental statistics and your hit points. All equipment is melded into your new form. In this form you cannot cast spells, but you can talk.

29-30 You teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see.

31-32 All creatures within 60’ teleport to randomly swap places.

33-34 Maximize the damage of the next damaging spell you cast within the next minute.

35-36 The caster becomes the spell’s target. If caster was already the target, there is no other effect.

37-38 1d6 flumphs controlled by the DM appear in unoccupied spaces within 60 feet of you and are frightened of you. They vanish after 1 minute.

39-40 You regain 2d10 hit points, but smell like a skunk for the next 24 hours.

41-42 Caster’s head grows 5 times its normal size, forcing caster to fall prone and reducing speed to 5 feet. This effect lasts for one minute.

43-44 For the next minute, you can teleport up to 20 feet as a bonus action on each of your turns. Each time there is an audible “BAMF” with a puff of purple smoke where you started and where your appear.

45-46 You cast levitate on yourself. Whenever you move up, you are propelled by a loud, visible, green fart cloud expelled from your butt.

47-48 A unicorn controlled by the DM appears in a space within 5 feet of you, then disappears 1 minute later.

49-50 You can’t speak for the next minute. Whenever you try, your voice is bleeped and your mouth looks pixilated. As a result, you cannot cast spells with a verbal component.

51-52 A spectral shield hovers near you for the next minute, granting you a +2 bonus to AC and immunity to magic missile.

53-54 Your spell is chained, striking 1d6 random targets within 100’. If your spell does not target creatures, then there is no effect.

55-56 All those within 60 feet must make a Wis save against your spell save or be frightened of you.

57-58 Caster is affected by the reverse gravity spell for 1 min.

59-60 You regain your lowest-level expended spell slot.

61-62 For the rest of the gaming session, you must talk like a pirate. If you fail to talk like a pirate, you have disadvantage on all your saving throws for the rest of the session.

63-64 You cast fog cloud centered on yourself. The fog glows and music can be heard as if at a rave.

65-66 Up to three creatures you choose within 30 feet of you take 4d10 lightning damage.

67-68 You shrink one size category and a giant, illusory duck appears which is visible to all. You are frightened of the duck and it chases you until the end of your next turn, at which time you return to normal.

69-70 Each creature within 30 feet of you becomes invisible for the next minute. The invisibility ends on a creature when it attacks or casts a spell.

71-72 Your skin becomes living stone and you gain resistance to all damage for the next minute.

73-74 A random creature within 60 feet of you turns green and becomes poisoned for 1d4 hours.

75-76 You glow with bright light in a 30-foot radius for the next minute. Any creature that ends its turn within 5 feet of you is blinded until the end of its next turn.

77-78 All creatures within 100 feet of you heals to full hit points.

79-80 Illusory butterflies and flower petals flutter in the air within 10 feet of you for the next minute. This gives you half cover against ranged attacks.

81-82 You can take one additional action immediately. You must make a karate noise before taking this action.

83-84 Each creature within 30 feet of you takes 1d10 necrotic damage. You regain hit points equal to the sum of the necrotic damage dealt. Everyone knows that you stole their lifeforce.

85-86 You cast mirror image.

87-88 You cast fly on a random creature within 60 feet of you.

89-90 You become invisible for the next minute. During that time, other creatures can’t hear you. The invisibility ends if you attack or cast a spell.

91-92 If you die within the next minute, you immediately come back to life as if by the reincarnate spell.

93-94 Your size increases by one size category for the next minute.

95-96. You and all creatures within 30 feet of you gain vulnerability to all damage for the next minute.

97 All creatures within 100’ that have been dead for less than 1 minute are raised as zombies under the caster’s control. After 1 minute zombies crumble to dust.

98 The spell cast by the caster becomes a Living Spell. Roll a 1d6. On a 5 or 6, the Living Spell is friendly towards the caster and will accept commands for 1 minute before disappearing from existence. Otherwise, Living Spell will attack caster. The DM will choose an elemental most closely associated to the spell. The elemental’s slam attack does damage of the spell’s damage type. On a hit, the elemental’s slam also activates any non-damaging abilities associated with the spell. If the effect requires a saving throw, it using the sorcerer’s spell save DC.

99 You regain all expended sorcery points.

00 A cow/anvil falls on your target. Target must roll a Dex save against your spell DC or be crushed. On a failed save target takes 6d6 damage and falls prone.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

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.

For what it's worth, Draconic sorcerers have worse DPR than Wild Sorcerers until level 6. At least the Wild Sorcerer can use Tides of Chaos to hit with his Chromatic Orb/Fire Bolt/whatever. The dragonic sorcerer gets +1-5 HP and AC 13 and a Charisma bonus when talking to dragons. Nothing offensive, until Elemental Affinity at level 6.

 

[CTurbo]

For what it's worth, Draconic sorcerers have worse DPR than Wild Sorcerers until level 6. At least the Wild Sorcerer can use Tides of Chaos to hit with his Chromatic Orb/Fire Bolt/whatever. The dragonic sorcerer gets +1-5 HP and AC 13 and a Charisma bonus when talking to dragons. Nothing offensive, until Elemental Affinity at level 6.

Yes true. I forgot that Elemental Affinity is a level 6 feature. My bad.

 

[Garresh]

Wild Sorcerers are basically masters of support, as they can make allies succeed on checks(or enemies fail) as a reaction. They occupy a design space strangely similar to bards, of all things. I like multiclassing them with cleric to pick up Bless as well, so my party gains hyper-accuracy all the time.

 

[Barolo]

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?

Some character concepts are better suited for groups that are onboard with it (including other players and the DM). Wild mage is just one example. Villainous characters are another, as is some very environmentally focused hero (a pirate comes to my mind). I don't see a point in playing a wild mage if rolling in the wild magic table is not fun for everybody, because this ability actually impacts the whole table. If, on the other hand, rolling is fun for the table, rest assured it will happen often and then the subclass is not lacking.

 

[Staffan]

In fact, are there ANY spell that allows you a decent effect with a single attack roll. Both main contenders Scorching Ray and Eldritch Blast (for Sorlocks) use multiple attack rolls)

I looked through the list a while back, and pretty much the only sorcerer spell that deals decent damage on a single attack roll is chromatic orb.

 

[Immoralkickass]

The most terrible thing about Wild Magic is the wording of Tides of Chaos. It took me 2 or 3 reading of it that I realise I can keep resetting Tides. I told my DM many times how it works, but he didnt seem to grasp it fully. And when he read the actual text for the first time, as expected he was drawn to the first line that mention Tides as once per long rest.

"YOU'VE BEEN SPAMMING THAT ALL DAY!!"

That line should really be ignored to avoid confusion.

 

[tuxgeo]

Hello All! < snip > . . .
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 ). < snip > . . .

I think it might be more like: If you want to roll on the table after every spell of 1st level or higher, you should alternate between:
(1) doing something that takes up the Tide advantage without costing you a spell slot (such as rolling a save or casting a cantrip), which will leave you in the "Tide-of-Chaos-feature-not-regained" state; and then
(2) casting a spell of 1st level or higher, which will allow a roll on the Wild Surge table, and will reset you to the "Tide-of-Chaos-feature-has-been-regained" state.

If you simply cast using spell slots each round, then it might go like this:

1st Round: Use Tide of Chaos to get Advantage on a spell casting using a spell slot. You will have actually "used" your Tide of Chaos only after the effects of the casting are resolved, so the second paragraph (the automatic roll on Wild Surge table) doesn't apply because the situation is still "after you regain the use of this feature," not "before you regain the use of this feature."
2nd Round: You have used your Tide of Chaos feature during the 1st Round, and have not regained the use of that feature yet, so you cannot use it to gain Advantage this round. Instead, you cast a spell using a spell slot, during which time the situation is "before you regain the use of this feature." That allows the DM to call for you to roll on the Wild Surge table; and when you do so, you thereby regain the use of your Tide of Chaos feature.
3rd Round: You have now regained the use of your Tide of Chaos feature, so you can return to the situation of 1st Round: the situation is still "after you regain the use of this feature" until you use Tide of Chaos again, so you can again cast with Advantage using a spell slot, but not thereby automatically trigger a Wild Surge because the situation is not "before you regain the use of this feature" until after the spell has already been cast.

If you go that way, casting with spell slots every round, then you will only get half as many Surges as you spend spell slots.

Want to get a Wild Surge with each spell slot? Alternate between Eldritch Blast with Advantage one round and spell-slot casting the next: 1st Round: EB with Adv. (this is cast "after you regain Tide of Chaos"--or else you would not have been able to use Tide of Chaos--but you do not roll a d20 to see whether you roll on the table because it was a cantrip); 2nd Round: Cast using a spell slot (it is now "before you regain Tide of Chaos," and you used a spell slot, so the DM can call on you to roll on the Wild Surge table, and you thereby regain the use of the feature).
Total count so far: 1 spell slot used, 1 surge triggered.
Just keep alternating like that, and you'll get a surge for each spell slot used -- if the DM goes along with it.

 

[Cognomen's Cassowary]

I looked through the list a while back, and pretty much the only sorcerer spell that deals decent damage on a single attack roll is chromatic orb.

This has as much to do with the mechanics of attacks as anything else--i.e., advantage, chance for a critical, no such thing as proficiency in armor class. WotC rightly recognized that damage-dealing attacks scale in burst potential much faster than save-based spells.

Fortunately, cantrips, saving throws, and ability checks (including initiative) never lose relevancy. Also plane shift. WMS dominates with plane shift.