D&D 5E Pages from the PHB

[Majoru Oakheart]

My 4e campaign has had a chaos sorcerer from 3rd level. It is currently at 26th level. The PC in question is also a Demonskin Adept (paragon path), Primordial Adept (theme) and Emergent Primordial (epic destiny). The character is a driving force but not a disruptive one: some examples of exploits can be found here (channelling chaotic energy from the dead dragon Calastryx to enchant items and open portals) and here (a 1 on an attack roll resulted in Vecna being pushed dramatically over the edge of an earthmote).

Yeah, I'm fairly certain he's referring more the Wild Magic from 2e where your wizard would regularly roll "Spell has a range of 0" and cause you to fireball and kill your own party repeatedly.

 

[Ballbo Big'uns]

My 4e campaign has had a chaos sorcerer from 3rd level. It is currently at 26th level. The PC in question is also a Demonskin Adept (paragon path), Primordial Adept (theme) and Emergent Primordial (epic destiny). The character is a driving force but not a disruptive one: some examples of exploits can be found here (channelling chaotic energy from the dead dragon Calastryx to enchant items and open portals) and here (a 1 on an attack roll resulted in Vecna being pushed dramatically over the edge of an earthmote).

That's 4E, which is an entirely separate beast. I would actually prefer something closer to 4E's approach to wild magic as opposed to rolling on a universe random effects chart.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I'm fairly certain he's referring more the Wild Magic from 2e where your wizard would regularly roll "Spell has a range of 0" and cause you to fireball and kill your own party repeatedly.

People complain about this.

And in editions where these sort of things can't happen, what happens? Wizards get too powerful, and people complain about that.

Magic works best when it's high risk, high reward.

Lan-"fireballed by friendlies more times than I care to count"-efan

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

People complain about this.

And in editions where these sort of things can't happen, what happens? Wizards get too powerful, and people complain about that.

Magic works best when it's high risk, high reward.

I would never play a character who couldn't rely on his own abilities to work. Just imagine going through life that way. If each time you tried to take a step forward you had a 5% chance of falling on your face....you would never attempt walking again. Especially if you could crawl without the chance of face planting.

If magic had the possibility of killing you each and every time you cast it, no one would cast spells unless the situations was already so bad that you were going to die anyways.

I certainly wouldn't allow a mage into my group if I knew his spells could accidentally blow up and kill me and he had no control over it whatsoever. Please, just tell the mage to go home and we'll find us another fighter.

The only way it becomes remotely feasible that anyone would take up the profession of mage is if their spells never went haywire. Or if they did go haywire that the consequences were very mild.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

People complain about this.

And in editions where these sort of things can't happen, what happens? Wizards get too powerful, and people complain about that.

Magic works best when it's high risk, high reward.

Lan-"fireballed by friendlies more times than I care to count"-efan

Man what?

Wizards were balanced in 2E because Wild Magic?

Is that seriously your argument? Seriously?

Because no. Wild magic was an optional, relatively rarely-used kind of Mage. Magic in 2E was more balanced for dozens of reasons, and none of those reasons were Wild Magic.

Further in 1E and 2E, AD&D Magic was not, generally, high-risk, high-reward. On the contrary, most magic was low-risk, massive reward. High risk is going up to the front lines and trying to melee things. High risk is not sitting at the back of a party with a bunch of magical defenses casting spells with nigh-guaranteed effects ("half damage on save")! Talk about revisionism.

High-risk, high-reward magic isn't something D&D has ever really had - it's something WHFRP had.

 

[Zaran]

The only thing I have to say is that I hope random charts that fill the whole page are very rare in the book.

Edit: Oh and he totally ripped off JJ Abram's joke of teasing us about the Falcon.

 

[Mistwell]

Best of luck with that. It means more work for you every time they cast a spell, which is the Sorcerer's primary function, and less spotlight time for the other PC's since the game inevitably becomes about the antics of the random table twins.

I suspect it's when they apply metamagic

 

[PinkRose]

Couldn't it be like an epic fumble?
Something great happens when you roll a 20. Why couldn't something bad happen to a Chaos Sorcerer when they roll a 1?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm guessing that when you use your sorcery points in specific ways you have a small chance (1 in 20 perhaps) of getting a wild surge. You only have so many sorcery points (at least between short rests, which is my guess for when they refresh), and you don't have to use them every round. They won't apply to cantrips and they may not even apply every time you use a sorcery point.

So maybe a few times in a heavy encounter adventuring day you have a 1 in 20 chance of rolling on a table which has a small chance of causing something really bad to happen to you or possibly people nearby.

In a game with raise dead, remove curse, etc.

Where your allies can choose not to stand near you the majority of the time.

Doesn't seem too be too big of a deal to me. I can understand why people might not want it in their campaigns, and that's fine. But blowing it out of proportion isn't necessary to express that preference.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Doesn't seem too be too big of a deal to me. I can understand why people might not want it in their campaigns, and that's fine. But blowing it out of proportion isn't necessary to express that preference.

It depends how the mechanics work. I don't believe I was blowing it out of proportion though to say that is how it worked in the 2e version. I know, I played a Wild Mage for months as my character. It was pretty bad. But I was really young back then and thought it was hilarious. My friends didn't think so.