D&D 5E I can haz WILD MAGE and the first DRAGONBORN art?

Evenglare said:

You may have misinterpreted those rules. The DM cant just willy nilly tell you to roll (well technically he can because he can do anything). There's another stipulation: you have to roll a 1. Only on that 1 on can a dm tell to roll wild surge... at least that's how RAW reads.

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I think you have that exactly backwards. Whenever you cast a spell the GM can ask you to roll the d20. If it comes up a 1, then you roll on the table. If he doesn't ask there is no roll.

If you use Tides of Chaos you now have a wild surge pending, whenever you cast a spell the GM can declare a wildsurge and you roll on the table.

Basically the GM is acting as the Hand of Fate to gate the wild magic surges. Without tides of chaos, when the GM gives the nod you're only tempting fate, you have a 95% chance of no wild surge. Once the tides of chaos have been loosed you have fates full attention and your magic will go wild .... when the GM says so.

Li Shenron said:

Or, we're just reading too much and by "can" they simply mean "will"

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I think then they would've written "will". Or omitted mention of the DM altogether and said "After casting a spell you must roll a d20; on a result of 1 you roll on the Wild Magic Surge table". There's no reason to mention the DM if everything is automatic.

Jbear has it right.

sidonunspa said:

and when the hell did players start looking at GM in an adversarial light? trust your game masters..... if you can't... you have the wrong GM

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Bad DMs have existed since inception. However, it was 3rd edition on that the rules tried to insulate players against bad DMs by binding their hands with "the rules".

I think the Can language also is to prevent the wild mage from slowing their turn to a crawl at higher levels when they might be casting lots of spells and could end up with multiple wild effects running at once.

For me, if I was DMing this I would think of it as rock-paper-scissors. I am not trying to stymie the player, after all some of the effects are beneficial, I am trying to surprise them. So if they start predicting that I will make them roll because this is a boss fight or whatever then I try to mix it up, give them tells sometimes but not other times to throw them off the scent. Make wondering if it will happen be part of the fun of the game for both of us while ensuring that it is rare enough that everyone else at the table is not just watching the wild mage roll and adjudicate results all the time.

I'm a DM. I improvise more than I follow adventures. I make on-the-fly rulings all the time. I try to be fair, be on the players "side," while allowing risk of failure. I make clear rules at the beginning of a campaign on what classes, races and other options are available, and I'm not afraid to straight up tell a player that his character idea isn't going to work in my campaign, even if it seems to follow those rules. I like wild mages.

And I am not satisfied with the lack of direction regarding "...DM can..." in the Wild Mage.

It essentially means a player has no idea coming into a campaign how his class features are going to work. Before someone brings up how that is "the point" of wild mage, let me say that I think there is world of difference between the character not knowing what's going to happen, and the player understanding how his class features work. A class feature that essentially says, "this works however the DM wants it to work" is barely a class feature at all. It certainly isn't something one can rely on understanding when creating a character.

So say players and DM talk it over when making a character. Regardless of how obvious and clear it may seem at that point, and how much they may come to an agreement, the purely arbitrary nature of the DM administering an important class feature will cause a lot of DM-player friction and player dissatisfaction in many campaigns. It's like friction over paladin requirements, only faster acting.

It should say at the beginning of the Wild Magic section: "Wild Magic is unpredictable not only for the character, but for the player also. The chaotic forces of wild magic mean many players will abandon the class before gaining their 3rd level. When you play this class, your DM can, each session, really piss you off a variable number of times..."

I'm just not buying if it what we have is all it says. If they at least have a sidebar telling the DM how he should handle these wild surges (even if that means giving examples of different ways of handling it and different frequencies) it might be okay. Even then, it's poor form for a class feature.

drjones said:

Different classes appeal to different personality types, this one is for the gamblers. As for the rest of the party, hey you don't have to stand next to me. I guess if you do, get ready to duck.

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My solution would be not to play with you. Simpler and more effective.

That's why the wild mage is a non-starter in any incarnation. It slows down the game, it puts too much focus on one player, it's highly likely to "divert fun" to the wild mage at the expense of other players, and it wreaks havoc on the DMs plans and verisimilitude. This is terrible design.

And the Wild Surge table is *always, always* trite. If I were going to allow it-- and I'm not-- I would like at least 10,000 different results. For the level of quality evident in the results previewed, I think a crowd-sourced internet database would be just fine.

I think your exaggerating a little there. The difference between a DM who rolls wild magic constantly, and one who does it never, is not so big that it would impact my decision on whether to play the class. Wild surges from spells will occur rarely even when the DM rolls for every spell so the main difference is just whether the fate power is a once a day advantage granter with no drawback, or a multiple times a day advantage granter with an added feature that could help or hurt you.

Sword of Spirit said:

It should say at the beginning of the Wild Magic section: "Wild Magic is unpredictable not only for the character, but for the player also. The chaotic forces of wild magic mean many players will abandon the class before gaining their 3rd level. When you play this class, your DM can, each session, really piss you off a variable number of times..."

I'm just not buying if it what we have is all it says. If they at least have a sidebar telling the DM how he should handle these wild surges (even if that means giving examples of different ways of handling it and different frequencies) it might be okay. Even then, it's poor form for a class feature.

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Looking again at the pic, it looks like the top left portion is part of a different caster type. Maybe dragonmage?
As far as wild magic goes, the DM and player are going to have to be on the same page as to how it'll work.

Have fun & play more.

Wulf Ratbane said:

That's why the wild mage is a non-starter in any incarnation. It slows down the game, it puts too much focus on one player, it's highly likely to "divert fun" to the wild mage at the expense of other players, and it wreaks havoc on the DMs plans and verisimilitude.

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If the surges are wreaking havoc on the DM's plans, why is the DM telling the player to roll for wild surges?

Dausuul said:

If the surges are wreaking havoc on the DM's plans, why is the DM telling the player to roll for wild surges?

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Because some DM's like me like to run games as close to RAW as they can, so I would have a wildmage roll a d20 every time they cast a spell of level 1 or higher and on a 1 they trigger a surge. Same reason as when that fireball result comes up and the level 1 party is all killed, I will look at the wildmage player and give them the see thats why I suggested you not play that class look.

If a DM doesn't roll every time a spell is cast, if they don't use the other ability that causes surges often, then what is the point of letting someone play the class. It would be like someone playing a paladin and never letting them have the chance to smite evil, or an undead slayer and not including undead in the game. If the player choose to play a wildmage then they want surges to happen, often.