D&D 5E Pages from the PHB

[Majoru Oakheart]

I must have missed this. When. When does the wild Mage roll on this table. Is it if he fails a check? If he tries to cast too many spells? Every time he casts a spell? (I realize this May have been answered up thread, but with a couple hundred responses, it's easy to miss.

We don't know. That appears to be somewhere on the previous couple of pages we don't see. Some people have suggested that you only roll on the table when you use your sorcerer ability to modify spells on the fly. Which kind of makes sense to me. Want to be reliable? Don't modify your spells.

My discussion was purely based on the fact that someone said they didn't see why anyone had any problem with 2e Wild Mages. I was explaining why some people might have a problem with them.

I honestly expect not to have that problem with the 5e version.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

So you're way of avoiding the the consequences of failing rolls were to be a.) high level and b.) don't use your skills.

Well, here is your way to minimize wild-surge problem: don't cast spells.

Yeah...well, at least a thief had a bunch of abilities that worked most or all of the time. They could...ummm...they could...

Nevermind, I have the same issue with Thieves. They weren't worth playing except to have ONE skill in the group: Find and Remove Traps. Which is why my 14th level Thief was also a 12th level Fighter.

Thieves and Wild Mages had the same issue. Minimizing their risks involved not using their abilities. In which case, you might as well be something else.

 

[Ichneumon]

I must have missed this. When. When does the wild Mage roll on this table. Is it if he fails a check? If he tries to cast too many spells? Every time he casts a spell? (I realize this May have been answered up thread, but with a couple hundred responses, it's easy to miss.

I think it's extremely unlikely to be on every spell. That would bloat the wild mage's average turn length and ensure that surges got old before the end of the first session. 'Failing a check' might be possible if the sorcerer's spells all required an attack roll, but this would limit design options and still lead to the surge table wearing out its welcome in time.

My prediction is that the surge mechanic is linked to metamagic, and involves the sorcerer taking a deliberate risk - going for a bigger bang with the knowledge that the bang might backfire.

 

[Cyberen]

Majoru Oakheart, the problems you describe don't really come from Wild Mages and Thieves, but from the fact 2e was promising PCs were heroes to be, with big destinies and epic stories... while at the same time using AD&D, mechanics where characters are more... disposable, and their survival certainly not guaranteed, even with a good dose of skilled play. I understand you loathe wild surges, but when the game inflicts SoD every other encounter, the numbers you cite seem off.
But I agree with you : wild surges are a bad mechanic for both "skilled play" and "epic fantasy" playstyles, and would have been better presented in the DMG than the PHB, as it feels more a collective than individual decision.
Still, this table scratches the same itch than the magic pools in B1, the wandof wonders, the deck of many things : ME WANNA ROLL. AGAIN AND AGAIN. TILL I DIE (quite soon I guess)

 

[Lanefan]

Mashing together quotes from several different posts by the same author...

I admit the same thing is true of the wild mage. The vast majority of the time you aren't going to roll "kill yourself and your friends" on the table. However, even rolling on the table means that you failed to hurt the enemies that round.

Not necessarily...you just might not be hurting them with what you expected to be hurting them with.

Practically, however, out of all the enemies we fought, he had the greatest chance of killing us. Let's say he has a .1% chance of killing us each time he casts a spell. At 3 spells per combat, 3 combats per day...let's day 10 spells total per day to make the math easier. That's a guaranteed death once every 100 days. The chance increases to a fairly significant amount at about 10 days, however.

Every 10 (or 100) adventuring days, perhaps; with a bunch of other assumptions thrown in.

We have fumble rules for melee and missile fire as well - it's not just the casters who can make a hash of things.

I, personally, refused to climb walls at all because there was such a huge chance of failure that it wasn't really considered a skill for me.

You were a 14th-level Thief and your climb-walls skill was so poor you wouldn't use it???

That's a rather pathetic Thief.

I admit, people like when weird, cool things happen. That's why they like things like the wild mage. However, I played one for many months. I can tell you that about the 10th time I rolled "Butterflies come out of everyone's ears" it was no longer funny or interesting. Everyone just said "Yawn. Again? More butterflies? ..."

That's where you need a table that has a lot more surge options, such that surge results don't get repeated very often if at all.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Nevermind, I have the same issue with Thieves. They weren't worth playing except to have ONE skill in the group: Find and Remove Traps. Which is why my 14th level Thief was also a 12th level Fighter.

Thieves and Wild Mages had the same issue. Minimizing their risks involved not using their abilities. In which case, you might as well be something else.

Seems to me your issue is simply with taking risks at all.

Adventuring is a risky business. You're either gonna get rich or die trying...or more likely get rich AND die trying.

I can see, however, why you'd think a Thief isn't worth playing if you're in a party that constantly puts a leash on it and won't let it do its job - scouting, sneaking, infiltrating, and a bunch of other stuff that often goes better without having a whole party hanging off your back. And that's what minimizes risk: knowing ahead of time what you're up against.

Lan-"contemplating the joys of a Wildmage-Thief or Wildmage-Assassin multiclass"-efan

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Seems to me your issue is simply with taking risks at all.

Adventuring is a risky business. You're either gonna get rich or die trying...or more likely get rich AND die trying.

It's not with taking risks. It's with taking foolish risks. Basically, you don't go into a fight or attempt something unless you've got a really good chance of success. That's how you survive. If there's a 30% chance you fall to your death, you find another way around instead of climbing. If there's a 50/50 chance of beating an encounter, you try to tip the odds in your favor before you attack.

I can see, however, why you'd think a Thief isn't worth playing if you're in a party that constantly puts a leash on it and won't let it do its job - scouting, sneaking, infiltrating, and a bunch of other stuff that often goes better without having a whole party hanging off your back. And that's what minimizes risk: knowing ahead of time what you're up against.

Hasn't helped us yet. Knowing what enemies we are up against simply lets us know their names before we roll for initiative. The last couple of times someone has insisted on scouting ahead(and succeeded) the results have been:

"Alright, I scouted ahead. There are 6 Orcs in the next room."
"6 Orcs? Alright...let's go into the room and kill them."

Which contrasts with what happens when we DON'T scout ahead:
"We open the door."
"You see 6 Orcs, roll for initiative."

That's assuming the scouting ahead is successful. In my experience it normally isn't. Either the rogue/thief fails their stealth checks and cause the enemies in the next room to come storming out to kill them OR this happens:
"You scout ahead. You reach a door."
"A door, I listen to it."
"You don't hear anything behind it."
"Alright, I open the door."
"Behind it are 6 Orcs, who now clearly see the door has been opened. You may have made your stealth check, but you can only do that while you have cover or concealment. The door is clearly visible to them and they see it opening."
"Roll for initiative. Everyone else in the group is surprised except for you since they can't see the Orcs, so they can't act during the surprise round."
"The enemies win initiative. They all fire arrows at you. 5 of them hit doing...38 points of damage."
"Yep...that's me dead."

We went through a period of always having a rogue who scouted up ahead. After the 5th or 6th of them died upon opening a door while we realized that the scouting ahead was providing us with information that 95% of the time we didn't care about and wasn't useful to us, we all jointly decided that having a rogue scout ahead was a pointless waste of time.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Mashing together quotes from several different posts by the same author...
Not necessarily...you just might not be hurting them with what you expected to be hurting them with.

Alright, agreed.

We have fumble rules for melee and missile fire as well - it's not just the casters who can make a hash of things.

Maybe you do, but there hasn't been official fumble rules in the game since 1e. Even then the fumble rules were an optional table in Dragon Magazine. I'm not a huge fan of fumble rules for the exact same reason which I explain a bit more above.

You were a 14th-level Thief and your climb-walls skill was so poor you wouldn't use it???

Honestly, I can't remember what it was, given the number of years since I last played 2e. However, if I only had a 60 or 70 percent chance to succeed and I knew I was going to fall to my death...I'd very likely choose not to use it. After all, the rest of the party likely couldn't follow and it wasn't wise to split the party. Better to search for another way. If the DM wanted us to get there, he'd let us find another way.

That's where you need a table that has a lot more surge options, such that surge results don't get repeated very often if at all.

A bigger table helps, but it doesn't prevent the issue. It just causes to to happen less often. It's the same reason I don't often use descriptive text in combat because there is only so many ways you can say "The enemy gets hit with a sword and it hurts" before it just becomes boring and all the players are interested in is recording the damage and moving on to the next player's turn.

 

[The Hitcher]

It's not with taking risks. It's with taking foolish risks. Basically, you don't go into a fight or attempt something unless you've got a really good chance of success. That's how you survive. If there's a 30% chance you fall to your death, you find another way around instead of climbing. If there's a 50/50 chance of beating an encounter, you try to tip the odds in your favor before you attack.

Hasn't helped us yet. Knowing what enemies we are up against simply lets us know their names before we roll for initiative. The last couple of times someone has insisted on scouting ahead(and succeeded) the results have been:

"Alright, I scouted ahead. There are 6 Orcs in the next room."
"6 Orcs? Alright...let's go into the room and kill them."

Which contrasts with what happens when we DON'T scout ahead:
"We open the door."
"You see 6 Orcs, roll for initiative."

That's assuming the scouting ahead is successful. In my experience it normally isn't. Either the rogue/thief fails their stealth checks and cause the enemies in the next room to come storming out to kill them OR this happens:
"You scout ahead. You reach a door."
"A door, I listen to it."
"You don't hear anything behind it."
"Alright, I open the door."
"Behind it are 6 Orcs, who now clearly see the door has been opened. You may have made your stealth check, but you can only do that while you have cover or concealment. The door is clearly visible to them and they see it opening."
"Roll for initiative. Everyone else in the group is surprised except for you since they can't see the Orcs, so they can't act during the surprise round."
"The enemies win initiative. They all fire arrows at you. 5 of them hit doing...38 points of damage."
"Yep...that's me dead."

We went through a period of always having a rogue who scouted up ahead. After the 5th or 6th of them died upon opening a door while we realized that the scouting ahead was providing us with information that 95% of the time we didn't care about and wasn't useful to us, we all jointly decided that having a rogue scout ahead was a pointless waste of time.

No offense, but it sounds like your DM was a little lacking in imagination.

A bigger table helps, but it doesn't prevent the issue. It just causes to to happen less often. It's the same reason I don't often use descriptive text in combat because there is only so many ways you can say "The enemy gets hit with a sword and it hurts" before it just becomes boring and all the players are interested in is recording the damage and moving on to the next player's turn.

Perhaps not only your DM.

 

[Remathilis]

We went through a period of always having a rogue who scouted up ahead. After the 5th or 6th of them died upon opening a door while we realized that the scouting ahead was providing us with information that 95% of the time we didn't care about and wasn't useful to us, we all jointly decided that having a rogue scout ahead was a pointless waste of time.

Ah. You had one of THOSE DMs! I did too (and I also played the thief).

The problem with thief-characters is that you need a DM who allows thieves to be successful, even in failure. There are lots of DMs who treat thief skills as "glory or death" with no middle ground. You disarm the trap or you fall into it. You scout up and get negligible info or you are seen and shot. You climb or fall to your death. Hell, my DM made it so that if you fail your PP roll, you are caught no matter what (that's not how detection works in the PHB). Then he wondered why everyone really quickly played Fighter-or-Mage/Thieves...

Back to the WM point: if we're talking 2e Wild Mages for a second, bear in mind how a wild-surge triggers. A wild mage rolled his level variance (which was a d20) and if the variance number was bold, it triggered a surge. At any given level, there was only ONE bold number on the table. That is a 5% chance of triggering a surge, well in line with the chance of a high-level thief failing a skill roll (all skill rolls over 95% fail, regardless of thief percentage) or a fighter "always missing" on a natural 1. So if your wild-mage was constantly fireballing the party, its because he roughly was rolling critical fumbles every spell cast.

With that out of the way, do we want to discuss how fighters who miss their attack rolls fail to contribute to the party next?