D&D 5E [Poll] Tides of Chaos frequency: how do you rule?

[FormerlyHemlock]

Claim seen elsewhere: "Most DMs simply don't want to deal with Tides of Chaos, which reduces it to a once per day ability. If it applied to every spell 1st level or higher that you cast, then it would indeed be incredibly powerful and it would get more respect as a result. But no-one rates it because no-one plays like that."

I find this claim surprising, and I'm curious if this is really true. As a DM, how often would you allow a Sorcerer to get a Wild Surge off of Tides of Chaos?

 

[KahlessNestor]

My problem is that I keep forgetting my sorcerer is a wild mage, and he is a new player, so neither of use have been using it!

Of course my first experience with ine in the party led to a TPK in the first session because he dropped a fireball on a first level party...

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[not-so-newguy]

I based wild surges off the phases of the moon. A full moon was an automatic check on every level spell. No moon meant no wild magic. When it was between those two extremes, there was 25%-75% of a wild magic Check.

Usually, this method added an extra d20 roll which was no big deal.

 

[Arcangel4774]

I'd base it off of the chaos of the spell. If your casting fireball, by all means. But if you use sorc points to spare people, no. If you are using illusions to confuse people it's great, but if you are using the illusions to merely be unnoticed than no. It's kind of a case by case thing. As a bonus it would tend to over time corrupt the sorcerer into being destructive which is great for character developement.

 

[mgshamster]

We just have the 1 on a d20 always going for every spell. Tides of Chaos occurs on that 5% chance.

 

[Charles Rampant]

We just have the 1 on a d20 always going for every spell. Tides of Chaos occurs on that 5% chance.

This is, I think, what I started doing for a Wild Mage in my game. At first, I kept forgetting that he was wild, and it never came up; so I instructed the player to just roll for every spell. (I did something similar for Inspiration, which I made a one/level resource that the players get automatically on level up.) In the end, the Wild Surges were pretty mundane most of the time, but then first the Wild Mage got changed from Aarakocra to a Svirfneblin, which rather bummed the player, and then he turned into a potted plant during combat. The next turn, he was hit by a Fireball, and Maximum Damaged straight to the Dead condition. The player rerolled Battlemaster...

 

[Raunalyn]

I don't like the 1 in 20 chance, to be honest. I base it off of the level of spell they are casting. So, if they cast a 3rd level spell, they get a surge on a 3 or less.

Tends to slightly increase the chance of a surge to where it happens about once or twice a session, so it works out pretty good.

 

[cooperjer]

I instructed my player to roll every time they wanted to get Tides of Chaos back. There was only one time I prevented the roll. The party was level 2. They were bunched together, and a fireball would have been a TPK. Once they reached level 4, I did not put any limits on it.

I did change the random table with the assistance of the player. She wanted more of a fey feel to the results, so we reviewed the results on each line and modified accordingly. I didn't modify any of the results she felt were positive. We modified the results that were neutral or negative. The two I can think of are: Fireball now also grants fire resistance for 1 minute, Replaced polymorph into a potted plant with a self rooted to the ground (Ensnaring Strike) and also cast Spike Growth spell.

So far, no fireballs have occurred, but a spike growth did and it worked well for both the PCs and NPCs.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I selected "frequently" because it is nearest to my actual answer: It depends on level of the party and current circumstance whether I feel like a wild surge is adding fun to the game or potentially reducing fun, but once the party has enough levels so that the "bad" stuff on the wild surge table are inconveniences rather than the deciding factor of how a battle goes (about 5th is when I stop being concerned), any time that a spell is being cast and a surge wouldn't necessarily break the players' hearts, chance of a surge is on the table - and I'll be tossing in surges that recharge Tides of Chaos at every opportunity, because if the player didn't want surges to happen, they wouldn't use Tides of Chaos.

My players generally tend to be happy with random happenings though - for instance, one of them considers the wand (or rod, I forget which it is this edition) of wonder his favorite magic item of all time.

 

[OB1]

I chose other. Below is how my DM and I worked it out for my Gnome Wild Sorcerer. The end result is I surge pretty regularly. Not always once per combat, but pretty close.

Wild Surge - When casting a spell, roll at or below the current number of expended spell slots on a d20. Basically, the more spells I use in a day, the more unstable the my magic becomes.

Tides of Chaos - Can use a bonus action to attempt to recharge. Roll a 5 or 6 on a d6 and it recharges. Gives me a meaningful action economy choice in combat and allows me to recharge easily out of combat (though still will possible serious repercussions due to having to roll on the surge table). Flavored as I'm concentrating on trying to pull the wild threads of magic and probability back around me but at the cost of having some unintended consequence.