D&D General Wild Magic, Yea or Nay?

[Sacrosanct]

How do you feel about wild magic? Specifically as a player and another player is playing with wild magic. I know it first appeared in 2e, and some people really love it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I myself am not a fan. Which is not surprising. It reminds of the PC who always plays a CN character--a PC who is disruptive. I tend to be a planner anyway in general, so wild magic is not up my lane of preferences.

In one campaign, during a tough encounter, the wild mage ended up polymorphing themselves into a sheep which mean the rest of us had to pick up the slack and very nearly resulted in a tpk.

 

[The Firebird]

I am not a big fan of it at the table. I played with the implementation in the BG1/2 remake from Beamdog, and thought it was a lot of fun there. But that's a different environment -- single player so you aren't messing with anyone else and you can save and reload.

That said I think it would be more fun at the table with a system where all magic is wild. DCC has shades of this. Then the spellcaster isn't picking the rare disruptive class--its a condition of all magic.

 

[overgeeked]

How do you feel about wild magic? Specifically as a player and another player is playing with wild magic. I know it first appeared in 2e, and some people really love it.

I absolutely love it. I kinda hate magic that always just works like technology. Press the button, get the effect. Anything to make magic interesting and lively. Roll to cast, random side effects, magical mishaps, mutations, different components, bunks from Changeling: The Dreaming, etc. The more the merrier.

 

[el-remmen]

I am a big fan, esp. since I am a fan of magic with mishaps and consequences (and design most magical items in my games to have a drawback). In my VF5E homebrew rule set, the sorcerer (which, like wizard, is a subclass of Mage) is essentially just a wild mage - and I created 8 d30 tables to potentially roll on for results.

One of my favorite characters I ever played was a wild mage named Tim-Tim in 2E. He was so much fun. Eventually, he accidentally polymorphed himself into a hippo (polymorph other cast on self, it is called wild for a reason ), and since back then if you stayed in a form too long you could begin to think you were really were that creature, after completing the adventure by smashing foes with my compatriots on my back, they released me into the wild to live my hippo life after a failed save (if I remember correctly) and it felt like the perfect ending for him.

Years later, that same DM had Tim-Tim appear in a cameo in a different campaign (as a lost and addled plane-shifter) in a different setting, leaving us to wonder if he had eventually been changed back or if this game took place before the previous one.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Speaking only about 2024 rules, it's a ton of fun because you can easily cause Wild Magic Surges on command, and all of the negative results which impact other party members have been removed or toned waaaaay down. It's not necessarily much more powerful than before, but it's definitely way more fun

 

[Charlaquin]

None of the poll options quite express my opinion on the matter, which is that I really like the idea of wild magic, but I pretty much never like the execution. What I really want from wild magic is something more akin to wild meta-magic. Like, something goes wrong with the spell you were trying to cast, and it comes out different than you expected - maybe it does more or less damage than usual, maybe does a different type of damage, maybe it affects a bigger or smaller area, maybe it lasts a longer or shorter time, maybe it hits a different target, or just more targets, etc. Maybe there’s even a small side-effect not directly related to the spell you were trying to cast, but it should still ultimately feel like a mishap that resulted from your spell going awry, not like a completely random nonsense thing coincidentally happened at the same time as you cast your spell. “The fireball you were trying to cast had a larger radius than you expected and some of your allies got caught in the blast” feels like wild magic. “Your Charm Person charmed the wrong person” feels like wild magic. “Your chain lightning turned into some sort of chain frost bolt” feels like wild magic. “LOL, you’re a potted plant for the rest of your turn” feels stupid.

 

[Zardnaar]

Used a zone of it lvl 1 yesterday.

Generally I like it but it can cause issues.

 

[Kurotowa]

I would never play it myself. I'm a planner, I like to plan out my turns with deliberate precision. Throwing things to the dice gods is anathema to me. But I don't object to it being an option that exists for someone else who enjoys that sort of thing ...provided the result table doesn't have results that will randomly TPK the party or otherwise massively screw us over. That's just plain old party PvP with the wild surge table used as a scapegoat to take the blame.

So if the table is designed right, and I think the 5.24e one isn't bad, then I'd probably be fine with someone at the table playing one. But that's theoretical, because I can't remember the last time someone actually did. Maybe never? Which says a lot about it.

 

[Vael]

I'm trying out the Wild Magic Sorcerer (2024 version) and so far it's been ... anticlimactic? Admittedly, it's only been one session since I hit level 3 and in our one battle I rolled two surges (technically I rolled third that we then realized didn't happen because I couldn't use the advantage granted by Tides of Chaos on the attack roll to cause a wild magic surge on the same spell). The first was a teleport ... which was fun, teleported out of the boat we were in to an ally that was in trouble. I don't think that actually changed what happened in the scenario, aside from drawing the monster away from our boat. The second was an extra action ... which I used to cast a cantrip that missed. It's funny, between Innate Sorcery and Tides of Chaos, I should be almost always rolling spell attack rolls with advantage ... which doesn't stop me from rolling a 2 and a 4, lol