Hey, today I was playing in a winter one shot and I chose a Lightfoot Halfling Wild Magic Sorcerer at level 4 for this purpose. At first I thought the character was quite fun.
But when we came to the Boss fight, my Wild Magic triggered and I rolled a 50 on the table on the first round. That caused me to not be able to speak anymore, instead only pink bubbles emerged from my mouth when I tried. And it lasted for a minute.
I only learned spells that needed a verbal component and did not bring the subtle spell metamagic. This meant I was silenced for the whole fight, therefore the Boss destroyed our party and the evening was done.
Is there anything I could have done diffrently? Everyone always says the Fireball on yourself at 07 or 08 is the worst that could happen but a silence without a saving throw for 10 rounds is just terribly bad and super not fun. Whenever I got my turn I took the dodge action and was done. If I would have gone into melee combat with my dagger I would have gotten destroyed even quicker.
Any advices on something that I could have done here? Or just hope that you never roll a 49 or 50 on the table since it's soooo bad?
Wild magic sorcerer is really for players who don't mind rolling with the punches. Most of the items on the wild magic table are good or neutral and the good ones are better than anything your would get as a class feature. The other side of that is a few of the rolls can be bad. Some players will love playing the subclass some will hate it,
At low levels Fireball is definately the worst, at level 1 roll average damage and it is a TPK unless you happen to have a barbarian with +3 con in the party who makes the save. Even at level 4 it is likely to knock your sorcerer unconcious from full health. As you level up the damage becomes less significant and one or two other options are worse. Conversely being able to cast a 5th level magic missile might end the combat at low levels.
Another canditate for worst item on wild magic is polymorphing into a sheep. How bad depends on how much your party members know about what happened, yes they can get you back by hitting you for at least 3 damage but would they know that? As a sheep you are completely useless in combat and there is nothing YOU can do to undo it or mitigate the effect.
Not being able to speak is also pretty bad in combat situation, if you have subtle spell you can overcome it by burning sorcery points. You could prepare for it in advance by learning non verbal spells but the options for use in combat are very limited at your level (minor illusion my be useful to provide cover). At level 5 two of the best 3rd levels spells are Counterspell and hypnotic pattern, neither of which have verbal components if you want to have an option in case it happens again.
Yeah, it was my first time playing a wild magic sorcerer. So I didn't know this could happen, otherwise one is almost obligated to prepare for this to occur. I mean, generally I love weird situations that come up randomly with these surges, but I can't imagine someone considers it to be fun, when the entire party of level 1 or level 2 player characters is killed because your wild magic surge casts a fireball on all of them and everyone can go home because the adventure is over. But at least you can make a saving throw to half the damage of the fireball. With this unable to speak thing, you are just useless in combat.
So I guess for early levels, a homebrew table is almost a must? But thanks for the reply. I guess my adventures as a wild magic sorcerer PC are over for a while
The odds of an early fireball are very low (1 in 1000 per Surge, maybe 1 in 100 before you hit level 3). Having a character not able to do anything for a battle happens from other sources (eg having hold person cast on you and not being able to make the save). I think the subclass is fine from level 3 and before that you are just hoping not to get that fireball, all you an really do is try to be more than 20ft from your friends whenever you cast a levelled spell
Im one of those people that detests wild magic sorcerer's for exactly that reason. Only class in the game where it's main class feature can straight up kill you and your party or cause wipes because of a poorly timed potted plant
And the trade off is...the lulz? There's barely any upside to wild magic
You took it for the lulz got bit by its teeth, but it was a one shot so that's ok (if it was a campaign I would probably be a little more harsh that this 'surprised' you, always have to do your research with sorcs).
Non verbal spells Always a good idea to have one in your list, as you learnt the hard way. Catapult & Ice Knife are two decent level 1 options (Also, this is why Subtle Spell is in my top two meta's). Minor Illusion could have affected the fight with some creativity.
Risk Averse? Standing in the back doing dodge was the worst choice, did it change the result? I know it can be scary being squishy but sometimes you have to suck it up and be the first one to go down, that round the Boss spent felling you could have affected the action economy enough for your party to get another round themselves since they could do damage, rather than you going down last. Did you not even have a crossbow?
HELP ACTION. Main reason I replied as a lot of folk forget what else they can do with your action. Another reason to get up close. I don't know your party make-up, but Eg. You could have given a barbarian 2 rounds of advantage attacks without them having to go reckless, maybe more (might have been able to do this/similar with Minor Illusion).
Potions I don't know if you had any, but you could have fed people potions, or got them off the folk that had them to give to others (DM might have allowed this as action/bonus/free action in one round, down to them).
Environment Again I don't know the details, but ask the DM what's about. A lantern with oil? A rug to throw over the Bosses head (might have wasted a round for them). Hit them with a chair and a well worded insult, draw aggro and lead into to somewhere/thing then dodge? DM might have rewarded your creativity/bravery with a surprising result.
It's good you came here to learn something about it, rather than just blame the dice and dismiss it. It's also easy for me to have hindsight and type the above rather than being in the moment and going "Dang! Now what do I do" like you did (In the moment is always harder). Learn, adapt and think outside the box when you can, I reckon that DnD makes you do this is one of the best things about it.
As a wild magic sorcerer against the possible fireball spell, I would always choose Absorb Elements (1st level, Somatic only) as a necessary 1st level spell should you not have some sort of magic device to resist or partially absorb fire damage. In regard to being silenced, my sorcerers never go anywhere without subtle spell in their back pocket, if possible. Neither is a cure all, but they certainly help.
Thank you for your detailed reply. You made some good points. I suppose I was kind of dumb in the situation and did not think outside the box. Of course the help action would have been great here, also it could be that I had a crossbow, I was just frustrated and triggered.
These are some good advices. Maybe I will try this class once more. It just appears that this pink bubble wild surge is just so dumb and intended to generate some good laughs, which it might do outside of combat. But it seems like the designers overlooked the fact that it silences you for 10 turns without a saving throw in combat. Hold person at least gives you one try per turn to get out of the paralzye.
I am also kind of surprised at how constructive all your replys were. I didn't look into this thread for a month now and all the comments from you were really nice and not just telling me to not suck so much or something like that. So that's great, kudos to the DnD community! (Y)
also remember that the table is a suggestion. Your DM, if willing, can modify the table to the players' needs, situation or level. Can also add new items to the table: If 14-15 is one item, at some point make 15 a new item, thus gradually filling the table to a full hundred, instead of just fifty items. However, an effort should be made to keep ⅓ hazardous, ⅓ neutral, and ⅓ beneficial. Many of the home-brew immolation spells could be considered; see my own Sacrificial Immolation spell for a spell that is both good and bad.
Any character can use unarmed attacks to shove or grapple (sure you might not have the stats to back that up, but you might get lucky or at least make yourself annoying enough to the enemy to pull focus off your teammates), or you could use the hold action to try and throw yourself in front of your allies to take incoming attacks for them.
I might try to use my pink bubbles to my advantage and get in close to an enemy and try and blow a stream of bubbles into their eyes to impair them. It would 1000% be up to the DM to determine if this would do anything, or whether the soap bubbles are actually made of soap that would hurt the eyes or if it's just pure magic, but it would at least be a creative potential use for the one thing you have going for you that nobody else does at the moment. Your DM might even award you with Inspiration for thinking of something like that, even if it doesn't work.
I know I am late but as others have hinted there are ways to build around wild magic surges making alot of the "problems" less of one. There are some that really help. If you can get vulnerability on enemies you can cause insane damage (but it doesn't happen often) even the sheep polymorph still allows basic actions. Shove,help, unarmed ect
The ironic thing about wild magic is planning and logic work better than chaos. I built a wild mage that basically loves modrons an his sole goal is to summon them.
But not planning around v components is kinda taking a bad bet. Subtle spell, non verbal spells, weapons, some wands. There's usually something and if you can still cast you can surge and possibly do a good effect. There's even a chance casting alter self will allow a dm ruling to fix your v problem.
I actually usually think build wild magic with high dex or con before charisma. And try to take non cha spells or ones that might work with TOC advantage.
Understanding position is also key. Fireballing yourself is fun if you're surrounded by enemies and have absorb elements(possibly for two surges one round) but doing it by allies stinks. Plan for movement with mistystep or kinetic jaunt, ect.
If all else fails plan when not to surge. Cantrips, weapons or spells from non sorcerer sources. If it's too risky don't.(not that I've ever been in a too risky spot)
When I opened this thread I expected it to be the fireball result wiping the party (or enough for you to lose), but being unable to speak is something that most mages should consider at some point, as it's not just Wild Magic that might ruin your day when the silence spell (and similar effects) exist, along with environments where speech just isn't feasible (no oxygen, howling wind etc.).
So this isn't really a specific problem with wild magic, it's that you built your spell list with a major weakness (need to be able to speak); now I'm not saying it's your fault entirely, it's a super easy mistake to make, and even an experienced player who's willing to take the risk of silence might not be familiar enough with the Wild Magic Surge table to know that you've got another way to potentially screw yourself over.
I will say your DM should probably have made some accommodation for how badly this one result crippled you, though as others have said you did have other options for your turn (not ideal, but still contributing).
On the other hand, it could have so easily gone the other way; I once rolled a one on the table (roll again each turn for a minute) and I got mostly good results, leading to my Wizard (it was an environmental wild magic effect) being god-like for a turn thanks to being invisible, regaining spell slots, being able to cast spells as a bonus action (so he was casting and using a cantrip every turn) and firing off a number of free spells at levels he couldn't even cast yet. Though sadly his beard fell off, so I'm not sure it was worth it. 😂
Wild Magic can be fantastic, but it needs a DM and players who are okay with the randomness; being too strict and unaccommodating is not good in a DM as it will only make a player's bad luck feel even worse, but we're supposed to be having fun.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Results like this are why I loathe wild magic <insert class here>.
I'm generally not amused by them so I'd never play them. When someone else looking for the lulz ruins my night is when I get a serious case of hate fired up. At this point, I generally won't even play with a group when someone wants to run one. I just nope out and accept that it's not going to be the game for me to participate in. I'd like to see a wild magic table written in such a way that if someone wants to screw themselves over, great, but it shouldn't have to impact me directly.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
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Hey, today I was playing in a winter one shot and I chose a Lightfoot Halfling Wild Magic Sorcerer at level 4 for this purpose. At first I thought the character was quite fun.
But when we came to the Boss fight, my Wild Magic triggered and I rolled a 50 on the table on the first round. That caused me to not be able to speak anymore, instead only pink bubbles emerged from my mouth when I tried. And it lasted for a minute.
I only learned spells that needed a verbal component and did not bring the subtle spell metamagic. This meant I was silenced for the whole fight, therefore the Boss destroyed our party and the evening was done.
Is there anything I could have done diffrently? Everyone always says the Fireball on yourself at 07 or 08 is the worst that could happen but a silence without a saving throw for 10 rounds is just terribly bad and super not fun. Whenever I got my turn I took the dodge action and was done. If I would have gone into melee combat with my dagger I would have gotten destroyed even quicker.
Any advices on something that I could have done here? Or just hope that you never roll a 49 or 50 on the table since it's soooo bad?
Wild magic sorcerer is really for players who don't mind rolling with the punches. Most of the items on the wild magic table are good or neutral and the good ones are better than anything your would get as a class feature. The other side of that is a few of the rolls can be bad. Some players will love playing the subclass some will hate it,
At low levels Fireball is definately the worst, at level 1 roll average damage and it is a TPK unless you happen to have a barbarian with +3 con in the party who makes the save. Even at level 4 it is likely to knock your sorcerer unconcious from full health. As you level up the damage becomes less significant and one or two other options are worse. Conversely being able to cast a 5th level magic missile might end the combat at low levels.
Another canditate for worst item on wild magic is polymorphing into a sheep. How bad depends on how much your party members know about what happened, yes they can get you back by hitting you for at least 3 damage but would they know that? As a sheep you are completely useless in combat and there is nothing YOU can do to undo it or mitigate the effect.
Not being able to speak is also pretty bad in combat situation, if you have subtle spell you can overcome it by burning sorcery points. You could prepare for it in advance by learning non verbal spells but the options for use in combat are very limited at your level (minor illusion my be useful to provide cover). At level 5 two of the best 3rd levels spells are Counterspell and hypnotic pattern, neither of which have verbal components if you want to have an option in case it happens again.
Yeah, it was my first time playing a wild magic sorcerer. So I didn't know this could happen, otherwise one is almost obligated to prepare for this to occur. I mean, generally I love weird situations that come up randomly with these surges, but I can't imagine someone considers it to be fun, when the entire party of level 1 or level 2 player characters is killed because your wild magic surge casts a fireball on all of them and everyone can go home because the adventure is over.
But at least you can make a saving throw to half the damage of the fireball. With this unable to speak thing, you are just useless in combat.
So I guess for early levels, a homebrew table is almost a must? But thanks for the reply. I guess my adventures as a wild magic sorcerer PC are over for a while
The odds of an early fireball are very low (1 in 1000 per Surge, maybe 1 in 100 before you hit level 3). Having a character not able to do anything for a battle happens from other sources (eg having hold person cast on you and not being able to make the save). I think the subclass is fine from level 3 and before that you are just hoping not to get that fireball, all you an really do is try to be more than 20ft from your friends whenever you cast a levelled spell
Im one of those people that detests wild magic sorcerer's for exactly that reason. Only class in the game where it's main class feature can straight up kill you and your party or cause wipes because of a poorly timed potted plant
And the trade off is...the lulz? There's barely any upside to wild magic
You took it for the lulz got bit by its teeth, but it was a one shot so that's ok (if it was a campaign I would probably be a little more harsh that this 'surprised' you, always have to do your research with sorcs).
Non verbal spells
Always a good idea to have one in your list, as you learnt the hard way. Catapult & Ice Knife are two decent level 1 options (Also, this is why Subtle Spell is in my top two meta's). Minor Illusion could have affected the fight with some creativity.
Risk Averse?
Standing in the back doing dodge was the worst choice, did it change the result? I know it can be scary being squishy but sometimes you have to suck it up and be the first one to go down, that round the Boss spent felling you could have affected the action economy enough for your party to get another round themselves since they could do damage, rather than you going down last. Did you not even have a crossbow?
HELP ACTION.
Main reason I replied as a lot of folk forget what else they can do with your action. Another reason to get up close. I don't know your party make-up, but Eg. You could have given a barbarian 2 rounds of advantage attacks without them having to go reckless, maybe more (might have been able to do this/similar with Minor Illusion).
Potions
I don't know if you had any, but you could have fed people potions, or got them off the folk that had them to give to others (DM might have allowed this as action/bonus/free action in one round, down to them).
Environment
Again I don't know the details, but ask the DM what's about. A lantern with oil? A rug to throw over the Bosses head (might have wasted a round for them). Hit them with a chair and a well worded insult, draw aggro and lead into to somewhere/thing then dodge? DM might have rewarded your creativity/bravery with a surprising result.
It's good you came here to learn something about it, rather than just blame the dice and dismiss it. It's also easy for me to have hindsight and type the above rather than being in the moment and going "Dang! Now what do I do" like you did (In the moment is always harder). Learn, adapt and think outside the box when you can, I reckon that DnD makes you do this is one of the best things about it.
A scenario like this is when you retreat and find a more advantageous position.
As a wild magic sorcerer against the possible fireball spell, I would always choose Absorb Elements (1st level, Somatic only) as a necessary 1st level spell should you not have some sort of magic device to resist or partially absorb fire damage. In regard to being silenced, my sorcerers never go anywhere without subtle spell in their back pocket, if possible. Neither is a cure all, but they certainly help.
Thank you for your detailed reply. You made some good points. I suppose I was kind of dumb in the situation and did not think outside the box. Of course the help action would have been great here, also it could be that I had a crossbow, I was just frustrated and triggered.
These are some good advices. Maybe I will try this class once more. It just appears that this pink bubble wild surge is just so dumb and intended to generate some good laughs, which it might do outside of combat. But it seems like the designers overlooked the fact that it silences you for 10 turns without a saving throw in combat. Hold person at least gives you one try per turn to get out of the paralzye.
I am also kind of surprised at how constructive all your replys were. I didn't look into this thread for a month now and all the comments from you were really nice and not just telling me to not suck so much or something like that. So that's great, kudos to the DnD community! (Y)
Wild magic are my favorite subclasses. Its purely luck based which in my eyes makes it fun. Just have to make use with what happens
"Anyone can smith at the cosmic anvil, yet only I can forge a weapon as good as thee."
My Homebrew Please click it, they have my family.
also remember that the table is a suggestion. Your DM, if willing, can modify the table to the players' needs, situation or level. Can also add new items to the table: If 14-15 is one item, at some point make 15 a new item, thus gradually filling the table to a full hundred, instead of just fifty items. However, an effort should be made to keep ⅓ hazardous, ⅓ neutral, and ⅓ beneficial. Many of the home-brew immolation spells could be considered; see my own Sacrificial Immolation spell for a spell that is both good and bad.
Any character can use unarmed attacks to shove or grapple (sure you might not have the stats to back that up, but you might get lucky or at least make yourself annoying enough to the enemy to pull focus off your teammates), or you could use the hold action to try and throw yourself in front of your allies to take incoming attacks for them.
I might try to use my pink bubbles to my advantage and get in close to an enemy and try and blow a stream of bubbles into their eyes to impair them. It would 1000% be up to the DM to determine if this would do anything, or whether the soap bubbles are actually made of soap that would hurt the eyes or if it's just pure magic, but it would at least be a creative potential use for the one thing you have going for you that nobody else does at the moment. Your DM might even award you with Inspiration for thinking of something like that, even if it doesn't work.
I know I am late but as others have hinted there are ways to build around wild magic surges making alot of the "problems" less of one. There are some that really help. If you can get vulnerability on enemies you can cause insane damage (but it doesn't happen often) even the sheep polymorph still allows basic actions. Shove,help, unarmed ect
The ironic thing about wild magic is planning and logic work better than chaos. I built a wild mage that basically loves modrons an his sole goal is to summon them.
But not planning around v components is kinda taking a bad bet. Subtle spell, non verbal spells, weapons, some wands. There's usually something and if you can still cast you can surge and possibly do a good effect. There's even a chance casting alter self will allow a dm ruling to fix your v problem.
I actually usually think build wild magic with high dex or con before charisma. And try to take non cha spells or ones that might work with TOC advantage.
Understanding position is also key. Fireballing yourself is fun if you're surrounded by enemies and have absorb elements(possibly for two surges one round) but doing it by allies stinks. Plan for movement with mistystep or kinetic jaunt, ect.
If all else fails plan when not to surge. Cantrips, weapons or spells from non sorcerer sources. If it's too risky don't.(not that I've ever been in a too risky spot)
When I opened this thread I expected it to be the fireball result wiping the party (or enough for you to lose), but being unable to speak is something that most mages should consider at some point, as it's not just Wild Magic that might ruin your day when the silence spell (and similar effects) exist, along with environments where speech just isn't feasible (no oxygen, howling wind etc.).
So this isn't really a specific problem with wild magic, it's that you built your spell list with a major weakness (need to be able to speak); now I'm not saying it's your fault entirely, it's a super easy mistake to make, and even an experienced player who's willing to take the risk of silence might not be familiar enough with the Wild Magic Surge table to know that you've got another way to potentially screw yourself over.
I will say your DM should probably have made some accommodation for how badly this one result crippled you, though as others have said you did have other options for your turn (not ideal, but still contributing).
On the other hand, it could have so easily gone the other way; I once rolled a one on the table (roll again each turn for a minute) and I got mostly good results, leading to my Wizard (it was an environmental wild magic effect) being god-like for a turn thanks to being invisible, regaining spell slots, being able to cast spells as a bonus action (so he was casting and using a cantrip every turn) and firing off a number of free spells at levels he couldn't even cast yet. Though sadly his beard fell off, so I'm not sure it was worth it. 😂
Wild Magic can be fantastic, but it needs a DM and players who are okay with the randomness; being too strict and unaccommodating is not good in a DM as it will only make a player's bad luck feel even worse, but we're supposed to be having fun.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Results like this are why I loathe wild magic <insert class here>.
I'm generally not amused by them so I'd never play them. When someone else looking for the lulz ruins my night is when I get a serious case of hate fired up. At this point, I generally won't even play with a group when someone wants to run one. I just nope out and accept that it's not going to be the game for me to participate in. I'd like to see a wild magic table written in such a way that if someone wants to screw themselves over, great, but it shouldn't have to impact me directly.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha