So I'll be DM'ing a full campaign for the first time and one of my players is thinking about playing a wild magic sorcerer. When and how often should I make them roll to see if they get a wild magic surge?
That entirely depends on you. By default you can make them roll any time they cast a leveled spell, but there is only a 5% chance of it triggering each time. This means that it will trigger very rarely, if ever.
At low levels, a bad Wild Magic Surge can TPK the entire party at low levels, but that's also what makes the class fun.
My personal solution is to use a "cumulative risk factor". Meaning, I have them roll every time they cast a leveled spell, and each time nothing happens, I increase the DC by one. So, after 10 spells cast, there is a 50% chance of triggering. This ensures that it will happen eventually, but not too often.
Note that if the sorcerer wants to trigger the Surge deliberately, they have access to the Tides of Chaos feature. You could also introduce the Feywild Shard to give them more control.
My personal solution is to use a "cumulative risk factor". Meaning, I have them roll every time they cast a leveled spell, and each time nothing happens, I increase the DC by one. So, after 10 spells cast, there is a 50% chance of triggering. This ensures that it will happen eventually, but not too often.
Absolutely do this, otherwise you'll get a surge maybe once every 50 sessions. Speaking from experience with the wild magic sorcerer in my current game, which has been running for 2.5 years and has only surged like 3 times.
There are also a lot of homebrew wild magic charts out there; I have found several, so ask if you want them.
It also depends on your player(s). I love wild magic; in the last game I played in, I triggered it as often as possible. But, my DM was using a homebrew chart, which drastically reduced the chances of my murdering my party, while increasing the chances of screwing myself up! (I started out as a normal tiefling, and wound up with blue skin, two sets of antlers, and floppy ears!)
But, first, I made sure that the rest of the party was willing to accept my antics. That group enjoyed the wacky things that happened, so my DM let me go crazy with it. But not all parties enjoy it so much. I’d say to ask the other players how much wild magic they want in the game, and go from there.
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I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
I played as a Wild Magic Sorcerer and my DM would always forget to have me roll since there was so much already going on. How we ended up handling it was I had a separate d20 that was my Wild Magic Surge die. Anytime I casted a leveled spell, I would roll that special die at the same time to see if Wild Magic went off. We started doing this around level 12 because we never used the table prior to that (since he forgot completely about it until then! The rare time he would call for it was like, once every 5 levels.) It worked for my table, but that method does have it's issues, especially with lower levels.
The main times it says for the Wild Mage to roll to see if wild magic activates is:
Once per turn, after casting a leveled sorcerer spell
this is at DM discretion, but here is how I would do it:
everytime the requirement is met (so anytime after they cast a leveled sorcerer spell, but only once per turn).
A separate instance, The Tides of Chaos recharge, is an immediate use of the wild magic table (no roll to see if it activates). I generally would recommend doing this at least once per short rest for the wild mage. That allows them a fair number of advantaged rolls per adventuring day, without a surge happening all the time.
Consider this: The thing about wild magic is that it is a net positive, it is by far over all a benefit and if you don't have them roll they lose out on their subclass. The more you make them roll on wild magic the better the subclass is.
The player chose this because they want to roll on wild magic.
The only really terrible thing that can happen is if they roll fireball, at a low level. If you want you can just remove that option until level 5 or scale it down for the level. Maybe to do something like replace it with shatter until level 5
Wild Magic is more positive than negative, and as the core mechanic to the subclass, the player should be able to roll on the Wild Magic table (not just rolling *for* wild magic) as often as possible. This will generally happen 1 of two ways.
The first is that, after casting a leveled spell, they roll a d20 and on a 1, they roll on the table. As you can imagine, this rarely happens, and most people feel the need to homebrew the odds slightly to increase as you go. I don't consider it necessary, given that the second option can have your player rolling on the table almost every round (at DM discretion).
The second way to get Wild Magic, and the primary way to get it, is by using the ability Tides of Chaos. You can use it and then get it back on a long rest, but the rider of that is very important, and that is that any time after they use it when they cast a leveled spell, the DM can ask them to roll on the wild magic table. After they roll on the table, Tides of Chaos re-sets and they can use it the next turn.
Now, I don't allow the Wild Magic sorcerer to surge *every* turn in my game, but I do most turns, and he usually gets at least one per fight. It's a really fun subclass to DM for as long as you're not scared of letting them roll. It is slightly poorly designed in that the main way to get a Surge is up to the DM, when most DM's can't be expected to memorize how each of every player's abilities work, but if you're aware of how Tides of Chaos works going into it then it is VERY fun.
I have a homebrew rule for this, it actually makes sense in game for me. The threshold for Wild Magic Surge equals the spell level. So, if you're casting a 5th level spell, there's a much higher chance to roll Wild Magic than a 1st level spell, representing the closer the magic is coming to overflowing as you pull harder on it to cast spells.
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"I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with an elf."
Consider this: The thing about wild magic is that it is a net positive, it is by far over all a benefit and if you don't have them roll they lose out on their subclass. The more you make them roll on wild magic the better the subclass is.
The player chose this because they want to roll on wild magic.
The only really terrible thing that can happen is if they roll fireball, at a low level. If you want you can just remove that option until level 5 or scale it down for the level. Maybe to do something like replace it with shatter until level 5
There are several options besides Fireball that can negatively impact your allies. Confusion, fog, necrotic damage, damage vulnerability, random buffs to enemies, etc. That's what makes this subclass so contentious to the point that many tables just ban it outright.
Everyone needs to buy in to having a wild magic sorcerer on the team, and if you want to activate Wild Surge even more often, they need to buy into that too. Otherwise you can start to build up resentment because every battle turns into Wacky Sorcerer Fun Time.
Consider this: The thing about wild magic is that it is a net positive, it is by far over all a benefit and if you don't have them roll they lose out on their subclass. The more you make them roll on wild magic the better the subclass is.
The player chose this because they want to roll on wild magic.
The only really terrible thing that can happen is if they roll fireball, at a low level. If you want you can just remove that option until level 5 or scale it down for the level. Maybe to do something like replace it with shatter until level 5
There are several options besides Fireball that can negatively impact your allies. Confusion, fog, necrotic damage, damage vulnerability, random buffs to enemies, etc. That's what makes this subclass so contentious to the point that many tables just ban it outright.
Everyone needs to buy in to having a wild magic sorcerer on the team, and if you want to activate Wild Surge even more often, they need to buy into that too. Otherwise you can start to build up resentment because every battle turns into Wacky Sorcerer Fun Time.
A 5% chance of activation per round (and even then it's unlikely a leveled spell gets cast every round) is a pretty low chance that "every" battle turns into wild magic time, even if the DM makes the roll happen every time it can. The big sticker is whether the DM is allowing a constant recharge of the Tides of Chaos ability. I try to limit that to once per short rest when I'm DM'ing.
A player (and a PC) who know their "issues" with magic will actively try to mitigate the negative effects of their wild magic by keeping distance and acting as a blaster (which is a role Sorcerers excel in anyway).
Consider this: The thing about wild magic is that it is a net positive, it is by far over all a benefit and if you don't have them roll they lose out on their subclass. The more you make them roll on wild magic the better the subclass is.
The player chose this because they want to roll on wild magic.
The only really terrible thing that can happen is if they roll fireball, at a low level. If you want you can just remove that option until level 5 or scale it down for the level. Maybe to do something like replace it with shatter until level 5
There are several options besides Fireball that can negatively impact your allies. Confusion, fog, necrotic damage, damage vulnerability, random buffs to enemies, etc. That's what makes this subclass so contentious to the point that many tables just ban it outright.
Everyone needs to buy in to having a wild magic sorcerer on the team, and if you want to activate Wild Surge even more often, they need to buy into that too. Otherwise you can start to build up resentment because every battle turns into Wacky Sorcerer Fun Time.
A 5% chance of activation per round (and even then it's unlikely a leveled spell gets cast every round) is a pretty low chance that "every" battle turns into wild magic time, even if the DM makes the roll happen every time it can. The big sticker is whether the DM is allowing a constant recharge of the Tides of Chaos ability. I try to limit that to once per short rest when I'm DM'ing.
A player (and a PC) who know their "issues" with magic will actively try to mitigate the negative effects of their wild magic by keeping distance and acting as a blaster (which is a role Sorcerers excel in anyway).
I would argue against 1 Tides per short rest. It's actually a rather severe nerf for the subclass, and there's not much of a reason to regulate how often you roll. The table may look big and scary with stuff like a self-centered fireball on it, but it has enough variety between things that will help a lot, a little, do nothing, hurt a little, or hurt a lot, that even if you do roll every round (which as has been pointed out above, the conditions aren't always met often enough for that to be the case), you don't need to worry about it breaking your game.
There's just as many "you're blue now" or "you grow a feather beard" options as there are "you win the fight" or "auto-death" options (more, actually), so the odds are actually really evenly balanced towards the wild magic sorcerer not being a disruptive presence at the table. It's designed to make things fun, introduce some random elements (that I agree, you probably want to get table buy-in on just to be safe), and to make the occasional combat go bananas.
I think the only tweak it needs is a stronger reminder to the DM to actually proc Tides of Chaos from time to time, because it shouldn't be up to the DM to have to worry about making sure the players' class features work, it should be the player's job.
I have a Wild Mage in my game that uses Tides of Chaos for spellcasting literally every round they can, because I make them roll on the table immediately after every cast to refresh ToC. The player has WAY more fun than waiting for a silly Wild Magic surge d20 roll, and we just roleplay that they're always boiling over with wild magic every time they cast a leveled-spell. As a player myself, I'd be bored if the DM let me roll ToC only once per short rest....
Seriously, if you don't let your Wild mage sorcerer roll very often on the table the class has nothing to offer for the player. Think about some crazy classfeatures, that other classes get, while tho only thing for the wildmage is about that table. That's the reason why over 60% of the outcomes are advantageous for the player. It's a cool class-feature that should be used often.
In my campaign the sorcerer rolls every time he casts a leveled spell (not even limited per turn). And every time he uses his tides of chaos ability the next Spell he casts automatically triggers a wild surge granting the sorcerer a new charge of tides of chaos. In this way the sorcerer has advantage every two attacks, and any other round something cool happens on the battlefield. My player is enjoying his character way more, since ha rolls once or twice every gamesession on the table, and so far the table enjoys the thrill too.
So I'll be DM'ing a full campaign for the first time and one of my players is thinking about playing a wild magic sorcerer. When and how often should I make them roll to see if they get a wild magic surge?
What am I supposed to do with a signature?
Egg
That entirely depends on you. By default you can make them roll any time they cast a leveled spell, but there is only a 5% chance of it triggering each time. This means that it will trigger very rarely, if ever.
At low levels, a bad Wild Magic Surge can TPK the entire party at low levels, but that's also what makes the class fun.
My personal solution is to use a "cumulative risk factor". Meaning, I have them roll every time they cast a leveled spell, and each time nothing happens, I increase the DC by one. So, after 10 spells cast, there is a 50% chance of triggering. This ensures that it will happen eventually, but not too often.
Note that if the sorcerer wants to trigger the Surge deliberately, they have access to the Tides of Chaos feature. You could also introduce the Feywild Shard to give them more control.
Absolutely do this, otherwise you'll get a surge maybe once every 50 sessions. Speaking from experience with the wild magic sorcerer in my current game, which has been running for 2.5 years and has only surged like 3 times.
"To die would be an awfully big adventure"
There are also a lot of homebrew wild magic charts out there; I have found several, so ask if you want them.
It also depends on your player(s). I love wild magic; in the last game I played in, I triggered it as often as possible. But, my DM was using a homebrew chart, which drastically reduced the chances of my murdering my party, while increasing the chances of screwing myself up! (I started out as a normal tiefling, and wound up with blue skin, two sets of antlers, and floppy ears!)
But, first, I made sure that the rest of the party was willing to accept my antics. That group enjoyed the wacky things that happened, so my DM let me go crazy with it. But not all parties enjoy it so much. I’d say to ask the other players how much wild magic they want in the game, and go from there.
I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
Tbh some of the Wild magic table is a bit dull - it’s also mostly combat focussed when is funnier happening in social situations
I played as a Wild Magic Sorcerer and my DM would always forget to have me roll since there was so much already going on. How we ended up handling it was I had a separate d20 that was my Wild Magic Surge die. Anytime I casted a leveled spell, I would roll that special die at the same time to see if Wild Magic went off. We started doing this around level 12 because we never used the table prior to that (since he forgot completely about it until then! The rare time he would call for it was like, once every 5 levels.) It worked for my table, but that method does have it's issues, especially with lower levels.
The main times it says for the Wild Mage to roll to see if wild magic activates is:
this is at DM discretion, but here is how I would do it:
A separate instance, The Tides of Chaos recharge, is an immediate use of the wild magic table (no roll to see if it activates). I generally would recommend doing this at least once per short rest for the wild mage. That allows them a fair number of advantaged rolls per adventuring day, without a surge happening all the time.
Consider this:
The thing about wild magic is that it is a net positive, it is by far over all a benefit and if you don't have them roll they lose out on their subclass. The more you make them roll on wild magic the better the subclass is.
The player chose this because they want to roll on wild magic.
The only really terrible thing that can happen is if they roll fireball, at a low level. If you want you can just remove that option until level 5 or scale it down for the level. Maybe to do something like replace it with shatter until level 5
Wild Magic is more positive than negative, and as the core mechanic to the subclass, the player should be able to roll on the Wild Magic table (not just rolling *for* wild magic) as often as possible. This will generally happen 1 of two ways.
The first is that, after casting a leveled spell, they roll a d20 and on a 1, they roll on the table. As you can imagine, this rarely happens, and most people feel the need to homebrew the odds slightly to increase as you go. I don't consider it necessary, given that the second option can have your player rolling on the table almost every round (at DM discretion).
The second way to get Wild Magic, and the primary way to get it, is by using the ability Tides of Chaos. You can use it and then get it back on a long rest, but the rider of that is very important, and that is that any time after they use it when they cast a leveled spell, the DM can ask them to roll on the wild magic table. After they roll on the table, Tides of Chaos re-sets and they can use it the next turn.
Now, I don't allow the Wild Magic sorcerer to surge *every* turn in my game, but I do most turns, and he usually gets at least one per fight. It's a really fun subclass to DM for as long as you're not scared of letting them roll. It is slightly poorly designed in that the main way to get a Surge is up to the DM, when most DM's can't be expected to memorize how each of every player's abilities work, but if you're aware of how Tides of Chaos works going into it then it is VERY fun.
I have a homebrew rule for this, it actually makes sense in game for me. The threshold for Wild Magic Surge equals the spell level. So, if you're casting a 5th level spell, there's a much higher chance to roll Wild Magic than a 1st level spell, representing the closer the magic is coming to overflowing as you pull harder on it to cast spells.
"I never thought I'd die fighting side by side with an elf."
"What about side by side with a side?"
"Aye, I eye eye eye."
There are several options besides Fireball that can negatively impact your allies. Confusion, fog, necrotic damage, damage vulnerability, random buffs to enemies, etc. That's what makes this subclass so contentious to the point that many tables just ban it outright.
Everyone needs to buy in to having a wild magic sorcerer on the team, and if you want to activate Wild Surge even more often, they need to buy into that too. Otherwise you can start to build up resentment because every battle turns into Wacky Sorcerer Fun Time.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
A 5% chance of activation per round (and even then it's unlikely a leveled spell gets cast every round) is a pretty low chance that "every" battle turns into wild magic time, even if the DM makes the roll happen every time it can. The big sticker is whether the DM is allowing a constant recharge of the Tides of Chaos ability. I try to limit that to once per short rest when I'm DM'ing.
A player (and a PC) who know their "issues" with magic will actively try to mitigate the negative effects of their wild magic by keeping distance and acting as a blaster (which is a role Sorcerers excel in anyway).
I would argue against 1 Tides per short rest. It's actually a rather severe nerf for the subclass, and there's not much of a reason to regulate how often you roll. The table may look big and scary with stuff like a self-centered fireball on it, but it has enough variety between things that will help a lot, a little, do nothing, hurt a little, or hurt a lot, that even if you do roll every round (which as has been pointed out above, the conditions aren't always met often enough for that to be the case), you don't need to worry about it breaking your game.
There's just as many "you're blue now" or "you grow a feather beard" options as there are "you win the fight" or "auto-death" options (more, actually), so the odds are actually really evenly balanced towards the wild magic sorcerer not being a disruptive presence at the table. It's designed to make things fun, introduce some random elements (that I agree, you probably want to get table buy-in on just to be safe), and to make the occasional combat go bananas.
I think the only tweak it needs is a stronger reminder to the DM to actually proc Tides of Chaos from time to time, because it shouldn't be up to the DM to have to worry about making sure the players' class features work, it should be the player's job.
I have a Wild Mage in my game that uses Tides of Chaos for spellcasting literally every round they can, because I make them roll on the table immediately after every cast to refresh ToC. The player has WAY more fun than waiting for a silly Wild Magic surge d20 roll, and we just roleplay that they're always boiling over with wild magic every time they cast a leveled-spell. As a player myself, I'd be bored if the DM let me roll ToC only once per short rest....
Seriously, if you don't let your Wild mage sorcerer roll very often on the table the class has nothing to offer for the player. Think about some crazy classfeatures, that other classes get, while tho only thing for the wildmage is about that table. That's the reason why over 60% of the outcomes are advantageous for the player. It's a cool class-feature that should be used often.
In my campaign the sorcerer rolls every time he casts a leveled spell (not even limited per turn). And every time he uses his tides of chaos ability the next Spell he casts automatically triggers a wild surge granting the sorcerer a new charge of tides of chaos. In this way the sorcerer has advantage every two attacks, and any other round something cool happens on the battlefield.
My player is enjoying his character way more, since ha rolls once or twice every gamesession on the table, and so far the table enjoys the thrill too.