Wild Mage: Miscellaneous Suggestions

We will file suggestions here that did not make the cut. Don't expect detailed responses, but the most common reasons are:
- implementing the suggestion is impractical, or too much work for the gain
- the suggestion is thematically against our design philosophy
- the suggestion is too detailed/low-level
Keep your suggestions broad and focused on RP benefits, please, not detailed suggestions of how to tweak X class.

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Kalopsia
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Wild Mage: Miscellaneous Suggestions

Post by Kalopsia » Mon Oct 15, 2018 5:12 pm

First of all, I got to say that playing a Wild Mage has been absolutely amazing - and will continue to be. However, over the course of what has become several months, one or the other thought on adjustments that would make the path even more awesome and unique has come to mind, and I figured I could collect and share them all here!


General Surge Mechanics
The following three changes would permit making Wild Mages more unpredictable by decreasing the likelihood of their surges negatively affecting the gaming experience of everyone else.
  • Lowered DCs for Wild Surges affecting party members - meanwhile, the caster must pass the regular DC.
  • Party members get to roll saves against otherwise saveless surges, allowing them to negate the ramifications entirely.
  • Harmful surges no longer affect neutral NPCs or fixtures: Less collateral damage, less angry NPCs - and less work for DMs.
Now that foundations have been laid, let’s get to the changes that’ll make Wild Mage life a bit riskier - and thus more fun!
  • The Wild Surge chance starts at 20%, but is lowered by 5% for every 9 (or 7 if “perfect control” is deemed a viable option) Wild Mage levels. Talking to an already existing secret NPC allows switching back and forth between already “unlocked” surge chances. Alternatively, this could be tied to a -wildmage command that would be enabled after speaking to said NPC for the first time.
    • The RP reason: Inexperienced Wild Mages don’t know what they are doing, thus are more likely to “mess things up.” As they gain levels, they also achieve a higher degree of control - but can willingly forsake this control via the method above.
    • The mechanical reason: Wizards at lower levels have access to much less spell slots than at high levels - which equals less “Wild Mage”-moments. The proposed change should even things up a little.
  • Infinite Spells granted by Greater Spell Foci have a 5% chance to result in any other spell of the same school - but a 33% chance to backfire at the caster in this case.

Existing Surge Adjustments
  • Gate (#12 and 13): Not unlike the NWN default Gate spell, the summoned creature has a 50/100% chance of turning into a faithful and loyal servant if the Wild Mage is affected by Protection/Magic Circle against its respective alignment. Instead of the usual Rift Demons, the surges summon a random outsider of any summon stream and summon tier. A Mane? A Celestial Avenger? A Pit Fiend? Anything is possible!
  • Glow (#35 or 37): Glow is nice - Chaos is better! Replace one of the two surges with “Double Surge” (#95) or something completely different (See: New Surge Ideas!)
  • Weather (#38 and 87): Sadly, these surges don’t do anything if not outside – why not change them to turn interior areas into Wild Magic zones for their durations? This would allow them to have some effect in the Underdark.
  • Combat Ready (#58): A minor QoL suggestion here: In line with the changes to PDK abilities and Barbarian rage, please remove the automatic battlecry using the character’s soundset. I would rather RP an epic moment of combat premonition than have my mage scream in panic at her foes :D
    Additionally, one bonus attack per round (limited to Wild Mages) would be quite fitting. Pure Wild Mages, while able to call this surge on demand, will never be as capable in melee as a Spellsword - in addition to their obvious lack of the Discipline skill. Giving them one extra APR will make them the “true fighters” the surge description implies, without being overpowered.
  • Double Surge (#95): What is better than one Surge? Right: Two Surges! Double Surge has resulted in perhaps the most awkward (and funny) “Wild Mage”-moments I’ve had so far - why not make it occur a bit more frequently to reflect the unpredictable nature of raw magic?

New Surge Ideas
  • Ludicrous Linguistics: The caster automatically switches to a random language, known or unknown, and can only speak in this tongue for the next few in game hours. (Likely Thieves Cant and Sign Language should be impossible results, as the way they are currently working prevents any “desperate attempts” to communicate via emotes.)

Monolithic Elementals
Minor side-note: My feedback is based on observations made while playing a pure Wild Mage with ESF: Conjuration.
  • First and foremost: The Earthquake spell cast by Earth Monoliths destroys loot. This likely hurt the feelings of ANY Wild Mage player out there at some point. :D
  • Additionally, Monoliths often attempt to cast their respective spells in melee range, which, due to the lack of any Concentration ranks, results in the summons getting interrupted (and thus flat-footed) over and over.
  • Air and Water Monoliths should be brought in line with their respective Ancient counterparts, granting them an electrical aura and lowering their regeneration, respectively. For reference, here’s a link to the update that introduced these changes: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=25&start=300#p163777
  • Earth Monoliths die quite swiftly despite their huge HP pool - I’d suggest giving them a little extra DR, considering Wild Mages don’t have access to Regeneration spells that make Earth Elementals viable for Healer Clerics.

Fatidical Manipulation
  • Please consider changing this level 28 milestone to a 30min cooldown instead of it being 1/day. Doing so would allow things like supporting a party with Mass Elemental Buffer while still being able to try that Wrathful Castigation on a dungeon boss later on. The long cooldown is necessary to prevent multiple defensive surges from being -fated within short time windows.
  • Offensive surges are currently in a somewhat bad spot - they roll a fortitude save at random DCs and don’t do anything if the saving throw is passed. I would suggest changing this into a “fortitude for half effect” saving throw instead - at least for damage-centred surges. Polymorph surges deserve their saves for known reasons.
    Alternatively: Higher (or more reliable) DCs, as well as different saving throws for different damaging surges to allow a Wild Mage to aim for a target’s lowest saving throws. The reason: Fortitude is the highest save of most targets, making offensive usage of -fate almost impossible, be it in PvE or PvP. Wild Mages currently almost always prefer the longer-lasting defensive surges for this reason.

Minor Bug Reports
  • Some spells (most of them auto-targeting the caster) currently do not result in any Wild Surge effects whatsoever. Examples: Protection from Evil/Good, Premonition. (In contrast, True Strike and Energy Buffer are working as intended.)
  • Polymorph surges do not replenish spells: The “refresh spellbook”-script (meant to prevent characters from losing spell slots via shapeshifting) triggers after the spell was replenished, thus overwriting it with a used slot.
  • Wards overwriting prior instances of the same spell (instead of stacking indefinitely) remove any persisting surge effects connected to said prior instances. Example: Energy Buffer.

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ActionReplay
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Re: Wild Mage: Miscellaneous Suggestions

Post by ActionReplay » Mon Oct 15, 2018 6:57 pm

Such a long post I felt obligated to write a response. First, thanks a lot for the kind words and glad you enjoyed the path. Wild Mage suggestions comes and goes and has been like that during the years since it was first introduced and made the path to what it is today. Suggestions and feedback are always welcome and I try to read all of them, though I may not respond to most of them as that alone takes time but do know I read them and take them into account ;)
Kalopsia wrote:
Mon Oct 15, 2018 5:12 pm
General Surge Mechanics
  • Lowered DCs for Wild Surges affecting party members - meanwhile, the caster must pass the regular DC.
  • Party members get to roll saves against otherwise saveless surges, allowing them to negate the ramifications entirely.
  • Harmful surges no longer affect neutral NPCs or fixtures: Less collateral damage, less angry NPCs - and less work for DMs.
It is possible to add in so party members are not affected by the positive AoE spells or alter the DC for them. At the same time I think this also adds to the chaotic nature of the path, will think about it.

Harmful surges should, hopefully, only affect hostiles to you. If they do not I would need the surge in question and look into it.
  • The Wild Surge chance starts at 20%, but is lowered by 5% for every 9 (or 7 if “perfect control” is deemed a viable option) Wild Mage levels. Talking to an already existing secret NPC allows switching back and forth between already “unlocked” surge chances. Alternatively, this could be tied to a -wildmage command that would be enabled after speaking to said NPC for the first time.
    • The RP reason: Inexperienced Wild Mages don’t know what they are doing, thus are more likely to “mess things up.” As they gain levels, they also achieve a higher degree of control - but can willingly forsake this control via the method above.
    • The mechanical reason: Wizards at lower levels have access to much less spell slots than at high levels - which equals less “Wild Mage”-moments. The proposed change should even things up a little.
  • Infinite Spells granted by Greater Spell Foci have a 5% chance to result in any other spell of the same school - but a 33% chance to backfire at the caster in this case.
There are already in game means to increase your Surge chance from 5% to 10%. Having it start at 20%, every 5th spell, could cause too much havoc, especially for starters. The -surge command already gives you a guaranteed surge anyway and will increase by levels. I feel having the chance at 5% with an increase to 10% works nicely as it is.

The last one with Infinite Focus would take too long to implement.
Existing Surge Adjustments
  • Gate (#12 and 13): Not unlike the NWN default Gate spell, the summoned creature has a 50/100% chance of turning into a faithful and loyal servant if the Wild Mage is affected by Protection/Magic Circle against its respective alignment. Instead of the usual Rift Demons, the surges summon a random outsider of any summon stream and summon tier. A Mane? A Celestial Avenger? A Pit Fiend? Anything is possible!
  • Glow (#35 or 37): Glow is nice - Chaos is better! Replace one of the two surges with “Double Surge” (#95) or something completely different (See: New Surge Ideas!)
  • Weather (#38 and 87): Sadly, these surges don’t do anything if not outside – why not change them to turn interior areas into Wild Magic zones for their durations? This would allow them to have some effect in the Underdark.
  • Combat Ready (#58): A minor QoL suggestion here: In line with the changes to PDK abilities and Barbarian rage, please remove the automatic battlecry using the character’s soundset. I would rather RP an epic moment of combat premonition than have my mage scream in panic at her foes :D
    Additionally, one bonus attack per round (limited to Wild Mages) would be quite fitting. Pure Wild Mages, while able to call this surge on demand, will never be as capable in melee as a Spellsword - in addition to their obvious lack of the Discipline skill. Giving them one extra APR will make them the “true fighters” the surge description implies, without being overpowered.
  • Double Surge (#95): What is better than one Surge? Right: Two Surges! Double Surge has resulted in perhaps the most awkward (and funny) “Wild Mage”-moments I’ve had so far - why not make it occur a bit more frequently to reflect the unpredictable nature of raw magic?
I like these suggestions I may add some of them in.
New Surge Ideas
  • Ludicrous Linguistics: The caster automatically switches to a random language, known or unknown, and can only speak in this tongue for the next few in game hours. (Likely Thieves Cant and Sign Language should be impossible results, as the way they are currently working prevents any “desperate attempts” to communicate via emotes.)
Monolithic Elementals
Minor side-note: My feedback is based on observations made while playing a pure Wild Mage with ESF: Conjuration.
  • First and foremost: The Earthquake spell cast by Earth Monoliths destroys loot. This likely hurt the feelings of ANY Wild Mage player out there at some point. :D
  • Additionally, Monoliths often attempt to cast their respective spells in melee range, which, due to the lack of any Concentration ranks, results in the summons getting interrupted (and thus flat-footed) over and over.
  • Air and Water Monoliths should be brought in line with their respective Ancient counterparts, granting them an electrical aura and lowering their regeneration, respectively. For reference, here’s a link to the update that introduced these changes: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=25&start=300#p163777
  • Earth Monoliths die quite swiftly despite their huge HP pool - I’d suggest giving them a little extra DR, considering Wild Mages don’t have access to Regeneration spells that make Earth Elementals viable for Healer Clerics.
I've toyed with the idea of altering the language before and may just do that, especially for the Silence surge so you can not talk at all. I like the idea of switching language entirely as well.

The monoliths could use an update for sure, nothing really to add here on my part.
Fatidical Manipulation
  • Please consider changing this level 28 milestone to a 30min cooldown instead of it being 1/day. Doing so would allow things like supporting a party with Mass Elemental Buffer while still being able to try that Wrathful Castigation on a dungeon boss later on. The long cooldown is necessary to prevent multiple defensive surges from being -fated within short time windows.
  • Offensive surges are currently in a somewhat bad spot - they roll a fortitude save at random DCs and don’t do anything if the saving throw is passed. I would suggest changing this into a “fortitude for half effect” saving throw instead - at least for damage-centred surges. Polymorph surges deserve their saves for known reasons.
    Alternatively: Higher (or more reliable) DCs, as well as different saving throws for different damaging surges to allow a Wild Mage to aim for a target’s lowest saving throws. The reason: Fortitude is the highest save of most targets, making offensive usage of -fate almost impossible, be it in PvE or PvP. Wild Mages currently almost always prefer the longer-lasting defensive surges for this reason.
Fate is very powerful, having it on a cooldown could work I suppose. Will have to discuss this with the balance team.
As for offensive surges they scale like any other spell, most of them anyway. You keep mentioning Fortitude Save I dunno maybe that is because there are quite a lot of Necromancy surges in there. The DCs are not random they take your modifiers and foci into account like other spells. Some even have a slight boost to their DC on them. “Fortitude for half effect” is only possible on certain spells I fear, but others not. I think there even are some surges in there that does this already. If you pass a save you usually dodge the effect. Please bare in mind most custom spells I added for surges are based on source book material so I usually go by that ofc I have taken some liberty for a few of them. Also other spell protections work against some of these spells based on what the spell does.
Minor Bug Reports
  • Some spells (most of them auto-targeting the caster) currently do not result in any Wild Surge effects whatsoever. Examples: Protection from Evil/Good, Premonition. (In contrast, True Strike and Energy Buffer are working as intended.)
  • Polymorph surges do not replenish spells: The “refresh spellbook”-script (meant to prevent characters from losing spell slots via shapeshifting) triggers after the spell was replenished, thus overwriting it with a used slot.
  • Wards overwriting prior instances of the same spell (instead of stacking indefinitely) remove any persisting surge effects connected to said prior instances. Example: Energy Buffer.
[/justify]
Its a long-standing issue with certain spells not triggering properly. Usually the target information is lost. Mage Armor is one such examples and as you mentioned certain other spells. I guess I could do some work-arounds if I knew exactly a list of spells that always cause an issue.

Some of the polymorph spells do not replenish spells correct . I kept this in for the negative ones due to them being negative ;) If its still there for positive ones I should look into that and fix it.

And the last point here for wards overwriting. I don't think all of them do this but in certain cases I've added this in so stacks do not get ridiculous. Some of this behaviour is vanilla NWN for spells, they do this as well. Like if you cast Energy Buffer and then cast it again on yourself it would overwrite the previous one. But then again I know there are other instances where surges and regular spells do stack or work "side-by-side".

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