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.
Existing Surge Adjustments
New Surge Ideas
Monolithic Elementals
Minor side-note: My feedback is based on observations made while playing a pure Wild Mage with ESF: Conjuration.
Fatidical Manipulation
Minor Bug Reports
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.
- 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.