Wild Magic

[swirler]

I miss Wild Magic.
I loved the way it was done in the 2nd edition AD&D Tome of Magic. Has it been handled so far in D20? I would really like to add it into my current game since its based off an old world we used to play in that had Wild Mages.

Thanks for any help.

[The White Toymaker]

swirler wrote:

I miss Wild Magic.

I loved the way it was done in the 2nd edition AD&D Tome of Magic. Has it been handled so far in D20? I would really like to add it into my current game since its based off an old world we used to play in that had Wild Mages.

Thanks for any help.

I've used it in one game thus far. Since I'm not sure how it was handled in previous editions, I've got the warlock-wild mage (both classes are in the Complete Arcane) making a percentile roll each time she uses an invocation, with a 2% (I think 2%, it's been a bit) cumulative chance of a wild surge. In the event of a Wild Surge, she rolls d10000 (4d10 lined up) on the Net Libram of Random Magical Effects, which includes such gems as "One Random Creature within Range acquires a Widescreen Television", "Caster is Invisible but clothes she wears are not", and "Magical Healing causes caster's sex to change", along with more overt threats/benefits such as the target being change to solid platinum or a fire elemental taking up residence in the caster's lungs.

It's fun, though (as with anything which adds randomness to the game) it's probably more detrimental than helpful to the PCs.

[Belfur]

Check out the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, there wild magic zones are described. Basically you have to make some caster-level check to prevent a wild surge; otherwise something like the rod of wonder(?) happens.

[Tome]

The White Toymaker wrote:

In the event of a Wild Surge, she rolls d10000 (4d10 lined up) on the Net Libram of Random Magical Effects, which includes such gems as "One Random Creature within Range acquires a Widescreen Television", "Caster is Invisible but clothes she wears are not", and "Magical Healing causes caster's sex to change", along with more overt threats/benefits such as the target being change to solid platinum or a fire elemental taking up residence in the caster's lungs.

So where may I find this Libram? It sounds a lot better than the normal wild magic effect and would probably go well with my Anarchic Initiate.

[swirler]

i found it
WOW that's a huge list
i may make my own smaller list or maybe a couple
the sun going supernova is kinda harsh especially for a mage casting mend on a tear in his robe
lol

just google the name and you can find a page with it.
I'd post one but I just signed up yesterday and am not sure of the rules for posting links and such

thanks guys
I may just have to write this class up myself, id forgotten about the class in complete Arcane. I dont know that its exactly what I want. Oh well

[Luke Fleeman]

Its in the Complete Arcane. There is a PrC for the Wild Mage there, and I am sure it could be adapted as a base class if you haev an interest.

Maybe grab the Tome of Magic from 2e and incorporate some elements too. Wild Magic is crazy awesome.

[AtlasRaven]

Hmm for a while I thought it was a 3rd edition class. Now i just realize i asked to be one as a new player and the DM kindly adapted the PrC into a base class for me. I wish i had held onto his adjustments so i knew how to do that again.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

The Psionics seem to have inherited a lot of the Wild Mage's preview. They have a base class that is very similar to the Wild Mage of old and some prestige classes in the Complete Psionic that take this further. One of the few parts of the Complete Psionics I liked (the Zerth Cenobyte being the other bit that I liked quite a lot) as mostly that book was a disapointment compared to the Expanded Psionics Handbook.

[swirler]

hmm I'll have to check that out. Maybe it can help me adapt it.
Thanks!

[Bill Lumberg]

The wild mage is one of the only things that 2e did better than 3rd. The prestige class wild mage lacks the flavor of the original one.

The original one rolled d20 each time a spell with any variable element was cast. The result was compared to a table. The first table just indicated if a wild surge took place. If a surge resulted the caster rolled 1-100 for the result.

[Orrex]

swirler wrote:

i found it

WOW that's a huge list
i may make my own smaller list or maybe a couple
the sun going supernova is kinda harsh especially for a mage casting mend on a tear in his robe
lol

Well, not if it's a really big tear. Of course, that's the lesson--if you can accomplish a task without resorting to magic, maybe you should consider breaking out the needle and thread first!

FWIW, I'm the author of that little bit of silliness, and if you're interested I can let you know where the current list of 20,000 can be found.

Let me know.

Orrex

[swirler]

Orrex wrote:

swirler wrote:

i found it

WOW that's a huge list
i may make my own smaller list or maybe a couple
the sun going supernova is kinda harsh especially for a mage casting mend on a tear in his robe
lol

Well, not if it's a really big tear. Of course, that's the lesson--if you can accomplish a task without resorting to magic, maybe you should consider breaking out the needle and thread first!

FWIW, I'm the author of that little bit of silliness, and if you're interested I can let you know where the current list of 20,000 can be found.

Let me know.

Orrex

yes I would, thanks!

oh and i was talking to our old DM and Id forgotten the way he started doing the "do you get a wild surge or not" thing was when the mage rolled his D20 the Dm rolled one aswell and if they rolled the same number then "boom" wildsurge.

[Cosmo]

Nahall's Reckless Dweomer. Greatest spell ever.

[Orrex]

swirler wrote:

yes I would, thanks!

oh and i was talking to our old DM and Id forgotten the way he started doing the "do you get a wild surge or not" thing was when the mage rolled his D20 the Dm rolled one aswell and if they rolled the same number then "boom" wildsurge.

Surprisingly, that's how we did it in my campaign, too! It added an extra element of fun and randomness.

What's the policy on posting links? I don't want to commit a faux pas...

Orrex

[Tarlane]

I don't know the official policy on posting links but it seems to be standard practice and the ability to do so is built into the messageboard system.

I know that I too would be interested in seeing your current adaptation. That list was pretty amusing.

[swirler]

yes please post it. Ive seen others links posted.
I do wish there was a system set up for PMs
that would help some.

[Orrex]

swirler wrote:

yes please post it. Ive seen others links posted.

I do wish there was a system set up for PMs
that would help some.

Okay, here it is.

There's not much to the page, but it contains the 10K list (v1.20) and the 20K list (v2.0), both in pdf format. Feedback is welcome and much appreciated. I'm also happy to field questions about the adjudication of surges and that sort of thing.

Please feel free to repost it elsewhere, as long as proper credit is given.

One note for the future: I have it in mind to put out a 30K list so that there are 10K results each for the caster, the target, and miscellaneous. No idea of a timeframe, but just be aware that it's on the drawing board.

Orrex

[Jimmy]

That's great, thanks for the effort (and link). The PrC in Complete Arcane was disappointing, but I suspect you've just added the touch that'll see this reworked for my campaign!

J-

PS. There/Not There was also a great spell (if I remember correctly that being a Wild Mage spell).

[swirler]

Orrex wrote:

One note for the future: I have it in mind to put out a 30K list so that there are 10K results each for the caster, the target, and miscellaneous. No idea of a timeframe, but just be aware that it's on the drawing board.

Orrex

ah very nice

I'd been thinking of a similar idea but hadnt thought of how to deal with that. Sounds Like a good way to resolve it.
question, do you use the old chart from tome of magic for the plusses and negatives to effects or?

[swirler]

Jimmy wrote:

That's great, thanks for the effort (and link). The PrC in Complete Arcane was disappointing, but I suspect you've just added the touch that'll see this reworked for my campaign!

J-

PS. There/Not There was also a great spell (if I remember correctly that being a Wild Mage spell).

yeha i too was dissapointed witht the PrC and yeah there/not there was a great spell, i havent been able to find it though :(

[Orrex]

swirler wrote:

question, do you use the old chart from tome of magic for the plusses and negatives to effects or?

Actually, I never even thought about it. As I mentioned, we did the "DM rolls d20, player rolls d20," but we just used the player's roll and consulted the chart in the ToM. Maybe I should tweak it and include the tweak in V3.0

Orrex

[Orrex]

Jimmy wrote:

There/Not There was also a great spell (if I remember correctly that being a Wild Mage spell).

You are correct, and it was a favorite of mine. I don't own any 3rd ed stuff, so I'm sorry to learn that they got rid of that spell.

It pleased me greatly that the material component was a tuft of black cat's fur, a la Schroedinger. Very clever!

Orrex

[Marc Chin]

I just checked out the 'Net Libram of Random Magical Effects';

An entertaining and humorous read, but entirely impractical and useless as a game tool, due to the number of obviously game-irrelevant entries; it would be annoying to have to re-roll results every third or fourth time I used it.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to extract the more game-relevant results into a separate list and left out the summoned wide-screen TVs and supernovas... Now THAT list I would use.

M

[Orrex]

Marc Chin wrote:

I just checked out the 'Net Libram of Random Magical Effects';

An entertaining and humorous read, but entirely impractical and useless as a game tool, due to the number of obviously game-irrelevant entries; it would be annoying to have to re-roll results every third or fourth time I used it.

Well, I'm sorry that you don't think that the list is useful, but I appreciate your feedback. At least you found it entertaining!

I have to dispute your assertion that every third or fourth result would need to be rerolled, though. After all, that would mean that 25% - 33% of the list (5000 to 6667 results!) is useless, which I honestly don't think to be the case. To test this, I just pulled 500 results at random (via MS Excel), of which only one was really questionable: Caster owns two long-range, solar-powered walkie-talkies I grant that this may be off-tone for the average campaign world, but come on! A reroll rate of 1 in 500, or one-fifth of one percent, doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Heck, even a 1% reroll rate shouldn't be a big deal, but of course YMMV.

Marc Chin wrote:

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to extract the more game-relevant results into a separate list and left out the summoned wide-screen TVs and supernovas... Now THAT list I would use.

If someone cares to undertake such a project, they are welcome to do so as long as they give proper credit for the source material. However, I'll wager that it would take far greater effort to sift through 20,000 lines than it would take to reroll your 4d10 once in a while.

Thanks for your comments at any rate!

Orrex

[swirler]

Actually the tvs and walkie talkies kind of fit the world i run in. Converging realities & times, along with merging planar sections. So weird things happen off and on anyway. One of the reasons I need wildmagic.