Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Alficles May 27, 2015 13:35:19	"I feel in tune with the forces of chaos this morning."   "Good, because I just heard that there are kobolds stealing cows from Murphey's farm!"   "Excellent, let's go!"   So the party travels to Murphey's farm. They sneak up, so as not to be seen. The sorceress calls upon the Tides of Chaos to hide her.   "Should we surprise them or try to beguile them with your sexy ways?"   "Ew, they're kobolds, let's do the first thing."   "Fine, we're close, can you douse them in fire?"   "Yeah, my hands are burning for the chance..."   Burning Hands   Wild Magic Surge!   8   FIREBALL! 38 damage, save for 19.   Ok, looks like the Wizard and the Sorcerer save. Both have fewer than 9 hp, so everyone dies instantly.   ...   After a quick post-mortem prayer to Deus Ex Machina, the party is standing once more in the bushes behind the kobolds.   "Yeah, my hands are burning for the chance..."   Burning Hands   Wild Magic Surge!   36, then 9   The kobolds are incinerated! Also, the sexy sorceress is now a seven year-old.   DM: "The budding love interest just got really awkward. We're not RPing that kind of campaign. Roll again!"   23   The sexy sorceress is now blue!   DM: "Fine, I'll take it."   ---   Perhaps we can get an Unearthed Arcana or other supliment with a balanced set of Wild Magic options? There are several options that can trivially cause TPKs if you roll them at low level. And with reasonably frequent use of Tides of Chaos, you'll roll fairly frequently. (And if you don't use it, why would you pick the class feature?) There are also several options that trivialize encounters of much higher level.   These were in fact the first three chaos rolls for the sorcerer in a campaign I am DMing. I refuse to DM a sexy seven-year-old with a 19-year-old love interest, no matter what magic was used to make it happen. At absolute bare minimum, there should be a remove curse option so that the character is playable again. And really, it shouldn't be something that accidentally happens to characters.
#2 AaronOfBarbaria May 27, 2015 13:57:38	Alficles wrote:
#3 Zardnaar May 27, 2015 14:19:26	Thats the type of story you will remeber for a long time. In 1998 we had a low level wild mage die to an anvil being dropped on his head. This was repeated in 2013 when we used 2E but the mage survived the 3d10 damage this time. Fireballing the party is a time honored D&D tradition and I have seen it happen once with 5E already via a normal wizard.
(Reply to #2) Alficles	AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
(Reply to #4) AaronOfBarbaria	Alficles wrote:
#6 lawrencehoy May 27, 2015 20:59:53	I have to agree with Aaron's thoughts here; additionally:   Alficles wrote:
#7 BoldItalic May 27, 2015 23:12:33	There's only a 1/20 chance of a surge when a sorcerer casts a spell. In the OP story, the player seems to have rolled a "1" the first time and rolled a "1" again when the scene was re-run. Maybe the dice gods were trying to tell them something? Is the romance doomed? Or does boy have to try harder get girl? Every setback is an opportunity. Sometimes the dice know better than we do ...   (edit - afterthought) Would you allow a halfling sorcerer to use his Lucky trait to reroll the "do we get a surge" die if he rolled a "1"? Technically, it's not an attack roll, saving throw or ability check, so by RAW it doesn't apply but it feels as if it should.
(Reply to #7) Macv12	BoldItalic wrote:
(Reply to #8) Alficles	BoldItalic wrote:
#10 iserith May 28, 2015 9:14:32	Way back in the Age of Milli Vanilli, I was playing AD&D 2e and created a wild mage named Slapdash. He was awesome, on paper, with good stats and a fun backstory. The very first spell he cast turned him to stone. The end.
#11 BoldItalic May 28, 2015 9:54:54	Alficles wrote:
#12 DemoMonkey May 28, 2015 10:13:15	It's astonishing how many Wild Mage sorcerer anecdotes involve the fireball result. Quite statistically anomalous.   REALLY statistically anomalous.   And when combined with the fact that it only ever seems to happen at tables with DMs who never even considered looking at the roll, looking at the table, and saying "Roll again"?   Now we're talking Rrosencrantz and Guildenstern coin-flipping level of anomalous. Someone really should investigate!
#13 Alficles May 28, 2015 11:38:59	Well, not really that anomalous, as I showed with math. And since most of the other results are in the sorcerer's favor or are reasonably leveled (being a sheep isn't really much worse at level one than level 20), there won't be that much wingeing about them. And /obviously/ this occured at a table that immediately re-rolled... and then logged on to the Internet to complain about having to make them reroll. :P I will grant that the two options rolled in the first round is relatively anomalous. But given the number of chaos sorcerers around, it's bound to be the case that some of them burn out quite early.   That said, I do see the case for a spellcasting class with a fairly high infant mortality. It just seems anomalous when paired with the rest of 5e. The other comments have made me realize that in a 2e campaign, I'd probably take it in stride as part of the class.   Still, I stand by the fact that I think the fireball result should say something like, "Everyone within twenty feet takes 2d6 fire damage per level of the spell that triggered the surge (max 8d6). Save for half." 4d6 at level 3 will probably knock whoever doesn't save out. It won't instantly kill them, though, even if they save. It will probably turn an easy encounter into a deadly one, too.   So don't get me wrong, I'm quite capable of re-writing the Chaos Sorcerer class so that the rest of the party doesn't kill chaos sorcerers in their sleep because they are too much of a liability. I'm just complaining about having to.
(Reply to #13) AaronOfBarbaria	Alficles wrote: