There are bad surges, like those I mentioned above. There are neutral surges, which has no important effect (color change, what was that over there, sex change, explosion that does nothing) and there are a few good surges as well (spell cast at double level, no saving throw, spell cast twice, spell cast and I feel refreshed)
Wait a minute. Sex change is a "Neutral" effect?
Yep, it is not permanent, and has no in-game effect. It is an interesting experience, to be sure. In real life I think a lot of people would like to be the opposite gender temporarily, if it lasts only for 8 hours and is painless ofcourse, just out of curiosity. :-)
Me, Viconia, Kagain, and Neera took on Greywolf at an early level today, Neera used wild magic to try and hit him with a magic missile. She turned him to stone!! And then I killed him and he and his +2 sword shattered into 1,001 pieces! Oustanding. I wish I had the presence of mind to stop attacking, and get a stone to flesh scroll.
Me, Viconia, Kagain, and Neera took on Greywolf at an early level today, Neera used wild magic to try and hit him with a magic missile. She turned him to stone!! And then I killed him and he and his +2 sword shattered into 1,001 pieces! Oustanding. I wish I had the presence of mind to stop attacking, and get a stone to flesh scroll.
Yeah stony death, being frozen solid and disintegration destroy loot. Bummer. :-( In PnP, magical fire (fireball) tended to destroy equipment if the wielder failed to protect himself (failed saving throw!) so I guess it could have been worse ^^
Me, Viconia, Kagain, and Neera took on Greywolf at an early level today, Neera used wild magic to try and hit him with a magic missile. She turned him to stone!! And then I killed him and he and his +2 sword shattered into 1,001 pieces! Oustanding. I wish I had the presence of mind to stop attacking, and get a stone to flesh scroll.
Yeah stony death, being frozen solid and disintegration destroy loot. Bummer. :-( In PnP, magical fire (fireball) tended to destroy equipment if the wielder failed to protect himself (failed saving throw!) so I guess it could have been worse ^^
Lightning Bolt does in fact destroy loot in BG. I once toasted Bassilu's unholy symbol.
i.e. past lvl 17, a carefully played wild mage who has a Ring of Wizardry (double the first lvl spells) has about 10 extra lvl 9 spells to be cast with more than even chance, with very little failure.
Not sure if this example is going to be entirely accurate. Isn't this kind of assuming the Ring of Wizardry in BG2EE will double the number of first level spells and not, say, increase the number of 5th, 6th, and 7th level spells? I agree with your point, just had to point that out.
Isn't this kind of assuming the Ring of Wizardry in BG2EE will double the number of first level spells and not, say, increase the number of 5th, 6th, and 7th level spells? I agree with your point, just had to point that out.
I imagine there are various "Rings of Wizardry" (unless they have actually other names); they give separate bonuses.
In late BG2EE that Ring of Wizardry (granting extra lvl 1 spells) is of not much use to anyone... except for the wild mage with Nahal's Dweomer.
In any case, this is all theory-crafting....
Bottomline: Wild Mage seems survivable if you can reach mid-late game - IF she is not charname and IF if you do not use her for buffing the party and only cast far away spells offensively. I shall try it (soon after the bloody patch is out...)
Isn't this kind of assuming the Ring of Wizardry in BG2EE will double the number of first level spells and not, say, increase the number of 5th, 6th, and 7th level spells? I agree with your point, just had to point that out.
I imagine there are various "Rings of Wizardry" (unless they have actually other names); they give separate bonuses.
In vanilla BG2 you can possibly obtain two Rings of Wizardry both gives an extra 5, 6 & 7 spell slot. And there is a Ring of Acuity that gives two 2nd & one 3rd & 4th spell slot.
Me, Viconia, Kagain, and Neera took on Greywolf at an early level today, Neera used wild magic to try and hit him with a magic missile. She turned him to stone!! And then I killed him and he and his +2 sword shattered into 1,001 pieces! Oustanding. I wish I had the presence of mind to stop attacking, and get a stone to flesh scroll.
Yeah stony death, being frozen solid and disintegration destroy loot. Bummer. :-( In PnP, magical fire (fireball) tended to destroy equipment if the wielder failed to protect himself (failed saving throw!) so I guess it could have been worse ^^
Lightning Bolt does in fact destroy loot in BG. I once toasted Bassilu's unholy symbol.
I never experienced this, lightning does char the slain black, but their loot was untouched. Acid also sometimes perma-kill without touching enemy loot, though you can not inflict that high acid damage on enemies. (Dragon breath and acid blob traps will inflict huge amounts of acid damage to you, though they are all in BG2)
Analyzing the Wild Surge table, I see 51 results that do not help you in a fight, either hurting caster/party directly, or doing nothing immediately helpful thus leaving caster vulnerable. - 18 Bad (actually hurtful/potentially deadly to the friendly side) results - 31 Neutral, "but combat fail" results (cast basically wasted; some of which could be situationally hurtful) - 7 Good..."but combat fail" results. (things like a pocketful of gems).
The other 49 results on the unmodified table will either deliver the intended result, enhance that result, or at least nail the target in some other useful way.
Of the 51 "combat fails", a +20 modification to the table (5 levels + Chaos Shield) will eliminate 16 fails. A +22 mod (7 levels) will knock out 18 fails, including 7 (over 1/3) of the truly Bad.
The "combat success" rate then only gets incrementally better until about level 13, when Improved Chaos Shield becomes available (without taking a Nahal's risk.) By then the mods will knock out the first 38 results. (Unfortunately, "Summon demon to attack target" - and whatever the hell else it wants thereafter - is result #54.)
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the other feature of Wild Mage, and the extra feature of Neera, which help compensate for having to be very, very careful with the wild magic use at low level.
- every cast of a wild mage varies in level, from -5 current to +5 current. Since I don't think that there is a single spell where results can be effectively lowered by a nominal caster level less than 1, and a number where caster level is not an issue, this is a net gain for the low-level wild mage. Example: 1st level wild mage will always (barring W. Surge) get at least 1 magic missile, but will sometimes get 3, or 5.
- Neera's staff is special, a +1 quarterstaff which also has a 10% to inflict 1 fire damage. Now it may be a bug, but I have seen the staff flare in Neera's hands multiple times...but I have never seen her take a point of damage from it. I have seen the target get burned, however, in at least one case seeing the target go down due to the extra point from the flare.
Me, Viconia, Kagain, and Neera took on Greywolf at an early level today, Neera used wild magic to try and hit him with a magic missile. She turned him to stone!! And then I killed him and he and his +2 sword shattered into 1,001 pieces! Oustanding. I wish I had the presence of mind to stop attacking, and get a stone to flesh scroll.
Yeah stony death, being frozen solid and disintegration destroy loot. Bummer. :-( In PnP, magical fire (fireball) tended to destroy equipment if the wielder failed to protect himself (failed saving throw!) so I guess it could have been worse ^^
Lightning Bolt does in fact destroy loot in BG. I once toasted Bassilu's unholy symbol.
I never experienced this, lightning does char the slain black, but their loot was untouched. Acid also sometimes perma-kill without touching enemy loot, though you can not inflict that high acid damage on enemies. (Dragon breath and acid blob traps will inflict huge amounts of acid damage to you, though they are all in BG2)
Comments
In PnP, magical fire (fireball) tended to destroy equipment if the wielder failed to protect himself (failed saving throw!) so I guess it could have been worse ^^
In late BG2EE that Ring of Wizardry (granting extra lvl 1 spells) is of not much use to anyone... except for the wild mage with Nahal's Dweomer.
In any case, this is all theory-crafting....
Bottomline: Wild Mage seems survivable if you can reach mid-late game - IF she is not charname and IF if you do not use her for buffing the party and only cast far away spells offensively. I shall try it (soon after the bloody patch is out...)
And there is a Ring of Acuity that gives two 2nd & one 3rd & 4th spell slot.
- 18 Bad (actually hurtful/potentially deadly to the friendly side) results
- 31 Neutral, "but combat fail" results (cast basically wasted; some of which could be situationally hurtful)
- 7 Good..."but combat fail" results. (things like a pocketful of gems).
The other 49 results on the unmodified table will either deliver the intended result, enhance that result, or at least nail the target in some other useful way.
Of the 51 "combat fails", a +20 modification to the table (5 levels + Chaos Shield) will eliminate 16 fails. A +22 mod (7 levels) will knock out 18 fails, including 7 (over 1/3) of the truly Bad.
The "combat success" rate then only gets incrementally better until about level 13, when Improved Chaos Shield becomes available (without taking a Nahal's risk.) By then the mods will knock out the first 38 results. (Unfortunately, "Summon demon to attack target" - and whatever the hell else it wants thereafter - is result #54.)
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the other feature of Wild Mage, and the extra feature of Neera, which help compensate for having to be very, very careful with the wild magic use at low level.
- every cast of a wild mage varies in level, from -5 current to +5 current. Since I don't think that there is a single spell where results can be effectively lowered by a nominal caster level less than 1, and a number where caster level is not an issue, this is a net gain for the low-level wild mage. Example: 1st level wild mage will always (barring W. Surge) get at least 1 magic missile, but will sometimes get 3, or 5.
- Neera's staff is special, a +1 quarterstaff which also has a 10% to inflict 1 fire damage. Now it may be a bug, but I have seen the staff flare in Neera's hands multiple times...but I have never seen her take a point of damage from it. I have seen the target get burned, however, in at least one case seeing the target go down due to the extra point from the flare.
dreamrider