Wild mage adventures

Ozma

Ahoy people, a while back I asked for advice in choosing spells for a sorcerer build and what spells to pick.
However I decided to restart BG with the Wild mage and boy is it fun :-)
I personally find them much more enjoyable, but I know the sorcerer class has it's merits too.

The main two reasons are: It adds some unpredictable spice to battles and makes things much more interesting, as well being able to swap spells out on the fly ( to prepare for different battles and situations )
With the Sorcerer class its great to be able to fling more spells about then a normal mage bbbuuttt your stuck with said spells, I found it getting abit boring after awhile.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to carry my Wild mage all the way through to BG2 EE and TOB and can't wait!
I'm in this for the long haul now :-D

Peace,
Ozma.

Mivsan

The unpredictability of Wild Mages and their (possibly very negative for me) Wild Surges is exactly what I hate about them. Though, of course, the power of Wild Mages and their flexibility (through Reckless Dweomer) cannot be denied.

And that's the beauty of this game. Many different options, to each their own

Have fun with your playthough! May you summon many cows upon your unsuspecting opponents.

Necomancer

See now I suddenly want to do an all wild mage BP run with nothing but Reckless Dweomer. I think I'll do just that.

Edit:There were no survivors.

abacus

I really want to see someone do one of those story-telling no-reload runs with a Wild Mage...

"So, like, I'm wandering around Candlekeep, minding my own business and such... When this dude called Shank starts being real mean. I flicked a Chromatic Orb his way (well... tried to)... But then a cow fell on my head, and now I'm paralysed from the neck down...
Gorion took Imoen off somewhere... I wonder what happened with that?!"

Ygramul

The following was my analysis of a Wild Mage for a no-reload run (from an old post):

Wild Mages [theoretical] -- DO. NOT. CAST. IN. PUBLIC. Really,
what are you gonna do if you get a Gate in Beregost, or a
Fireball:self amid Flaming Fist headcourters. Cast only at the enemies
(and do not ever buff the charname with a wild mage!)

This is just with Neera, by the way. I doubt anyone ever finished a
no-reload run with a Wild Mage charname:
Here are the odds:
there are about ~10/100 wild surges that act as "kill the caster" at
low levels (even at high levels, "Petrify:self" will usually kill you,
even if you might survive a fireball to the face then)
If you cast 1000 spells through a no-reload run, you will have about
50 surges and your survival chance throughout the run comes to about
0.5% -- yep, just half a percent, even if you play an otherwise
perfect game.
(0.1 chance of death per surge -> 0.9^50 = 0.0052 chance of surviving 50 surges)

Gotural

Yes but in practice, you're going to cast something like 500 spells rather than 1000, you will use Chaos Shield and Improved Chaos Shield and with a higher caster level surges won't be deadly anymore, and you will make a succesful save for anything. Nearly all the surges from 71 to 100 are beneficial (Rest, CC on your target, NO SAVE SPELL, DOUBLE SPELL, etc).

And maybe you didn't know that Contingencies or Sequencers type spells can't trigger Wild surge at cast it means that yes, you can cast Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to cast Chain Contingency with zero percent risk.

Of course i agree that you will need some luck in a no-reload run, but the odds are not as bad as you think.

Ygramul

@Gotural
Good points, but most of that is relevant for SOA and beyond. Wild Mage does get safer and more powerful later theoretically, but it can become a game ender in an otherwise perfectly played no-reload run, especially in BG1.

Gotural

You're totally right, BG1 no-reload is going to be really hard.

simples

challenge accepted!

Ozma

Good luck simples! I was in the middle of a low level fight with some Gnolls that I was on the losing side of when I wild surged a gate spell, it wiped out all my enemies.....then squished me too lol.

SionIV

Does anyone know in which order the wild surge happens? Before or after the spell? If you cast protection from petrification on yourself and then get turned to stone from the wild surge?

Ygramul

Has anyone ever completed no-reload with a Wild Mage?
I remember very frustrated attempts in the old Bioware threads.

(Of course, for BG1 alone it is easily doable, as you can finish the game without casting a single spell with charname and using her as slinger instead.)

Necomancer

Ygramul said:

Has anyone ever completed no-reload with a Wild Mage?
I remember very frustrated attempts in the old Bioware threads.

(Of course, for BG1 alone it is easily doable, as you can finish the game without casting a single spell with charname and using her as slinger instead.)

I dunno man. That seems like it takes the fun out of it.

Twink122

My wild mage CHARNAME left a trail of destruction in his wake. My reputation is sacked because i fireballed half of Nashkel. Why, oh why, did you attack me in a public place, Nimbul?!? It was only supposed to be a "deafness" spell!!! Poor Minsc got petrified when i tried to make him invisible for the Molkar crew battle. (the halflings of Gullykin are probably striking their matches on his stony arse, lighting their pipes and exchanging tales of stupid adventurers right now.) I gotta go back and get him eventually. Can't just leave him there. But stone-to-flesh scrolls are expensive when your money keeps VANISHING IN A WILD SURGE! Still...i can't seem to stop playing. Heh. Go figure.