Getting Nahal's Reckless Dweomer to work

Rik_Kirtaniya

I'm playing (BG2EE) with Neera in my party for the first time. I've heard a lot of good things about NRD and how it virtually turns the wild mage into a pseudo-sorcerer or perhaps even more powerful as you can cast high level spells without having the required spell slots or even without having the need to memorize them, only provided that you have the desired spell copied down into your spellbook and some NRDs in hand. Now that sounds great! I tried summoning some wyverns with NRD and the 6th level spell "Wyvern Call", and failed miserably each time due to the wild surge rolls. I understand that NRD has a greater chance to fail than to work (as given by the spell description). Now, I cast Chaos Shield to increase the wild surge rolls. Failed yet again. Neera is, as of yet, level 10 in my current game. I think that the level somehow affects the wild surge rolls, in a way that with higher levels, you get higher (and thus better) rolls.
Now my question is, do you need to get a roll of 100 or above to ensure that the spell has to work, or is it something else? I mean, does the appearance of side effects mean that the original desired spell is not cast at all? Secondly, how exactly does the wild mage level affect the effectiveness of NRDs? That is, at about what level will NRDs start to work with a fair probability so that I might depend on them? Also, is the probability of working of spells cast using NRD dependant on the spell level as well? And then how exactly does Chaos Shield matter? I let Neera memorize all the high level scrolls I found with the hope that I'll be getting them to work with NRDs, and now I'm in a fix. NRD just doesn't seem to work, or perhaps I cannot make it work. Can someone please help me out?

mf2112

I never use it since I prefer my magic to be predictable, but this thread has a lot of helpful information in the first few posts.

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/5160/wild-mages-how-do-they-work-with-added-discourse-concerning-dice

Rik_Kirtaniya

Finally got NRD to work in my game. I guess one just has to keep casting it until it works and produces the desired spell effect, after having overcome the wild surges.

mf2112 said:

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/5160/wild-mages-how-do-they-work-with-added-discourse-concerning-dice

The thread helped quite a bit. However, it seems that all wild surges don't prevent the original spell from working, only some do (I didn't know this earlier). Still I'm not sure which wild surges allow the original spell to be cast successfully (other than an obvious natural 100). Perhaps I'll have to consult the surge tables and keep on experimenting!

Myrag

Only few surges from 1 to 100 get normal spell cast but at maximum level (+31 [1 per level[) with improved chaos shield (+25) and circlet from neera tob quest (+15) you get total of +71 bonus to your roll, so any roll from 29 to 100 is then considered to be 100 which is 'spell cast normally' meaning at max level with above you have over 71% chance to get every spell cast without failure.

Pokota

Yeah, the spell description basically says "This is a spell of last resort, use at your own risk."