How wild is a Wild Mage?

Permidion_Stark

I'm just about to start a playthrough of BG1 (first time in ages) and I was thinking of taking Neera in my party because I never have before. However, I always play no reloads and no resurrection so I was wondering how dangerous Neera is to her fellow party members? I don't want to get half-way through and find she has accidentally killed us all off.

I'm mainly asking because I started a game of SoD and she was in my party and this was the first thing that happened:

The party hasn't even moved yet. Neera has attempted to cast Stoneskin and has ended up entangling herself. It seemed pretty funny at the time but I think it could get old quite quickly.

Kurona

Playing no-reload with a Wild Mage is an exercise in masochism. Until very high levels (end SoA-early ToB) they are one bad RNG away from accidentally incinerating a city or gating a Pit Fiend.

Imo the only enjoyable way of playing a Wild Mage is to completely forget about trying to control their accidents and deal with the unpredictable as it comes. Sometimes luck will be on your side and do something amazing and other times you'll all die horribly. For challenge runs or no-reloads you're better off with a Sorcerer.

Permidion_Stark

@Kurona
Thanks. That sounds like it would drive me to distraction. Maybe I'll create a Wild Mage as a Charname and try it that way. I won't be so annoyed if it is me rather than one of my NPCs who is creating havoc.

Grond0

If the way you play no-reload is to try and eliminate luck entirely, I agree you should steer clear of the wild mage. In vanilla it was possible to pretty much eliminate risk at high levels by stacking chaos shields in a sequencer. However, that is no longer possible in EE, so I don't believe it's any longer possible to do a no-reload with a wild mage without relying on a bit of luck. Having said that, if you take care about the way you use spells (for instance not casting near the PC to avoid consuming them in a fireball), the chances of actually dying as a result of a surge are quite small.

bob_veng

the chances of dying indirectly from a wild surge that messes everything up are pretty high

Pokota

So, Wild Surges. Roll 1d% every time you cast a spell. If the result is 100, roll 1d% and add:

your Wild Mage level
15 if you have Chaos Shield active
25 if you have Improved Chaos Shield active
(so a level 20 Neera with ICS active would add 45 to her roll)

then you look up the result on the Wild Surge table and apply that to your spell. (I don't have the specific table for BG:EE handy so have this one from PocketPlane instead).

Nahal's Reckless Dweomer is fun to play with. Forces a Wild Surge in exchange for potentially casting any one known spell (NRD -> Wish, anyone?)

Permidion_Stark

@Pokota
Thanks, especially for the Wild Surge table, that does sound it might be fun to play. I might roll me up a Wild Mage tonight.

Mush_Mush

Custom party: All wild mages.

Surges for everyone!

Grond0

Pokota said:

So, Wild Surges. Roll 1d% every time you cast a spell. If the result is 100, roll 1d% and add:

your Wild Mage level
15 if you have Chaos Shield active
25 if you have Improved Chaos Shield active
(so a level 20 Neera with ICS active would add 45 to her roll)

Surges are slightly more problematic than this suggests . The chance of a surge when casting a normal spell (including a Bhaal ability spell) is 5%, not 1%. Your wild mage level is only added to the roll where the surge results from casting NRD, not a normal surge.

Pokota

I thought 1% was too low, thanks for the corrections (pocketplane gives 1% base wild surge chance AND says that wild mage level is added to all wild surge rolls)

E: Is there a setting or mod that exposes the Wild Surge roll information?

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Pokota

Or you could do what I do and revel in the game-ending madness

Permidion_Stark

I decided to give it a try and last night I rolled up a Wild Mage and set out from Candlekeep for an adventure. So far the closest I have come to fireworks has been Khalid and Jaheira arguing with Montaron and Xzar. But it is early days yet.

fateless

Level should be tied to all wild surge rolls. Not just NRD ones. As you get farther through the game some of the worst ones becomes impossible or nearly impossible. Specially if you regularly are using Chaos Shield. There are also a couple of items in BG2 I understand that up the percentile dice roll even higher as well (an NPC may be needed to get them). So you end up pretty much with just the quirky but not to overly damaging and the mostly beneficial surges by about the end of SoA.

That being said. Wild Mage Surges in regular BG. Specially on a no-reload game can be pretty derailing unless your really looking for that extra variable to really add to your run and make you have to adjust on the fly. There are some really unlucky roll combinations you can get.

Grond0

With the availability of wands it's not really necessary for wild mages to cast any spells anyway in BG1. My solo wild mages tend to only cast find familiar right at the start.

Permidion_Stark

I've reached the Nashkel mines and nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I'm beginning to think all this stuff about wild surges is a tall tale made up by forum veterans to take in gullible noobs and trick us into playing the game with vanilla mages.

Zaghoul

Ive played a WM without much problem, but then been stoned well into BG2 in the past while traveling with Neera. That's luck though. The problems can be mitigated a little perhaps, with the help of items, scrolls, and potions, before a fight where your gonna be casing alot, but chaos just catches up sometimes.
Kept me on edge casting every spell in a run as a WM.

tbone1

Permidion_Stark said:

I've reached the Nashkel mines and nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I'm beginning to think all this stuff about wild surges is a tall tale made up by forum veterans to take in gullible noobs and trick us into playing the game with vanilla mages.

If, three months from now, @Permidion_Stark has not been heard from again, I will become very suspicious

Grum

The only wild surge I can't stand is the one that takes away all of your gold. That is...bad. To say the least.

But I have enjoyed fleeing from giant demons in BG1, and watching a cow kill half of Nashkel.

fateless

There are far more nasty things that can happen than summoning a demon from those things, specially if your trying to do a no-reload game. But some times people get lucky. Other times they'll have a lot of problems with it.

And some of the effects are easy not to notice until it's way too late. Disappearing gold being amongst them.

Grond0

The gold surge need not be a problem once you're aware of the danger - simply get into the habit of not selling anything valuable until you need the cash to immediately pay for something.

Kurona

Generally I create so many gems that it more or less cancels the effect of losing half my gold. Also for some reason the sex change surge really likes to land on Anomen.

Permidion_Stark

My Wild Mage is still refusing to do anything vaguely wild. I'm sitting there saying: "Come on, do something stupid. I want to see a cow fall out of the sky," but all she does is cast Magic Missiles like a regular mage. Are you sure you guys aren't all having me on?

Mythrinn

This thread has intrigued me tremendously. As soon as Apple approves the 2.4 iOS patch, I am gonna roll a Wild Mage and see what sorts of trouble I can get into. I too am hoping for wild cows, and anything else out of the norm.

Pokota

Permidion_Stark said:

My Wild Mage is still refusing to do anything vaguely wild. I'm sitting there saying: "Come on, do something stupid. I want to see a cow fall out of the sky," but all she does is cast Magic Missiles like a regular mage. Are you sure you guys aren't all having me on?

Try giving her Evermemory and having all of her level 1 slots be Nahal's Reckless Dweomer. Instant discount armageddon.

Neverused

One of the main problems is that there's so many ways to die with a bad surge, either directly or giving enemies huge advantages: 6, 11, 14, 19, 20, 22, 24 (!!!!), 31, 33, 39, 46, 48, 51, 54, 61, 63 (!!!!!!), 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 72, 77, 78, 88, 90, 94... Each one of these can be game-ending in a no-reload, especially at low levels where a fireball on CHARNAME is going to be a pretty quick game-ender. Even at higher level, the flesh-to-stone surge is on a 72, so it's not impossible that she'll either petrify herself or someone else. It's almost a requirement to take along a second mage with Neera, I've found, just to have safe castings of certain spells when necessary.

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BelgarathMTH

Permidion_Stark said:

My Wild Mage is still refusing to do anything vaguely wild. I'm sitting there saying: "Come on, do something stupid. I want to see a cow fall out of the sky," but all she does is cast Magic Missiles like a regular mage. Are you sure you guys aren't all having me on?

Memorize and cast Reckless Dweomer. It forces a wild surge. Otherwise, there's only a 1 in 20 chance every time she casts.

Make sure to read the feedback scroll at the bottom, because some surges aren't obvious, such as "Spell cast at twice level."

karnor00

It's all fun and games till a cow falls on your head.