I have to chime in here - i posted a similar issue but since this is the one actually in the "list of bugs and issues", i want to add my experience here.
it looks like the wild surge text description is actually mismatched to what actually happens. I can sit there doing Nahal's Reckless Dweomer all day and there is almost literally no correspondence to what I see and what the combat log tells me happens. E.G. one time I got "Wild Surge: Monsters Summoned" and instead a Globe of Invulnerability-type-effect appears on both target and caster.
I've noticed the wild surges not doing what they say they are doing also. I've had the roll twice more surge that did absolutely nothing. I've noticed a couple others as well but can't remember exactly what they were supposed to have done, I just remember that they usually end up doing nothing at all. This seems odd considering some of the wild surges work just fine. I've had squirrels, heal party, cow kill, stuff like that all work fine. I wonder why some work and others don't.
I just started playing with a wild mage and it seems to me that most of the wild surges do nothing at all except some animations.
Is there some place where i could compare the game text with the wild surge table? I have no idea what shuld happen if the text reads "explosions?" or "combat ready"
Also had this issue; I think there's two things going on, a lot of wild surges seem to have no effect at all (except playing a different spell animation or causing the spell to fail), and when an effect does occur, it's almost never what the text says it is. Not sure if there's a pattern to it; it might be that the text is rolled randomly and the surge result is rolled separately, or something?
I'm fairly sure I've seen the Polymorph surge display correctly, but my main character is the wild mage, and this seems to trigger the 'death' script, making it hard to do more than catch a glimpse of the combat log.
Come to think, I'm not sure if squirrel = death is a bug in itself, but I've had that a few times.
My wild guess here tells me that two D100 rolls are being made; one for the actual wild surge effect, and the other for the text that appears telling you what the wild surge did. That would explain pretty much all the bugs I'm reading about here.
I do not know whether this is technically a wild surge, but when playing with Neera I have noticed that the "caster level adjustment" wild mage feature does not work properly.
Example: she was a lvl.2 Wild Mage, cast a Chromatic Orb. Text said "caster level increased by 1", which should have meant she cast a lvl.3 orb (burn target). Instead she blinded the target, which indicates she cast a lvl.1 orb... I had this happen at least twice, and noticed when casting other spells the same bugs with regards to caster level change.
I do not know whether this is technically a wild surge, but when playing with Neera I have noticed that the "caster level adjustment" wild mage feature does not work properly.
Example: she was a lvl.2 Wild Mage, cast a Chromatic Orb. Text said "caster level increased by 1", which should have meant she cast a lvl.3 orb (burn target). Instead she blinded the target, which indicates she cast a lvl.1 orb... I had this happen at least twice, and noticed when casting other spells the same bugs with regards to caster level change.
I've noticed this sort of thing quite a bit when casting magic missle. The number of missles is wildly inaccurate when compared to what the caster level increase/decrease says it should be. Heck, it's not even consistent when that message isn't shown. Sometimes I get three missles (default for my level) when I lose/gain a level, sometimes I get two missles despite the message saying my level was increased, other more rare times I'll get four. Magic missle scrolls work fine, however.
@ThomasMink: yeah, same here with MM's. I have also noticed the difference with Neera, between casting from her spellbook or scrolls. In the latter case, I do not see any message on "level adjustment" and the spell works fine. Something is bugged for wild mages when their level is altered.
For wild surges, I'm not sure there's an issue or not since there's approximately 30 effects in the wild surge table would have no obvious effects (besides sounds or visuals). A good number are purely visual or auditory i.e. effect 35: fireball on caster- no damage, and a total of about 40 of the effects could go unnoticed quite easily i.e. gems added to inventory, or map fully explored (one might or might not notice them). In terms of caster level variation a decent way to test it is with the spell melf's minute meteors. the # of meteors created is equal to caster level. In a few tests of it (while using them to fight an adamantite golem) the level variation listed in the text was accurate to the effect.
For reference I'm talking about BG2EE, I haven't done any of this in the original Baldur's Gate 2 (never ran a wild mage so I didn't have a reason to test it)
I got the sex change wild surge on a male character but it didn't change the paperdoll or character record screens. However, I get pronoun referenced as a female, and Hexxat's romance kicked in (in conjunction with a Neera romance).
Comments
it looks like the wild surge text description is actually mismatched to what actually happens. I can sit there doing Nahal's Reckless Dweomer all day and there is almost literally no correspondence to what I see and what the combat log tells me happens. E.G. one time I got "Wild Surge: Monsters Summoned" and instead a Globe of Invulnerability-type-effect appears on both target and caster.
Is there some place where i could compare the game text with the wild surge table?
I have no idea what shuld happen if the text reads "explosions?" or "combat ready"
I'm fairly sure I've seen the Polymorph surge display correctly, but my main character is the wild mage, and this seems to trigger the 'death' script, making it hard to do more than catch a glimpse of the combat log.
Come to think, I'm not sure if squirrel = death is a bug in itself, but I've had that a few times.
What number is "combat ready"?
Example: she was a lvl.2 Wild Mage, cast a Chromatic Orb. Text said "caster level increased by 1", which should have meant she cast a lvl.3 orb (burn target). Instead she blinded the target, which indicates she cast a lvl.1 orb... I had this happen at least twice, and noticed when casting other spells the same bugs with regards to caster level change.
In terms of caster level variation a decent way to test it is with the spell melf's minute meteors. the # of meteors created is equal to caster level. In a few tests of it (while using them to fight an adamantite golem) the level variation listed in the text was accurate to the effect.
For reference I'm talking about BG2EE, I haven't done any of this in the original Baldur's Gate 2 (never ran a wild mage so I didn't have a reason to test it)