U68 Preview 1: Wild Magic & Surges General Info

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Torc

Torc

Systems Developer
We are doing Wild magic!

Summary: Wild magic is a chaotic force that can be harnessed by some spell casters or appears as an environmental effect that can be found where an extremely powerful magical event occurred. The casting of spells as a wild mage or in a wild magic zone has a random chance to cause a Wild Magic Surge.

Wild Magic Surges:

Surges are random magical effects that occur on or around the caster at the moment they cast a spell. The frequency of surges and chance of good or bad results can be manipulated by things in the wild mage tree (sorcerer)

Surges are divided into five categories:

Very Good (chance is very rare)​
Good​
Neutral​
Bad​
Very Bad (chance is very rare)​
​
Wild Magic Surge Rules: General design rules all surges follow....

  1. The spell you are casting when you surge always resolves normally (the surge is an ADDITIONAL effect, it never replaces)
  2. Wild Magic Surges can only occur in dungeons (Your gonna have to play quests to try this one)
  3. Bad or Very Bad negative effects ONLY affect the caster but Good/Very Good effects will sometimes apply to allies/party members
  4. Bad effects may Debuff you but won't CC you.
  5. Very Bad effects may CC you making them very dangerous.
  6. You will get a VFX/Sound warning a few seconds before you character becomes "hot" with a wild surge on your next cast, that will indicate if it's good or bad surge. (red means bad. vfx need some additional work for color blind people, we are working on this.)
  7. Monsters/Henchmen use this system to but certain surges won't occur for them (like who's dead, :D) or will be different (not a summoned unicorn, maybe a vrock)
Note: For this preview to experience wild surges you will need to be a wild mage (later there will be content with wild magic zones)

Sample List:

The following are some examples per category but not the complete list. We have about 10 per type for the first preview. Surge ideas welcome!

Very Good:

Force Bubbles - You and all nearby allies gain a Force shield reducing damage by 95% for 4 seconds.​
​
Unicorn! - You summon a powerful unicorn ally who will fight by your side for 30 seconds. This creature has an aura that heals and buffs. (aura not in this build and unicorn is a little more keen on stabbing faces then helping friends as of yet.)​
​
Who's Dead? - Dead allies in the general area are true resurrected and living enemies near you die no save (up to 6 targets, boss immunities apply, as does reaper ward for the rezz). This can only occur once a quest.​

Good:

Hammer Time - A floating hammer appears next to you for a short period of time. As long as it's hammer time your offensive spells will knock down targets briefly. No save. Immunities apply.​
​
Truest Sight - You and all allies in the general area gain true sight and 10% dodge bypass for 60 seconds.​
​
Touch of Chaos - for 60 seconds all your offensive magic applies a 1d6 in chaos damage. in addition to their normal effects. This scales with spell power and can crit.​

Neutral:
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Butterflies- Butterflies appear around you. Enjoy!​
​
Squirrel! - You conjure a pack of chittering squirrels! These can confuse nearby enemies (50% chance, no save) but they also really annoy the caster making it difficulty to cast spells for 4 seconds (50% spell failure chance)​
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Free Beer - You conjure a free beer on the ground. Effects of drinking the free beer TBD. Using some tavern food atm.​

Bad:

Shrinkage: Suddenly you are quite small. Your damage is reduced by 20% and you gain 10% dodge and +5 to reflex saves.​
​
Iron Pot Head: An Iron cauldron appears on your head blinding you for a moment until you adjust it. (this is not considered a blindness effect). Grants you +5 Armor class until it goes poof in a bit.​
​
So tired: You become fatigued.​

Very Bad:

Rats - You turn into a rodent! You can move but not use abilities or items. You gain 50% uncapped dodge and +25 reflex saves. Last for 8 seconds.​
​
Dance Party - You are afflicted with an irresistible dance for 6 seconds. Anyone who hits you will also start to dance. (bosses and enchantment immunities apply)​
​
Personal Bad Weather - A Stormy cloud appears over your head. It drenches you in rain increasing your vulnerability to electric damage by 25% for 10 seconds and then strikes you once with lightning (call lightning spell) before disappearing​
​
Important Discussion Point - What will wild magic zones look like in content:
​
Just to clarify, while Myth Drannor is still in development, most wild magic zones you should encounter will be visible, and avoidable or manageable through some mechanic.​
​
Wild mages can make surges pretty much a 100% benefit, but for everyone else It's just dungeon mechanic, like lava, electric floors, heavy gravity volumes, etc. so it is suppose to be dangerous. Once the content hits preview everyone can gauge that risk a bit more effectively. Then you'll know your chances of being turned into a giant or a potted plant (we didn't do that last one actually....yet.....)​
​
I think you'll find it on the mild side of some of the things you can run into in DDO.​
 
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Baahb3

Baahb3

Well-known member
While thematically appropriate for the area, I for one would not want any of this. To all of the sudden not be able to case spells for 8s (Rats) or loose 20% damage for I don't know how long (Shrinkage), or even 50% spell failure (Squirrells). That can and will cause death to you and your party if it happens at the wrong time.

Oh, and kudos on the Unicorn aura that heals you. Glad that the Angel code went to a good home...............
 
Spook

Spook

Ghostly Troll
Well good luck - I have not seen wild magic implemented well in any video game ever and that includes arguably the best rpg ever let alone one based on D&D (BG3).

The reality is RNG is frustrating to players getting a bad surge at the wrong time during a raid wastes everyones time (think getting rat when soloing an elemental in PN or getting rat when trying to coordinate kills in DW). I see this being more frustrating than fun.
 
B

BananaHat

Active member
I would suggest that any random summons ignore the 1 summon/player limit to avoid either accidentally casting over a good one or being able to summon something else to remove a bad one.

To that end, I'd suggest a bad or very bad summon of an arcane ooze that chases and attacks the caster.

I'll second the suggestion of a free bear. Maybe a tanky bear summon that roars and intimidates.

Since summoning consumables is on the table, an exploding ham barrel could be a very good outcome. I'd also like to throw Summon Salad and Summon Slaad out there where the Salad could be similar to the beer but as a bad consumable where as the Slaad could be a random one from the list of all slaads as a good summon.

Very good idea
Chaos shield: All allies across the dungeon gain 1d100 temporary hit points for 30 seconds

Good ideas
Chaos Chimera: A random stat gains 1d6+2 to it for 1 minute.

Orb of Chaos: You summon one of those random buff orbs that appear in challenges and a few other places. Maybe a subset of them so you can't break some quests with super jump or something.

Neutral ideas
Oops, All Chaos: Turns all spells you cast for 8 seconds into a random chaos spell (bolt, ball, the new entropy one, chaos hammer, etc)

Reality shift: You phase out of this reality. You cannot interact with anything but nothing can interact with you. (Like the old tea with the Queen or the epic ability that freezes you for a few seconds to get a random buff)

Very Bad idea
Spell point drain (maybe it is a DoT that can be blocked by blocking)
 
The Nameless One

The Nameless One

What can change the nature of a man ?
I LOVE ALL OF THIS !

sausagefest-herve.gif
 
Falkor

Falkor

Well-known member
There are far too many issues with summons to have 'Unicorn!' be very good. Especially in raids where it causes massive headaches.

Please, flat out remove it completely and replace it with something else.

I was hoping for something inspiring and a genuine wow .... instead, we get a genuine wow.

Thematically it's neat and fits the theme of the Myth Drannor, the implementation of this seems very aggravating and punishing to players. I foresee a great deal of rage quitting, people not being allowed to join groups b/c of the mere chance of this procs ... this really once again illustrates how out of touch the devs are with actually playing the game.

Not allowing devs to play the game shows in the quality and type of work they are releasing. This is so out of touch with in-game reality and experience.

What a nightmare of a system. Please, no. Not like this.

This will be the source of so much grief in game and quickly become a negative play experience.

How did this even make it to development, let alone Lam? And we all know once it's on Lam, its going to happen. This version of wild magic is, by no stretch of the imagination, an improvement to the game.
 
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The Nameless One

The Nameless One

What can change the nature of a man ?
Actually sounds hella fun. And adds a twist to magic.

One thing I would like to know does this work with ANY magic including divine magic like healing?
 
S

Sarlona Raiding

Well-known member
Someone in the organization is definitely pushing randomness.

The fact that this negates all the negative effects is kind of amusing, but absolutely necessary when playing this archtype lol.
  • Chaos Control II: If you would get a Very Bad or Bad Wild Magic Surge, you get a Neutral one instead. (requires Chaos Control I).
 
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