U68 Preview 1: Wild Magic & Surges General Info

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Bjond

Well-known member
Wild Magic Surge Rules: General design rules all surges follow....
  1. 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.)

Suggestion for color-blind neutral warning: icon over the head or transparent overlay on character (like EK's armor overlay). Icon could be a symbol such as +/=/- for easy understanding. Overlay is more fun; eg. superimpose or even change the body of the character to a bullywug before frogging them as a v.bad cc effect.

Neutral:
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)​

IMHO, this counts has a horrifically bad effect due to the spell failure chance, unless it's strictly "spells" (ie. not SLAs).

Minor idea for a good or v.good: a giant chipmunk joins your party, rolls itself into a ball, charges the target/s, and knocks them down (like bowling pins). Neutral~V.bad: the chipmunk flips you onto it's back and takes you for a ride for 4s (neutral = you can steer, bad = yeehaw!)
 

Buddha5440

Trainer of those who beat dead horses
Deaths in my PnP campaigns come from player mistakes or not planning ahead correctly. It does not happen because of some random uncontrollable effect forced upon you by the little guy in red robes.

There is a reason why I never use things like the Rod of Wonder, or the Deck of Many Things. Uncontrolled randomness sucks.
I would likely never play one of your campaigns then...To each his own.

I prefer a campaign where the DM has a list (usually 100, just to make the dice rolls simple) of things that may happen on a Crit fail or while in a Wild Magic zone. Some of which are similar to, "You didn't realize one of the leather straps on you leggings had come loose and, while you were swinging at the Troll, you slipped and embedded your axe in your own chest" or 'Your mirror image spell misfired and caused all the Magic Missiles to be redirected at you'.
 

LeoLionxxx

Lion of Orien
Free Beer - You conjure a free beer on the ground. Effects of drinking the free beer TBD. Using some tavern food atm.
Heals for a moderate amount and adds a stack of "Drunk"

Drunk: For 10 seconds per stack, you have -1 to all saves but 5 DR. When you take a step forward, 10% chance you will turn left or right.

Bonus: If a monster not in combat finds Free Beer on the ground, it drinks the beer (it is free after all) and enters a blissful daze for 5 seconds.
 

Tilomere

Well-known member
The personal bad weather also needs to affect allies. If allies can benefit from effects, including from mobs being affected they also need the potential drawbacks. Immersion and lore and all.

Besides, who doesn't want to group with a sorc that might randomly lightning bolt crit them for 30k base, multiplied by 12 for R10, for a total of 360k or so? That's just part of the adventure. Will make the best hardcore character ever!
 

J2345678

Players Council 2015
I like the Wild Magic Surge implementation, the random effects could use more adjustment.

Wild Magic & Surges
  1. Casting spells as a Wild Mage or in a Wild Magic Zone has a random chance to cause a Wild Magic Surge.
  2. Wild Magic Surges make bonus magical effects occur on or around the caster the next time you cast a spell.
  3. You will get a VFX and sound warning for a Wild Magic Surge that will indicate if it's good or bad.
  4. 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.
Good so far. (y)
  • Very Good(chance is very rare)
    NONE of these are 'Very Good' :confused:
    .
    Force Bubbles - You and all nearby allies gain a Force shield reducing damage by 95% for 4 seconds.
    A RANDOM 4 SECONDS is NOTHING. For 'Very Good' make this last longer, 20+ seconds, even if you have to nerf the reduction %.
    .
    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.
    Summons are bad. They scew up monster AI and are unable to move correctly, use abilities, do any damage, or survive generally. I'd prefer no summon and a heal over time/buff aura on the caster instead. You could turn the caster into the Unicorn like the snowman cookie.
    .
    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.
    Randomly killing some trash with reaper ward blocking any rezz and once a quest makes this another nothing. It's already a random chance on a "very rare" effect pool, bypass reaper ward and lose the once a quest restriction.
    .
  • 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.
    This could be 'Very Good' depending on the 'short period of time' and knockdown durations.
    .
    Truest Sight - You and all allies in the general area gain true sight and 10% dodge bypass for 60 seconds.
    There are many sources of True Seeing so that's just flavor but the dodge bypass for 60 seconds is 'Good'.
    .
    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.
    1d6 damage "scales with spell power and can crit" is nothing. Make it a single 'Chaos Charge' with 1d6 chaos damage per character level for the next offensive spell cast.
    .
  • Neutral
    Butterflies - Butterflies appear around you. Enjoy!
    This is neutral.
    .
    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)
    This is 'Bad'. Spell failure is bad or worse depending on duration. Enemy confusion for 4 seconds is nothing, raise the duration to 12+ seconds and lose the spell failure. If you must have a negative make it concentration.
    .
    Free Beer - You conjure a free beer on the ground. Effects of drinking the free beer TBD. Using some tavern food atm.
    It should be the effects of Enchanted Ghallanda Rations (Well Fed X: 500 hit points over one minute) and Ghallanda Distillate (Quenched IX: 1600 spell points over one minute) combined with no tavern restriction.
    .
  • Bad
    Shrinkage: Suddenly you are quite small. Your damage is reduced by 20% and you gain 10% dodge and +5 to reflex saves.
    This is appropriately 'Bad'.
    .
    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.
    This is 'Bad' or 'Very Bad' depending on the blindness duration. +AC is flavor.
    .
    So tired: You become fatigued.
    Fatigued is appropriately 'Bad'.
    .
  • Very Bad(chance is very rare)
    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.
    This is appropriately 'Very Bad'.
    .
    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)
    This is appropriately 'Very Bad'.
    .
    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
    This is 'Bad' or 'Very Bad' depending on the Call Lightning spell damage.
 
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FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted

Well-known member
i would like to say, i did 30 minutes of testing and I found ~50-100 different procs. the ones on the forums are no where near the complete list. from my testing, the good procs were ok but the bad procs might insta kill you. definitely not worth it. also, devs, a lot of the effects have the wrong duration, for example, some of the bad curses last 2 seconds (I wont say which ones because if they lasted longer you die...)
 

Rage

Well-known member
Some questions for those that tested this, I don't have access to Lam.

What are the wild magic fields like? Are they like globes of light you an easily avoid if you don't want wild magic happening? Someone said additional procs, can you describe the additional ones? Thank you.
 

Ratatoskr_Mikew

Well-known member
I would like to recommend two things:

1-Something in the tree for minions such as hirelings, pets, and summons and perhaps even a class pet representing chaos and able to equip a collar and armor. Make the wild magic sorcerer a class people will want to equip the Legendary Diabolist Robe and Ring for!

2-A weapon imbue for when you run out of spellpoints and still want to enjoy wild magic effects
 
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mikarddo

Well-known member
from my testing, the bad/very bad things massively outweighed the "fun" of the good/very good. the very bad/bad need to be toned down and the 50% ASF needs to be removed or moved to a very bad effect
Is the 50% asf countered by having excess spell failure reduction, so you can avoid it entirely - OR - is the 50% asf a flat penalty that cannot be avoided?

I very much agree that either the very good and good stuff needs to be absolutely HUGE (and its not at all right now) or the bad / very bad stuff needs to be toned down alot. Randomly getting a small and often situational bonus does not at all outweight the risk of getting a crippling 6 sec very bad effect that often means you are dead. The good stuff needs to outweight the bad stuff alot for this to be fun and it does not currently.
 
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Dandonk

Beater of Dead Horses
I'm not sure about this thing. I'm not against Wild Magic and Wild Mage. It fits with MD, and can be interesting. Playing one way too many years ago was pretty fun.

But it needs to combine having the unique feel and identity of wild magic with being actually playable in an MMO. One thing is what is great fun in a PnP session, another is messing up stuff in an MMO... too many people will get annoyed.

So yes, the good things need to be good enough to actually want to play this. And the bad things need to be softball enough that people aren't going to either not want to play one, or start blocking them from groups. And all this while not making it so OP that it's the only caster to play.

It seems a very fine line to thread to me. And it doesn't look like the current version is there. At the moment we're somewhat on the meh side of the good effects.
 
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