View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Wild Maze Wizard Tradition (5e)

2016-01-20, 10:03 PM
So I'm trying my hand at this homebrewing thing.

After playing it a lot in Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (an awesome game,) I've come to love the randomness of the Wild Mage while still having all the normal features of a Wizard. Sure, there's the Wild Magic origin for sorcerers, but that's for innate casters. People can study chaos too. So I tried to design it up an Arcane Tradition for Wizards following their normal tradition patterns, while not being perfectly identical to a Wild Magic Sorcerer.

Wild Magic
A wizard who studies the chaotic tendencies of the Weave is known as a Wild Mage. While usually the domain of sorcerers, you have become capable of tapping into it, letting loose barely contained bursts of arcane magics upon the very world. Wild Mages are generally frowned upon by other, more studious and orderly Wizards, as a Wild Mage rarely shows the control and mastery that a Wizard should have.

Chaotic Studies
Beginning when you select this path at 2nd level, roll a d4 whenever you are copying a spell into your spellbook. On a 1 or 2, you spend half the time and gold copying the spell. On a 3 or 4, you spend twice the time and gold copying it instead.

Wild Surge
Starting at 2nd level, your spellcasting can unleash surges of chaotic magic. Whenever you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, the DM can have you roll a d20. If you roll a 1, roll on the Sorcerer's Wild Magic Surge table to create the random effect. On a roll of 99-00, you regain your highest level expended spell slot instead of all sorcerery points, unless you happen to have sorcerery points through multi-classing.

Forced Chaos
Starting at 6th level, you can use your action to force a Wild Magic Surge roll without having to cast a spell. You can't do so again until you finish a long rest, though you can still trigger a Wild Magic Surge through normal spell casting.

Continual Chaos
Starting at 10th level, your Forced Chaos feature is usuable after a short rest as well as a long rest. In addition, you now roll for a Wild Magic Surge on a 1 or a 2 whenever your DM has you roll for a Wild Magic Surge.

Shared Chaos
Starting at 14th level, you can use your bonus action to designate another creature as the focal point for your Wild Magic Surges. Whenever a Wild Magic Surge happens that would affect you, it instead affects the target. The target can accept the affect or make a Intelligence saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, they are affected by the Wild Magic Surge, on a successful save, you are subject to it like normal.

Thoughts on this? And please be gentle, I'm extremely new to this kind of thing. I usually never do something that's not in a hard copy like the PHB.

2016-01-21, 01:57 AM
I dunno... personally, to be honest, I know it sounds harsh but I can't think up a reason why I'd use this over the original Wild Magic Sorcerer.

The Wild Magic Sorcerer has 2 LV 1 abilities, the first being the core mechanic "Wild Magic Surge", and the second being "Tides of Chaos".
While Wild Magic Surge activates at only a 5% percentage, Tides of Chaos allows you to activate wild magic abilities at some frequency, depending on how the DM is willing to let you do so (and most good DMs will be willing to let you use it often - they're the ones who allowed the Wild Magic option in the first place).

This Wild Maze Wizard also has 2 LV 1 abilities. But while the Surge is the same, the other is...um, sorta meaningless, if not a terribly weak ability. You could even say it will harm you more than do favor to you.
The probabilities of you rolling a 1 or 2 are the same as those of rolling 3 or 4. If you roll 1 or 2, a cost of 1 GP becomes 0.5 GP, while if you roll a 3 or 4, the cost becomes 2 GP. Add these together and you've got 2.5, divide by 2 for 1.25.
Yes, this ability actually makes you pay more in the long run.
Compare this with Tides of Chaos, which is free advantage plus more Wild Magic Surge in the future - an interesting and pretty useful ability. The Maze Mage actually suffers from this ability.
Add how rolling a die every time you copy a spell could be sorta annoying in some cases.

Now, for Forced Chaos and Continual Chaos.
Well, Forced Chaos is vastly underpowered because its action economy is terrible. Some effects of Wild Magic Surge can be beneficial, but some are also harmful for you and your allies. Generally, you don't want to use up your action on something that might kill yourself. Or, give you a beard made of feathers. Maybe something like "X times per X, when using a spell, activate the surge even if you didn't roll a 1" could be better and more fun, as well as more practical.
Continual Chaos is a nice idea, and I like it. I actually like it more than the original Controlled Chaos (Wild Magic Sorc), because well, if you can control chaos, it's not really even chaos anymore. This ability is FAR better than the original's, more fun and more thematic. Actually I'm thinking, if I'm to play Wild Sorc or have a player in my games wanting to play it, I'd give this ability to him instead of Controlled Chaos (if the player agrees). Thanks.

Shared Chaos...mmm, well, I personally don't go well with the idea of making wild magic controllable (though it certainly isn't a bad ability, one major part of the wild magic sorc is the thrill and fun that it might actually harm you at times), but that's just me. Probably fine, especially since the wizard is some sort of scientist anyways, and he should be collecting arcane knowledge on how to control his wild powers. And the look on the face of the campaign's evil mastermind when becomes a potted plant surrounded by faint, ethereal music. Except wait, he doesn't have a face anymore.

Well, Continual and Shared Chaos are very nice ideas, but other than that, overall it seems underpowered compared to the original Wild Sorc IMO. Since Wild Magic Surge is the very core of the class, perhaps you should give it more abilities that give you more surges without making it an impractical option in life-or-death situations (because that's what most adventurers are fighting through).

Prolly that's all I got to say. Good luck.

2016-01-21, 09:22 AM
I see what you're talking about. I was going more of the theme that a Wild Magic Sorcerer was taking advantage of the chaos within their magic, by messing with saving throws or tweaking outcomes, while the Wizard was taking advantage of his studies to force the chaos to happen.

Blowing an action on a Wild Magic Surge does seem a little underwhelming, but the key thing with my design is that it doesn't require a spell to be cast (which normally require an action anyhoo,) and you can do it without a spell slot available. I was basing it off of Nahal's Reckless Dweomer in Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition. That spell could cast ANY spell in your spell book, whether you could properly cast it at that moment or not, but that spell could be disrupted by the Wild Magic Surge. From my understanding, in 5e, you cast the spell, then the Wild Magic Surge happens, but your spell goes off anyway. Being able to cast ANY spell you have in your book seemed a little too powerful, so I tweaked it to simply triggering a Wild Magic Surge without the need of actually using a spell slot.

As for the other 2nd level ability, in the PHB, all Schools have an ability that simply cuts the cost and time investment in their particular school in half, while leaving the others alone. Since I was designing this with the PHB in hand, and not SCAG (which I don't own,) I went with something similar. Sure, it may not be effective all the time, but if you're lucky (and that's kind of the point of Wild Magic after all,) you can record spells from ALL schools cheaper.

2016-01-21, 09:50 AM
I do know the wizard sub-classes in the PHB all have that sort of ability. I can understand what you wanna do with the LV 6 ability. There's no problem there - I'm not saying the flavor is bad, I'm saying that currently this class is way too underpowered to be really used by anybody, even if you showed this to your IRL friends. And you don't want that right, do you?

If you want to create a well designed new sub-class, it needs to be both flavorful AND usable (at least not an absolute inferior to a pre-existing sub-class). No matter how flavorful a class might be, no good if no one wants to use it. I understand your intentions but I still think you need to add something that would make it better, so that your friends actually would want to use this over the original Wild Sorc, or at least think carefully of which to choose.