Can a Wild Mage really "accidentally" summon a Massive freakin' Magma Elemental?

[Roythebattousai]

In one of our campaigns... I got splattered on a wall by the creation of my teammate, a Wild Mage.

...Come on. Really? What gives him the power to do that?

I mean, I'm sure it's just a call of the DM or something... but that hardly seems fair, some one care to elaborate the working behind this phenomenon, the "Wild Mage?"

[Adumbration]

That is definitely DM's work, if we're talking 3.5, and it's the Wild Mage prestige class from CArc.

[Demonix]

With wild magic, anything goes...that's the fun!

Hell, I used to try to cast wildshaped fireballs ALL THE TIME, and we had 5 different tables for effects :)

Yeah, wands of wonder and decks of many things were popular too.

[Roythebattousai]

Ah, I think the thing was, that he rolled a 99 for the happenings of his spell.

Which is like, DM's choice, or something.


It didn't really purposely kill me. It tried to kill all of us, I was just the only one who didn't pass the saving throw.

(No worries, they revived me. Though I did miss the end-campaign boss.)

[Irreverent Fool]

It has been said that random chance favors the underdog. In a game where your PCs slay countless numbers of enemy troops/monsters/etc, guess who the underdog is.

I say, three cheers for the bad guys! They got one, finally!

[Chronos]

It has been said that random chance favors the underdog. In a game where your PCs slay countless numbers of enemy troops/monsters/etc, guess who the underdog is.This, incidentally, is also why swords are slightly better, mechanically, than the equivalent axes.

[Coplantor]

Well, Im not used to 3rd ed wild mages, but in 2nd ed... Those were some freaky random effects tables. When the players where lvl 1, the wild mage (it was a basic class, there was no such things as PrC) casted magic missile and accidentally opend a door to another dimention. From such door, horrible thingd and probably a god crawled into this realm... that was too much for lvl1 characters...

[RukiTanuki]

Actually, I've found that the more random chance is introduced to the game, the more likely it is that the PCs get screwed.

And really, since they're the ones who come back game after game, it's much more noticeable if the PC suffers the effect of a bad roll vs. the average NPC, especially in Save Or Die Land.

[Chronos]

Actually, I've found that the more random chance is introduced to the game, the more likely it is that the PCs get screwed.That's exactly what Irreverent Fool and I were saying. Random chance favors the underdog, and in your typical D&D campaign, the villains are the underdogs. "Favoring the villains" = "more likely that the PCs get screwed".

That said, though, random chance can also be very fun, even if it does sometimes blow up in your faces. Sometimes you can enjoy the game more by losing spectactularly than by winning mediocrely.

[UglyPanda]

If this is 3.5, you should really have a talk with your DM before he has you decapitating yourselves every time you roll a 1.

I agree with the above posters that more randomness hurts the PCs more than the NPCs. After all, the NPCs never have to roll for anything until you come into contact with them. Even then, it's only while you're in contact with them that they have to roll for stuff and there are an infinite number of them while there are a finite number of you.

[Coplantor]

Lets see, same wild mage than last post: They were trying to solve a puzzle in order to open a door, they failed. The wild mage was so angry that he decide to cast naharl's reckless dweomer just to make something happen. I roll for effect and it says: "all doors on a 100 feet radius are forced opened"

It was so random that I allowed it.

[SadisticFishing]

Random chance favors nobody. That's just silly!

Thing is, a LOT of random chance stops being random chance and starts being very good probabilities. The reason the PCs get owned by too much luck is that they're the same every session, whereas the NPCs change every session. Not because the NPCs are the underdogs.

[Jack_Simth]

Random chance favors nobody. That's just silly!

Thing is, a LOT of random chance stops being random chance and starts being very good probabilities. The reason the PCs get owned by too much luck is that they're the same every session, whereas the NPCs change every session. Not because the NPCs are the underdogs.

Random chance favors the underdog in that there are more underdogs than top dogs. Given otherwise-equal random chances, the probability that something random will happen significantly in an underdogs favor is higher than the probability that something random will happen significantly in the top dog's favor. Especially in small on small combats that are pretty much "winner takes all".

[ericgrau]

Correct, random chance really does favor the underdog. We had to analyze it in one of my classes. If your chances of winning are lower, you're better off taking higher risks. If your chances of winning are high, you're better off playing it safe.

See, when it's less random the stronger guy's chance of winning becomes almost certain. When it's taken to the extreme of all skill and no luck, his chances are 100% even if he's only slightly stronger. When it's more random, the weaker guys chances may still be well below 50%, but gambling on that, say, 20-30% chance of random success is better than his even lower chances otherwise (0% in the extreme example).

Also applies if you're ahead/behind, even if both opponents have equal skill. Basically applies whenever things are in your favor or against your favor, one way or another.

Here's an example to help everyone understand: Let's say we play d&d with a d100 instead of a d20. How much stronger are you than that guy with 1 AB lower than you now? Yeah, you're still stronger, but not by so much anymore. More randomness equalizes things which is good if you're behind and bad if you're ahead.

[bbugg]

A concrete example of this:

I'm in a poker match with one opponent - he knows how to play, but I've never played before. I'm the underdog. My best bet is to go 'all in' on the first hand. I have a 50% chance of winning that will only go down the longer a game drags on and he makes good decisions to my bad ones.

[Yakk]

More "random chance" refers to "effects with higher variance".

Imagine you reduced D&D to a single number "Your Kick-ass-ness" -- YKAN.

Each character has a YKAN.

We have two versions of D&D. In one, you roll 2d6-7+YKAN to determine how well you did in a fight. (Average roll = 3.5+3.5-7 = 0)

In the other, you roll 2d20-21+YKAN to determine how well you did in a fight. (Average roll = 10.5+10.5-21 = 0).

Whoever gets the higher roll wins.

Suppose your character has a YKAN of 20, and your opponents have a YKAN of 9. There is literally no way the YKAN of 9 opponents can defeat the YKAN of 20 character under the 2d6 version.

Under the 2d20 version, the YKAN 9 opponents have a chance.

This increase in the random factor helps the underdogs.

Note that this presumes the increase in random factor has no impact on the average. A random factor that also has a positive benefit for the top-dog can make up for the increased variance with that benefit.

[Selrahc]

A concrete example of this:

I'm in a poker match with one opponent - he knows how to play, but I've never played before. I'm the underdog. My best bet is to go 'all in' on the first hand. I have a 50% chance of winning that will only go down the longer a game drags on and he makes good decisions to my bad ones.

Um.. unless he doesn't call your all in? If you just go all in every hand then he is going to slaughter you as he waits for a good hand and you call all in with dross.

All you'll do is steal a few blinds and then lose most of your stack. Unless you get lucky.

[bbugg]

Um.. unless he doesn't call your all in? If you just go all in every hand then he is going to slaughter you as he waits for a good hand and you call all in with dross.

All you'll do is steal a few blinds and then lose most of your stack. Unless you get lucky.

Right - I was trying to oversimplify with this example. The point is the same though. If I can reduce the randomness, i.e. force it to one hand, then I have a far better chance at winning than if I continue to play. My example of forcing it to one hand was less than perfect.

[kjones]

The simplest way to think of it is this:

Imagine that you were playing a game of D&D where, whenever you rolled a natural 1, you somehow managed to accidentally decapitate yourself.

This will favor the monsters in the long run - while a few will decapitate themselves, it's only a matter of time before some PC manages to, and that matters a lot more than when it's some little kobold.