Best Wild Mage?

[Shadowcthuhlu]

So, I'm going to be starting a Pathfinder campaign focused on Irresan. One of my players saw the Gamer: Dorkness Rising and fell in love with the Wild Mage Class. I know that this is a popular concept with two different versions of it between Pathfinder and 3.5. Which one do you thin is better? (Note, this is pathfinder first edition, so it's still fairly eeasy to port stuff between 3.5 and pathfinder) Or do you know of a homebrew or third party version that is even better?
P.S. I would also love having way too many table to choose from, so if you only know of some fun ones, feel free to share them.

[Shadowcthuhlu]

I realized I should be a bit more specific. Which one is the is the easiest for a newer player and isn't useless/op? (Yes, I know spellcaster are always op jokes are going to start now)

[StevenC21]

I don't play PF, but my understanding of the 3.5e Wild Mage is that it's definitely serviceable, although in most cases it's not much better than just taking more levels of your base class.

[Kaiwen]

3.5 Wild Mage doesn't really add much. Wild Magic is a very influential crapshoot, Random Deflector is worse than Abrupt Jaunt but still fairly good, and then you don't get any generally useful class features until level 10 when you can no-save screw over enemy casters.

Is the Pathfinder Wild Mage you mention the one from Spheres of Power? It's the only one I can find that isn't homebrew from a forum.

[GrayDeath]

I only know of the Wild magic Optional Rules in PF, but they merely provide a table with results, not really a class (and no real Class features hence).....

[Kaiwen]

Reading through the SoP Wild Mage, it seems like a flavorful slight downgrade to the base Thaumaturge.

You lose some useful invocations like Defensive Invocation and Empowered Attack/Defense, but in exchange you get to keep Wildfire up all the time as a buff rather than Soulfire sometimes as a neat bonus. You lose the opportunity to double-dip your forbidden lore bonus, but in general, that feels like a wash.

The one big change is exchanging Empowered Resistance at 15 for Defensive Maelstrom at 3. Sometimes-on 100% miss chance doesn't quite compare to always-on mettle. Even if it does fare better vs. rays, it does nothing vs. battlefield control. Even if it is a downgrade at level 15+, with Defensive Maelstrom coming in at level 3, I expect this to mostly come down to what levels you're playing at.

[Quertus]

As with all things, the 2e version is best. Nahal's Reckless Dwoemer is where it's at!

[Calthropstu]

As with all things, the 2e version is best. Nahal's Reckless Dwoemer is where it's at!

I once took a flaw in 2e called "annoying follower." It was homebrew and it gave me an unkillable follower. Teleporting made it appear next to me immediately. Worse, my gm decided to screw with me and gave him wild magic. And, even worse, he was a quickling. Outrunning him was impossible. And he insisted on "helping" in combat. So much destruction.

[StSword]

Well without knowing what exactly the player wants out of wild mage, I'm not sure what would constitute a better class.

Mongoose has the Chaos Mage, here's the handbook, to see if it's something that appeals.

The Illuminatus from Purple Duck Games, here's the endzeitgeist review, it got a 5 star seal of approval, but it's not actually a spellcaster, it has its own system. Maybe that's a problem, maybe not.

[Quertus]

I once took a flaw in 2e called "annoying follower." It was homebrew and it gave me an unkillable follower. Teleporting made it appear next to me immediately. Worse, my gm decided to screw with me and gave him wild magic. And, even worse, he was a quickling. Outrunning him was impossible. And he insisted on "helping" in combat. So much destruction.

Wow, I love it! I would so love to roleplay the desperation my character would feel when trying to prevent hostilities from erupting, knowing that he can never know just what might happen when his "helper" "helps". I'll probably never get to play in such a game, but still I can't help wondering about their relationship - is the follower a "gift" from the elven kingdom, a sibling, a romantic interest, a curse, or a condition of a back-ported Warlock class? So many fun possibilities!

[tiercel]

Arguably, the 3.5 Wild Mage’s major ability is powering arguments about how the Practiced Spellcaster feat interacts with the actual “Wild Magic” class ability

[Shadowcthuhlu]

Well without knowing what exactly the player wants out of wild mage, I'm not sure what would constitute a better class.
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What the player wants is some fun chaos with a character they aren't taking too seriously. What I'm trying to avoid is getting them frustrated if they can't keep up with the party (nobody is optimizing, so we have a lot of leeqay in that regard) and doesn't blow up the party at first level. I'll take a look at your links. Not being magic may not be any issue but I would have to examine the subsystem to determine if it works.

I am also loving all these 2nd edition stories.

[Bohandas]

On the ond WotC forum there was a good 3e conversion as a base class by the user Chonjurer [sic]. I'll check later on and see if I can find a copy in my files.

[Kaiwen]

What the player wants is some fun chaos with a character they aren't taking too seriously. What I'm trying to avoid is getting them frustrated if they can't keep up with the party (nobody is optimizing, so we have a lot of leeqay in that regard) and doesn't blow up the party at first level. I'll take a look at your links. Not being magic may not be any issue but I would have to examine the subsystem to determine if it works.

I am also loving all these 2nd edition stories.

Are other players using Spheres of Power, or has the group used it before? If not, then depending on your players, fun might not include learning a new magic system.

[Shadowcthuhlu]

No one else would be using spheres of power at the moment, so I'm a bit hesitate to go with that - but I probably still should loolk at ti as an option.