Dungeons and Dragons‘ fifth edition had precious little on offer for its sorcerer class at launch. In fact, the base Player’s Handbook for 5E came packed with a scant 2 subclasses for the sorcerer, while the wizard had a massive 8 options at launch. Before the release of other sourcebooks, sorcerers in Dungeons and Dragons 5E could only choose from two options: a draconic bloodline or Wild Magic. While in theory Wild Magic provided a unique and spontaneous flair, it ended up fairly lackluster.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, a new sourcebook for 5E, came with many new subclasses, while some of these overpower their Players’ Handbook counterparts. Unfortunately, this problem was most obvious with the sorcerer, with Wild Magic looking especially bad in comparison, and so there’s a few things that WotC or DMs could do to make it stand out.
No feature of Dungeons and Dragons can necessarily be called “bad” due to the creative license wielded by its players. However, Wild Magic is much less impactful than Dungeons and Dragons’ other subclasses. This is despite the entire conceit of Wild Magic being based on random effects triggered by the use of magic, which in theory could alter the entire course of the game.
Wild Magic suffers when compared to other character options because it just does not commit to its own theme enough. The Wild Magic mechanic is unique in the game, using the rarely rolled 100-sided dice for its magical consequences. This should sow huge discord throughout a campaign, with a massive range of interesting effects at play and making the sorcerer an agent of pure chaos.
Wizards of the Coast apparently anticipated the chaotic impact this power could have, and as such changed, it made it to where the d100 roll to trigger only comes after several other rolls trigger. As such, this attempt at balancing Wild Magic into something more controlled means that the effects barely ever trigger. A Wild Magic Sorcerer could go for most of a D&D campaign and never properly see the spontaneous magic. With this in mind, the most powerful Dungeons and Dragons sorcerer builds might be more attractive than Wild Magic.
The easiest fix for this subclass is to make the effect happen more often. In the base game, whenever the sorcerer casts a spell of first level or higher, a d20 is rolled. On a critical fail (a roll of a 1), the player then rolls on the d100 Wild Magic surge table. This is a table of 50 different effects that can trigger, while Wild Magic effects range from growing a long beard to transporting the sorcerer to the Astral Plane.
To make the effect’s trigger more consistent, a dungeon master needs to extend that surge activation range. They could start by allowing cantrips to trigger surges too (the sorcerer’s entire magical origin is from this random arcana, as it should affect the best 5E sorcerer cantrips too). This in and of itself will increase the number of surges, and wary DMs can stop here if campaign derailment is a chief concern.
Another addition to consider is scaling the wild magic surge activation range. Across all the editions of Dungeons and Dragons, increasing spell levels come with varying costs. These include component costs (like the cost of Scrying in 5E), and sometimes the inability to cast the spell again (as with Wish). As such, it follows that Wild Magic should also scale with spell level. By increasing the surge range from a 1-5, a Dungeon Master already multiplies the surge frequency by a lot.
Another option is to customize the Wild Magic table, but this suggestion is by far the most time-consuming. However, it is also a particularly rewarding endeavor for both player and DM. The sometimes limited Player’s Handbook has 50 options for wild magic, two for each side of a d100. Among these options is third level “fireball” spell – and if a party is only level one, this will annihilate an entire adventure early on. Concerns like this are likely why designers were cautious around the frequency of wild magic.
To solve this issue, D&D players and Game Masters could use a d20 for the wild magic surge, with an effect on each. After each surge, the effect can be replaced with a new one. What this does is allow for more granular control over the effects, so the party is not wiped at level one by a fireball. It also allows the DM to be more creative, letting new effects being written in a more closed system.
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