Do you have a good (and TRUE) wild surge that you had happen to you? I have a few :) I am currently in Ch. 6 of Bg2, so i can't speak of a wild mage's usefulness in ToB.

Unfortunately, my most surprising wild surge occured just before resting while in the planar sphere, and not in the middle of a fight. I thought i'd cast NRD on my Simulacrum spell just to see what happens. I got the "Roll twice more, both effects apply" followed by the spell being cast as an area effect, then spell cast normally. So i ended up with a Simulacrum cast for every player in my party. Would have been so cool if this happened in a fight :) Although, if it happned during a fight, i wonder if the area effect would have cast Simulacrum on the enemies. Hmm.

Another good one, cracked me up silly when it happened... I was fighting the Shade Lord on the Umar Hills quest. It's towards the end of the fight and I cast magic missile or some single target attack spell on the Shade Lord, hoping to kill him off. Instead, MOOO!! A cow falls on him killing him and ending the battle. I almost died laughing.

Unfortunately, just today while challenge fighting in the tavern of Ust Natha i had a wild surge of, what is it, 80% of my gold destroyed? Then I cast NRD on a Time Stop which cast normally. I figured it was karma (... read: i forgot my gold was destroyed and accidentally overwrote my saved file). so i went from 80k to 16k or something like that.

Another funny one, while fighting a room full of undead on the Korgan book quest, I cast something and it was recast as summoning about 20 squirrels. Once again, i cracked up. Those little buggers sure helped occupy some undead while i hacked my way through.

But lastly, one of the most useful though it only happened once (while fighting in the challenge pit in the tavern again) is where the spell is cast, but you recuperate as if you rested. So all my spells where back and available. Those drow never really stood a chance ;)

I like the wild mage, it sure sucks when things go bad though. Dizzy, itchy, protections dispelled. uhg! It seems to work in my favor in the long run though. I may just have to replace all my level 1 spells with NRD though and get real nuts!

peace,
Dulouz.

LOL! That's some pretty funny stuff! I'm just about to get ToB though and have not had a chance to play with a wild mage yet.

Ummmmm, yeah that sounds quite funny but I've never played the wild mage my character is too valuable I might try them if there was a NPC wild mage and they just seem to unpredictable for me the already enough stuff I have to deal with the last thing I want is my spells failing.

Aww, your no fun ;) At higher levels, and with Chaos Sheild cast (which lasts quite a long time) you can avoid most ill effects and just have spells cast normally. I'd say at lvl 17 it seems i have about 50% of my Nahal's Reckless Dweomer cast normally. This, for those unfamiliar with wild mage, is the lvl 1 spell that allows a wild mage to pick any scribed spell and try casting it. My regular spells get cast normally nearly all the time now. The only ill effects i really don't like are those that cause casting failure for a few rounds, like itchyness and dizzyness. but those effects can also happen to your target which is a good thing.

Well, yes and No.
I'm sure I'll get round to using one one day, but I'd rather have fun by killing everyone, and I mean everyone at every point of the game, in BG there was only 2 people I couldn't kill!

I once read of someone casting NRD through itself about 17 times and getting some truly frightening spell results... can't remember the specifics ATM

My favorite wild surge was always when my opponents had a sex change [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

Worst one was getting attacked by Mencar Pebblecrusher right out of the dungeon. I went to cast a spell, and stupid me targeted something out of range, so my character walked right next to Mencar and got attacked. I tried to cast a quick Stoneskin, and got turned into a squirrel. I didn't last long after that... :D

I had a spell where my character hiccuped constantly, so all you could hear was: *hiccup* *hiccup*
And another had birds flying out of his mouth. And yes, the cow one did happen to me too. But I didn't keep him, as too many spells failed, and he totally died too much, so I stayed with my monk and mage/theif

That must have been hilarious! I wish I could have seen it! [img]smile.gif[/img]

LOL! He was probably surprised at how easy you were! -)

SPOILERS

Here is one, though I doubt you'll believe me. I haven't still worked out what the hell happened!

Imoen got a wild surge! That's the unbelievable bit. Next, she did it during the final battle. I had ToB installed, so it was possible, despite the fact Imoen isn't a wild mage. Anyway, I was fighting Irenicus and she tried to cast 'Stoneskin' but, instead it did a roll twice. She summoned two Pit Fiends!!!! It was a pain, considering I hadn't been protected from evil!

And another one. I was doing a wild mage solo, and in a battle with Irenicus at the end of ToB (Ascension Mod), I turned myself into a wolf! I couldn't cast spells and I died. :(

I still don't understand why Imoen could do wild surges......

If you gad the Debug Mode on in the baldurs.ini file, you could occasionally press the key combination that makes all the spells cast wild surge with a same effect. Or it was just a bug, a nasty lil insect [img]smile.gif[/img]

My favorite one was when I got a "roll twice more" and I summoned squirrels and birds. It was totally useless, but still funny. I was thinking of editing that into a new spell, Summon Small Game but I just got lazy. :D

In one of the wild surge rooms in Watchers Keep valygar got turned red (his skin hehe). And then my gold got zapped by like 30k =-(

This is my first ToB game, and my first wild mage. :D Frequent happenings include:

--Losing 80% of my cash, right before buying something expensive. (NRD'd for a Friends--you'd think the first time would teach me not to do it!)
--Summoning a Nabassu so many times that I finally figured out his name (Joe) and the reason why he was so upset is because I kept summoning him while he was on the john. Oops.
--Having a sex change. Doesn't happen too often, but the one right before one of Anomen's more romantic dialogues was priceless.
--Area of Effect hiccups.
--Dropping a cow on a Pit Fiend. (I don't think it saw that one coming.)

Best and worst so far:
.
.
.
late-game and mage stronghold spoilers...
.
.
.
WORST: Getting Shangalar down to Near Death and casting magic missile, not even through a Dweomer, and getting a Wild Surge that healed his undead kiester.

BEST: Aizawa's apprentices made Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting for her. One of the most potent level 8 spells, if not the most potent, and I'm in Chapter 3. :D Later, I fight bad guys in my sphere, and decide to NRD for it, just to see what would happen. Wild Surge: No Save. I have a screenshot of some of them taking 60+ damage. :D