5e Wild Magic Revised

I like the idea of a "build up" of chaotic tension, and this seems like a good implementation if that thought.

There is one thing I'm not sure I like, though. And that is to use the spell's roll (if any) for the wild magic surge. Most (in a lot of cases all) spell rolls will be attack rolls and since low numbers trigger surges you will only (except extremely low AC or high surge build-up) get a wild magic surge when your spell misses. I think it could feel like a surge if not really a surge of magic, but your character messing up the spell cast and causing a surge instead. "You tried to throw a chromatic orb at the goblin, but instead you turned your skin blue". I think I would use a second d20 for wild magic so that the result of the spell and the surge are not connected.

This is only based on me reading this. I have not played with these rules.

Looking it over I appreciate your homebrew approach to dealing with Surges - I hate keeping track of them myself as a DM too. There is always plenty going on to keep your attention without yet one more thing to add to your list, so kudos to this approach. I would go back and take about ten minutes to spell check. Your otherwise descriptive approach falls down especially towards the end when some the spelling falls apart. My only other criticism is why do you use two columns? At first, I scratched my head and reread your article a couple times and I finally understood what you were getting across, so maybe it's just me, but perhaps especially in your first example with the Hobgoblin, Scorching Ray, and Web spell if the explanation was cleaned up it wouldn't be so confusing. I was beginning to wonder if Spell Level had something to do with column count beyond what had been mentioned earlier so it was making my head spin and then I realized that it was really just a confusing example (I think). Otherwise,...See more again, I personally like your homebrew approach and plan on using it in my game once you clean it up.