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View Full Version : A Message Across Time (PEACH)



Lysander
2009-11-20, 01:29 PM
This could definitely make games more complicated, but I think it could have some fun uses:

Hindsight
Divination
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: -3 minutes
Target: One creature
Duration: Intantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

This spell operates like Sending, except it allows the caster to send the message backwards in time as far as three minutes. The major limitation of the spell is that the spell cannot alter events the caster perceived. Thus any message to themselves automatically fails, and any message that would allow someone to change time also fails. The message also cannot effectively send information about the outcome of events of random chance, such as gambling results or the victor in competitions; any target of such a message instead receives simultaneous overlapping messages describing each possible outcome. What the spell can be used for is giving allies a head start in reacting to events that have not happened yet.

Daracaex
2009-11-20, 02:30 PM
Sending anything backwards in time can create a paradox, even if it's seemingly unrelated. If you use it to send a message to yourself, no matter what that message is, a paradox is created and paradoxes just aren't possible in theory due to their very nature.

It goes like this. You send a message to your party three minutes ago. They don't know what it is since it's just white noise describing endless possibilities, but they are prepared for something to happen because they know what the spell is. The fight goes better so they don't have to use the spell, but the only reason they used the spell is because the fight went differently. BAM, paradox.

In short, time travel is really complicated and shouldn't be touched unless you care nothing for any laws of causality. Every piece of media I've seen that has tried has failed to produce a product that uses it without creating paradoxes.

Lysander
2009-11-20, 03:03 PM
Except the spell will not work if the message will change time. In that case there would be no message received at all.

LordZarth
2009-11-20, 04:57 PM
Except the spell will not work if the message will change time. In that case there would be no message received at all.

If the spell ever does work, than it will create a paradox, and not work. The spell can never work because it will change time.

Lysander
2009-11-20, 08:32 PM
If the spell ever does work, than it will create a paradox, and not work. The spell can never work because it will change time.

Not necessarily. It's possible that any messages you sent always had been sent. The whole "don't worry about changing the past because what you think is a change is actually something that happened all along" theory of time travel.

The spell can't change time. So you can't send a warning to your ally who just died. What you can do is tell someone to start doing something three minutes ago so it's already done now, as long as it doesn't contradict what you've observed that person doing.

For example, you immediately need a potion of some sort that's stored far away in your castle that will take a few minutes to find. You can use Hindsight to tell an ally "Teleport to my castle, find this potion, and teleport to where I am in three minutes." That ally instantly appears next to you with the potion.

Hyooz
2009-11-20, 11:06 PM
So... why would I do that instead of... conjuring something more powerful than the potion?

You DO realize how powerful every other level 9 spell is right? And how much this fails in comparison?

Milskidasith
2009-11-20, 11:37 PM
Well, one media seems to have gotten Time Travel nailed down in a way that does work; Achron (a Time Travel RTS) has you control the units with the time flowing in "waves." It's hard to explain, but it winds up self sustaining well enough (you kill a unit in the past. X units later, the time wave of the unit that died is sent to the future and that unit disappears. Paradoxes oscillate until the last time wave with the paradox in it reaches the edge, so it could result in any number of outcomes, but you can time it right.)

Lysander
2009-11-21, 07:10 AM
So... why would I do that instead of... conjuring something more powerful than the potion?

You DO realize how powerful every other level 9 spell is right? And how much this fails in comparison?

The potion is just an example. It could be something like warning someone about an imminent danger. For example, let's say you're fighting a demon and it decides its going to teleport to your home village and kill everyone you love. Before following after it you could send a message back in time to warn your family "Flee through the teleportation circle! A demon is going to appear in three minutes!" Then when the demon arrives it finds nobody there. That doesn't contradict what the caster saw because they haven't seen the demon arrive while their family was still there.

Obrysii
2009-11-21, 07:15 AM
Keep in mind that there are dragons that can time travel (Time Dragons), and there are 9th level spells that stop time for portions of time.

Being able to send things back in time may be hard, but not impossible - but paradoxes are indeed possible unless you have some sort of "anti-paradox" mechanism.

Violet Octopus
2009-11-21, 08:10 AM
I wouldn't worry about paradoxes. If the players make a particularly bad one, send some inevitables at them. It's what they're there for.

Also it seems to me that instead of arbitrarily saying you can't send it to yourself, simply have it be impossible to send unless you've experienced it. So a DM says, if appropriate and you have it prepared, "you receive a message from the future" In 3 minutes, you have to cast it.

That could easily be abused by bad DMs, but so can plenty of other things.

The_Admiral
2009-11-27, 08:41 AM
Four words
Doctor Who
Paradox Machine

vampire2948
2009-11-27, 10:00 AM
You can just do the following:

Only send messages back to yourself at the point in time that you possess this spell - and tell your past self to send the same message back to the past-self.

That way, you know what's happening, and you cast it again in the future with the same message.

Tada, no paradox?

Caldarin
2009-11-27, 05:56 PM
BUT! What if by telling yourself this information, you cause yourself to be incapacitated 3 minutes later? boom, paradox...

absolmorph
2009-11-27, 08:15 PM
You can just do the following:

Only send messages back to yourself at the point in time that you possess this spell - and tell your past self to send the same message back to the past-self.

That way, you know what's happening, and you cast it again in the future with the same message.

Tada, no paradox?
Then there's no source for the message, which causes a paradox.
That's the same sort of situation as the sci-fi short story "All You Zombies": A woman sleeps with a guy, and has a child. It mangles her reproductive organs, and they make her a guy. Then the main character goes back in time and sleeps with a woman.
Turns out, they were their own mother and father. Where'd they come from?