Time Travel?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I've recently heard some things about time travel being bandied about on this forum. I may be partly to blame for bringing it up in this thread http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138927

The only way I know of to manage time travel in D&D is to make your way to the temporal plane and then somehow safely traverse it to the point in time you want to go, which is no small feat. I've heard however that there is a much easier way to enact time travel. So here's the question playgrounders: how does one engage in time travel in D&D.

[olentu]

I've recently heard some things about time travel being bandied about on this forum. I may be partly to blame for bringing it up in this thread http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138927

The only way I know of to manage time travel in D&D is to make your way to the temporal plane and then somehow safely traverse it to the point in time you want to go, which is no small feat. I've heard however that there is a much easier way to enact time travel. So here's the question playgrounders: how does one engage in time travel in D&D.

Teleport through time.

Also some psionics sort of.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't think teleport really works that way, but I am interested in the "some psionics" thing.

[Foryn Gilnith]

This is the actual Teleport through Time (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pg/20030409b) spell.


I think the psionics route involves Forced Dream and/or Quintessence.

[Idlewyld]

World walk to Earth (D20 Modern) and find a guy by the name of Dr. Emmit Brown in Hill Valley.

[Foryn Gilnith]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6706971#post6706971 is all I can find about the save point. Send a PM to Doc Roc, he knows more. Tleilaxu_Ghola made the trick.

[Lysander]

Of course the problem with time travel is that even if you can find an "official" method, like Teleport Through Time, you still have to figure out the rules of your time travel. Can time be changed? Is it fixed and unchangeable? What are the limitations or rules? Are paradoxes possible and if so what happens? There are thousands of different theories in different works of fiction. The other problem is that if you do decide on rules, your players will likely try to find ways of breaking them.

[Gamerlord]

World walk to Earth (D20 Modern) and find a guy by the name of Dr. Emmit Brown in Hill Valley.

You don't have to, just find his time-traveling steampunk train (You watched number III right?) somewhere in the time stream.

[Gamerlord]

The problem with time-travel is the very real possibility of ruining your DMs campagin setting, or premade campagin from wizards. By complete accident.

[The Deej]

for those who would consider time travel in a real campaign (DISCLAIMER: I don't recommend it at all) I would advise you to consider The Novikov Self-consistency principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle) and the predestination paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox).

I couldn't find the exact text, but an awesome example I found once was a billiard ball going through a wormhole at an angle, coming out the other end back in time on a trajectory that it impacts with itself, causing it to move into the entrance of the wormhole at the aforementioned trajectory.

How to implement for something like, say, autoinfanticide? You go back in time, find your parents, and kill their child. You return to your time. Your parents then finally tell you that their own child was murdered, so they adopted you. You happened to be the same age as their original child.

I recommend not letting them mess with their own pasts though.

[Sir_Elderberry]

The self-consistency principle would mean that killing yourself as a child would actually be impossible. This would be incredibly frustrating for players, though. "I swing at the child. AC 23." "Sorry, you miss." "What? How?" "+Infinity logic bonus to AC."

[The Deej]

The self-consistency principle would mean that killing yourself as a child would actually be impossible.

Yes. but I was positing that it's impossible to kill yourself because it's not actually you that you killed. Your character simply wasn't aware until afterwards. You could do the "+infinity logic bonus to AC", but my way is lower in fiat. You know, for GM's on a low fiat diet.

[Temotei]

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

It's a trap. :smallsigh:

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm all too familiar with the problems caused by time travel in-game. It's a bad idea and I would never allow any sort of time travel in my games excepting the few seconds a few psionic powers allow for.

Edit: and whoever wrote up that "teleport through time" spell should be taken out back and beaten with a shovel.

[Sir_Elderberry]

Yes. but I was positing that it's impossible to kill yourself because it's not actually you that you killed. Your character simply wasn't aware until afterwards. You could do the "+infinity logic bonus to AC", but my way is lower in fiat. You know, for GM's on a low fiat diet.

Oh, I understand, although my way isn't so much fiat as...well, the consistency thing. You literally can't do it, logically speaking, anymore than you can draw a triangle whose angles add up to 360 degrees on a flat plane. Players aren't going to be happy with "you actually killed some completely different kid" either.

Man, time travel is such a bad idea.

[Foryn Gilnith]

excepting the few seconds a few psionic powers allow for.

The thing is, those "few seconds" can be extended to hours or even years, with liberal use of quintessence. Still doesn't allow for time-travel before the development of the traveling method, but it can still mess things up something fierce.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The thing is, those "few seconds" can be extended to hours or even years, with liberal use of quintessence. Still doesn't allow for time-travel before the development of the traveling method, but it can still mess things up something fierce.

Now that I'm aware of this combo any player that finds himself capable of using it will get an immediate, "if you don't want a 'rocks fall and you die' scenario, you will never combine these powers to invent time travel. No, not even then." The better portion of why I wanted to find the various time-travel methods is so I can make sure I don't get blind-sided by any of them. I don't like to ban things out-right or say to a player, "No, you can't do that," unless its absolutely necessary to keep the game running. I just, personally, believe that any and all forms of time travel fall very heavily on the, "this will screw up everything," button. And no I don't mean traveling forward in time at the rate of 1 second for every second that passes "time travel."

[Greymane]

I'd have Inevitables show up. The ones in the Fiend Folio that can act normally during Time Stop effects, whenever you try and break the time line more than just being there would.

[Lawless III]

I could see doing a fun time travel based campaign if you did it sort Chrono Trigger style. Preset destinations with so much time in between you can't have lasting effects on anything without the DM's approval. You would still need players that weren't actively trying to destroy the timeline though, because we know they would eventually find a way. Also you should probably limit lifespans and/or races. Anything living past 200 could throw some serious wrenches in this whole idea.

This is all a bit shaky, so no guarantees. It seems like it could be a lot of fun if pulled off right though.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I could see doing a fun time travel based campaign if you did it sort Chrono Trigger style. Preset destinations with so much time in between you can't have lasting effects on anything without the DM's approval. You would still need players that weren't actively trying to destroy the timeline though, because we know they would eventually find a way. Also you should probably limit lifespans and/or races. Anything living past 200 could throw some serious wrenches in this whole idea.

This is all a bit shaky, so no guarantees. It seems like it could be a lot of fun if pulled off right though.

No. That only worked in Chrono Trigger/Cross because it's a video game and the players actions are pretty severely limited. Same thing for movies TV and books. All of those characters' stories were already decided before the "player" ever picked up the medium. Free will + time travel = disaster.

[Coidzor]

^: That's the general idea though. The PCs are ****ing up time while trying to kill someone else who is ****ing up time and then the future is robotswarforged.

Quintessence and a loyal/programmable enough immortal minion to clear it off of you plus those boxes from that one movie with the boxes that had to be turned on and then when they were turned off their contents began to travel back to when they were first turned on...

[The Demented One]

Time travel proves to be a Generally Bad Idea, and well-made settings should generally make it specifically impossible. The sole exception exists in games that are tailor-made for time travel, like Continuum.

[Lawless III]

No. That only worked in Chrono Trigger/Cross because it's a video game and the players actions are pretty severely limited. Same thing for movies TV and books. All of those characters' stories were already decided before the "player" ever picked up the medium. Free will + time travel = disaster.

I still think it would be entirely possible to make an adventure or even a whole campaign based on this premise and not have it totally hit the fan. If the players made a "no-time-travel-cheese" agreement. I wouldn't play it with just anybody, but with the right group it could be something very interesting. It's just a matter of control and mutual respect. It could be a fascinating concept if correctly developed.

[sofawall]

I'd like to second the recommendation to ask Doc Roc. PM him, or head into ToS chat to see if he's there. He is, to my knowledge, the most knowledgeable about these sorts of tricks, at least on the boards (and I include BG and WotC in that). Time Travel is definitely something he knows a half-dozen ways to do.

[Dragonmuncher]

No. That only worked in Chrono Trigger/Cross because it's a video game and the players actions are pretty severely limited. Same thing for movies TV and books. All of those characters' stories were already decided before the "player" ever picked up the medium. Free will + time travel = disaster.

That's true, because here in real life time travel wi... wait.

That's right, it works in Chrono Trigger and Cross because those are GAMES and this is... oh.


/sarcasm
It'll take a bit of thinking on your feet, but you could easily do it. ESPECIALLY if it's done Chrono Trigger style, with set time periods instead of "I go back in time 10 seconds and kill him." YOU'RE the DM, YOU say what changes happened.

Stop being so Simulationist! Sheeeeeeesh.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

That's true, because here in real life time travel wi... wait.

That's right, it works in Chrono Trigger and Cross because those are GAMES and this is... oh.


/sarcasm
It'll take a bit of thinking on your feet, but you could easily do it. ESPECIALLY if it's done Chrono Trigger style, with set time periods instead of "I go back in time 10 seconds and kill him." YOU'RE the DM, YOU say what changes happened.

Stop being so Simulationist! Sheeeeeeesh.The issue is that actions are limited in computer games in ways that that would never fly in D&D. If the players are on the same continent, they will find a way to mess up the time stream. They'll burn a forest or knock down a mountain, knowing they've already fought there in the future.

Also, we need better conjugations for time travel discussions.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The issue is that actions are limited in computer games in ways that that would never fly in D&D. If the players are on the same continent, they will find a way to mess up the time stream. They'll burn a forest or knock down a mountain, knowing they've already fought there in the future.

Also, we need better conjugations for time travel discussions.

I admit that part of my paranoia on the issue stems from one of my players. He's the kind of guy that would burn down the forest while the party was still in it just because it seems like a fun idea. Cutting him lose on the space-time continuum is a thought that could give me nightmares. Then there's the amateur physicist in me that just couldn't ignore the fact that their very presence in the past would likely have far-reaching affects considering that there's absolutely no way that they aren't fairly powerful characters if they're capable of time travel. Even if I ignore both of those things and try to somehow limit the mechanic of their time traveling to phlebotinum powered mcguffin only, they'd still manage to screw things up somehow. Time Travel = Very Bad Things

[Beorn080]

IF you include time travel, the multiple worlds theory is probably easiest to DM. Pretty much how Back to the Future handled it.

Also, stacking haste until you can move faster then light would do it as well.

[Kelb_Panthera]

IF you include time travel, the multiple worlds theory is probably easiest to DM. Pretty much how Back to the Future handled it.

Also, stacking haste until you can move faster then light would do it as well.

Except that haste doesn't stack with itself :smallamused:

[Beorn080]

Clearly you aren't applying enough haste to the creature then.

[Kelb_Panthera]

To keep this moving in the direction I want it to go in: I remember hearing something about the power schism and a thought bottle?

[Inyssius Tor]

[The multiple-worlds model of time travel is] Pretty much how Back to the Future handled it.

... no?

No. It's not. It's nothing like how Back to the Future handled it.

Back to the Future had a generic overwriting-style timeline (albeit one thoroughly muddled by Hollywood scriptwriting, as usual for a time travel movie). Classic Type Two model. This is rather relevant to the plot of the first movie. In fact, one might legitimately call it the plot of the first movie. Remember, Marty needed to set up his parents because he had screwed up and overwritten the past? Yeah, that doesn't work at all in a universe where meddling teenagers just fork the timeline rather than overwriting it.

[Reluctance]

Do you have any reason to believe your players are actively trying to exploit time travel, or are you doing all this work as a preemptive catch? If the latter, this sounds like a lot of time and energy that could be spent improving other parts of your campaign.

Long story short, every form of time-travel that's not directly and obviously designed as such relies on taking some form of "rewind to your last turn" power combined with some form of suspended animation/time hop power to make "your last turn" happen a fair bit back relative to the rest of the multiverse. If you want to avoid a paradox at all costs, simply ban all rewind-style powers. Even twelve seconds back can create problems if someone is intent on creating them.

[Kelb_Panthera]

We're between campaigns atm, not enough players anymore. :frown: But yeah, this is partly a kind of preemptive catch. The other part is supposed to be a look at interesting ways to accomplish something that, except for a web article, is extremely difficult to do within the rules. Like I said, I'd never let my any of my campaigns head in that direction. The subject gives me too much of a headache. Nevermind that the player that I can count on having would have a freakin' field day wrecking the time-stream. He's a good guy, and a blast to play with, but planning around his personal foibles can be a little tricky sometimes.

[Reaper_Monkey]

and whoever wrote up that "teleport through time" spell should be taken out back and beaten with a shovel.

I agree, but beaten with a shovel from the FUTURE!! :smallamused:

Still, time travel is never really a good idea if you allow multiple jumps or the "travelling into your own timeline" events. It can work mostly if you either use multiple streams of time (ie, no paradox because as you travel back in time you actually just create a new timeline where you did travel back rather than the one you just lived though were you didn't) or simply limit time travel to one jump back in time to a point at least 100 years previous and you can never return to your own time.

Even then though its a lot of work for very little gain, you might as well have a prophecy if you're going back to change something, or a comical game if you want to screw up your own past so you can pull a "its raining doughnuts" without anyone really questioning it.

[Bayar]

If you want to try a time travelling campaign, but dont want your players to try and break anything, play Paranoia. Just give them a time travelling machine, and let them go wild.

"Ok, we travel back in time and prevent Friend Computer from ever being activated !"

"You succeded ! You now live a life of constant fear and terror because everything is so strange, and there is no underground base left to take refuge into. You eventually die and wake up back into the complex. Friend Computer is not amused by your shenanangins, please report to your nearest confession booth for termination. Have a nice day !"

[Kaiyanwang]

Is not a bad thing the spell per se. Could be a great hook for an adventure or an epic campaign.

Of course, you have to put limits (like, an abuse of the spell could simply break the universe and so on). Maybe some occasional adventure could lead to stop a villain abusing of the spell. Maybe the quest giver could be the time dragon from one of the last issue of Dragon Magazine.

Consider that yes, messing with time could lead to troubles with inevitables and other lawful guardians, Chronotryns p*** off because you play in their field, and ultimately reality itself starting to spam Phanes.

And we don't want to fight Phanes, do we?

[Telonius]

World walk to Earth (D20 Modern) and find a guy by the name of Dr. Emmit Brown in Hill Valley.

Wonder what the craft DC of a Flux Capacitor is...

On the plus side, if you have a Wizard with you, you won't need plutonium. Just create some lightning, and you're all set for 1.21 gigawatts. :smallcool:

[magic9mushroom]

You can fix the paradox hazards and other problems if you use a system like in the RTS Achron, which is the only remotely logical model I know for having time travel that a) has the capability to change the past rather than cause what you already experienced, b) doesn't have an instawin for the first guy to use it, c) doesn't invoke parallel universes.

Basically, the idea is that changes to the timeline propagate at some larger rate (in "meter" time) than the rate at which people move through the timeline, but not infinity. For an example take the rate of timeline propagation as double the speed at which people move through time. Then if your opponent timetravels back 10 rounds, you have 10 rounds in which to do stuff before the effects of his timetravel affect you (because the timeline change will propagate 20 rounds just as you've moved 10 rounds yourselves). If timeline propagation was instead three times as fast as personal movement, you'd only have 5 rounds to act.

Paradoxes end up in an eternal flip-flop - if you kill your grandfather, you get unmade once the change has propagated to when you were born, and then he gets unkilled once it reaches your time travel, which leads to you arising again, etc - this results in a timeline that never settles down (and may hence invite inevitable intervention to prevent you doing it in the first place :smallwink:) but doesn't actually contradict itself at any point.

However, the GM who can keep track of all of that on paper is better described as "God", and players will majorly not like to have to play every single round half a dozen times.

For this to work you'd need:

a) some sort of spell to detect timeline ****ery
b) some sort of spell to show what's happening in the "new" past or "old" future
c) a time-travel spell

in order of increasing level (allowing more than a few parties in a campaign world access to time travel leads to utter chaos unless you have endless legions of inevitables to stop people screwing around)

[Lysander]

Maybe the best way to handle time travel is to copy Assassin's Creed and say that's it's not REALLY time travel, it's more like exploring a memory, an echo, or a shadow dimension remnant. You can change the past, but that just means you're messing around with the shadow remnant rather than changing the present.

This also curbs a lot of forms of abuse. You can't invest money in the past and collect in the present, it's just you abandoning money in another plane. You can't steal treasures or legendary artifacts, you're just stealing a copy, which stops existing if taken back to the real world.

[Chrono22]

Time Travel Club Rule 1:
Don't talk about time travel.

Try to leave the players in the dark about the consequences of their actions in the past (or future) as much you can. Play up the "determination vs. free will" aspect of the time travel. Offer them evidence that supports both views- and ultimately, offer them situations where they can act in accordance with their own perceptions of the nature of time, fate, and destiny. And then keep them second guessing their choices when confronted with situations that don't meet their preconceptions.

A few ways to do this:
Restrict time travel to only a distant past, that is passing on the same continuum as the present. Statistically, most actions (even historically important events) are homogenized over time. Rolling the dice often enough gives you a roughly even number of head and tail results. The conditions that give rise to a conquerer might create a duplicate in his place should he die. The events the players enact might even be events that others would have enacted without their interference.
Occasionally you have points in time where some actions can compromise the rest of causality. At an intercise, if a change is wrought it causes a cascade of other events- or it does the reverse, and restricts the number of potential factors (paths) tremendously. Either way, doing this does cause a kind of paradox- you end up with two competing timelines. The original timeline and the alternate vie for dominance as they attempt to self-correct eachother out of probability. Which is where my next point comes in-
Create a competing group of time travelers, possibly from another timeline. Give them cross purposes to the party. For kicks, make them the party, but with alternate builds, alignments, and origins.

PS: always remember rule #1. Show your story, don't tell it. A good DM is like a good magician- he never reveals all his secrets.

[Alex Ashgrave]

Carefully.

DM could set up a Zelda-ish game. Oracle of Ages anyone? Big bad goes back in time and makes a start on his/her master plan.

Okay, yeah. I'm a Zelda fanboy. But the time portal thing could be cool-provided they were used carefully. Have them as set loactions with exact triggers-as to prevent old Joe the commoner using one. And maybe dedicate a group to policing everything.

Also, as a Doctor Who fanboy, I suggest the"Everything is in flux-bar certain moments." as another option.

As a player, if I used time travel, I would use it in one of two ways:

1) As per plot demands. Badguy went back in time? Follow him/her/it.

2) To go back to level up-only if DM is looking for a way to level you up-as the party is extremely underleveled.

Both AFTER talking to the DM.

Time Travel=Potentially fun but dangerous and problematic.

[Jack_Simth]

Still, time travel is never really a good idea if you allow multiple jumps or the "travelling into your own timeline" events. It can work mostly if you either use multiple streams of time (ie, no paradox because as you travel back in time you actually just create a new timeline where you did travel back rather than the one you just lived though were you didn't) or simply limit time travel to one jump back in time to a point at least 100 years previous and you can never return to your own time.

Even then though its a lot of work for very little gain, you might as well have a prophecy if you're going back to change something, or a comical game if you want to screw up your own past so you can pull a "its raining doughnuts" without anyone really questioning it.
In fiction, there's three basic time travel paradigms:
1) Fate. What did happen, will happen, because that's the way it went. Very old, goes all the way back to Odepus Rex (although I'm pretty certain I'm misspelling that). You literally can't kill your grandfather; if you try, you end up killing someone you just thought was your grandfather, or you fail, or similar. Nothing changes.
2) Insulation (assorted flavors). You go back in time, and make Change A. Things are changed, but Change A remains despite the reason for making Change A no longer existing. You go back, kill your grandfather, and when you return to the present, there's no trace you ever existed (whether or not you continue to exist is a different question).
3) Multiverse fork. If you go back in time and change something, you spawn a new universe (which one you end up in when you try to return to the present is a different matter, but if you wait it out, you end up in the new one). You go back, kill your grandfather, you spawn a new universe in which your grandfather died. You do, however, still have a grandfather (even if he's in a different universe), and so you continue to exist. Often very difficult to distinguish from case 2.

There's a couple of less common ones when dealing with time travel:
Effectively not possible (The Langoliers - again, I'm probably misspelling that), universe destruction (http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2166.html), and such, but those aren't usually as fun (emphasis on "usually").

[Zeful]

I'd take the "it already happened" approach. Go back in time and kill yourself? Turns out that baby you killed wasn't you. Kill Hitler? It was a body double, and the event was covered up very well. Become your own Grandpa? It was a dragon impersonating your grandmother. Go back in time and give yourself a sword that was given to you by a mysterious stranger? What do you mean "You don't remember breaking it", what about that scar on your arm, where the "past you" is currently bleeding profusely from? Become a man, seduce and impregnate yourself and ship the resulting female baby to the nunnery where you were raised? Yeah, the kid died later that year from horrific genetic defects, and you, as a child, were very moved by the funeral.

You can pretty much do whatever you want.

[magic9mushroom]

I'd take the "it already happened" approach. Go back in time and kill yourself? Turns out that baby you killed wasn't you. Kill Hitler? It was a body double, and the event was covered up very well. Become your own Grandpa? It was a dragon impersonating your grandmother. Go back in time and give yourself a sword that was given to you by a mysterious stranger? What do you mean "You don't remember breaking it", what about that scar on your arm, where the "past you" is currently bleeding profusely from? Become a man, seduce and impregnate yourself and ship the resulting female baby to the nunnery where you were raised? Yeah, the kid died later that year from horrific genetic defects, and you, as a child, were very moved by the funeral.

You can pretty much do whatever you want.

This doesn't work. At all.

It works in books, movies, and anything else where the future is already plotted out. Not in games. Without invoking progressively more ridiculous patches, things will fall apart. Say you go back in time (before you even knew about time travel) and talk to yourself. Unless the GM saw fit to have you visited by yourself at that moment (highly unlikely) it DIDN'T already happen. In a book the author can manipulate everything so it all works out. Not in a game where you create things as they happen.

@Jack_Simth: The method I was talking about is similar to #2, except that it can keep a consistent, if constantly changing, timeline.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I'd take the "it already happened" approach. Go back in time and kill yourself? Turns out that baby you killed wasn't you. Kill Hitler? It was a body double, and the event was covered up very well. Become your own Grandpa? It was a dragon impersonating your grandmother. Go back in time and give yourself a sword that was given to you by a mysterious stranger? What do you mean "You don't remember breaking it", what about that scar on your arm, where the "past you" is currently bleeding profusely from? Become a man, seduce and impregnate yourself and ship the resulting female baby to the nunnery where you were raised? Yeah, the kid died later that year from horrific genetic defects, and you, as a child, were very moved by the funeral.

You can pretty much do whatever you want.The issue with that is we're talking about PCs. They'll wipe out a continent in the process of proving you wrong.

[Zeful]

This doesn't work. At all.

It works in books, movies, and anything else where the future is already plotted out. Not in games. Without invoking progressively more ridiculous patches, things will fall apart. Say you go back in time (before you even knew about time travel) and talk to yourself. Unless the GM saw fit to have you visited by yourself at that moment (highly unlikely) it DIDN'T already happen. In a book the author can manipulate everything so it all works out. Not in a game where you create things as they happen.

@Jack_Simth: The method I was talking about is similar to #2, except that it can keep a consistent, if constantly changing, timeline.

I'd never let them go back early enough for it to be an issue, at best they'd show up when their past self was ~7ish, no "I go back a day and x" Time travel would be best measured in years, many years.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I'd never let them go back early enough for it to be an issue, at best they'd show up when their past self was ~7ish, no "I go back a day and x" Time travel would be best measured in years, many years.See my issue with that. PCs will destroy stuff. Often, it will be stuff that they know exists in the future and can not be plausibly rebuilt. You know, entire cities and similar.

[magic9mushroom]

I'd never let them go back early enough for it to be an issue, at best they'd show up when their past self was ~7ish, no "I go back a day and x" Time travel would be best measured in years, many years.

And then they kill themselves. Or do something that would have been huge news but which they don't remember happening.

[Zeful]

See my issue with that. PCs will destroy stuff. Often, it will be stuff that they know exists in the future and can not be plausibly rebuilt. You know, entire cities and similar.

If I'm throwing my PCs into the past it's going to be a huge "Oh Crap" moment for them. They now exist in a world that is not friendly to them, and the end of the world on their heels. Their not going to have time to dawdle and destroy a village.
At least that's what I'd be shooting for introducing time travel.

[Idlewyld]

Many keep saying time travel in D&D is a bad thing, but the future of Faerun just BLOWS and SUCKS all at the same time as written by WotC, so time travel away from that flagellating piece of S...work is the best idea ever. Teleport through time is a must for Wizards in FRCS 4ed, that way you can teleport back to 3.x or even 2E when the Realms kicked a$$ and magic was a hot goth chick. JMO:smalltongue:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Many keep saying time travel in D&D is a bad thing, but the future of Faerun just BLOWS and SUCKS all at the same time as written by WotC, so time travel away from that flagellating piece of S...work is the best idea ever. Teleport through time is a must for Wizards in FRCS 4ed, that way you can teleport back to 3.x or even 2E when the Realms kicked a$$ and magic was a hot goth chick. JMO:smalltongue:

Thank you for that oh so productive post. :smallmad: Anyway.... I'm not seeing anyone posting ways to actually accomplish time travel. I figured that there were at least a few known loops this late into 3.x's life. Anybody?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

If I'm throwing my PCs into the past it's going to be a huge "Oh Crap" moment for them. They now exist in a world that is not friendly to them, and the end of the world on their heels. Their not going to have time to dawdle and destroy a village.
At least that's what I'd be shooting for introducing time travel.But they would. It wouldn't even be intentional. It'd be something along the lines of them choosing to hide from the BBEG rather than fight him, ending with the BBEG battle destroying whatever city they hid in, despite them having visited the same tavern they hid in in the future. Because that's what PCs do. They mess up the DMs plans.

[magic9mushroom]

Thank you for that oh so productive post. :smallmad: Anyway.... I'm not seeing anyone posting ways to actually accomplish time travel. I figured that there were at least a few known loops this late into 3.x's life. Anybody?

Well, we've established Teleport through Time (most ridiculous spell ever) and dodgy time-flows-backwards planes with Genesis.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm still pretty sure I saw someone mention something about a thought bottle and the schism power? I was also looking for any others that might exist. That teleport through time spell is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen in print, and using genesis to produce big stinky cheese is really well known. I'm looking for something a bit more creative. I suppose I should just go ahead and say that I'm not really interested in anything involving epic spell-casting.

[magic9mushroom]

I'm still pretty sure I saw someone mention something about a thought bottle and the schism power? I was also looking for any others that might exist. That teleport through time spell is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen in print, and using genesis to produce big stinky cheese is really well known. I'm looking for something a bit more creative. I suppose I should just go ahead and say that I'm not really interested in anything involving epic spell-casting.

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128601) is Tippy's thread, found by my Google-fu.

It's not true time-travel, because the events never actually happened.

[Sophismata]

But they would. It wouldn't even be intentional. It'd be something along the lines of them choosing to hide from the BBEG rather than fight him, ending with the BBEG battle destroying whatever city they hid in, despite them having visited the same tavern they hid in in the future. Because that's what PCs do. They mess up the DMs plans.

Then run with it, and learn to make better plans.

I really don't see the problem people have with this. I think the spell is awesome.

[magic9mushroom]

Then run with it, and learn to make better plans.

I really don't see the problem people have with this. I think the spell is awesome.

Awesome for players. Not awesome for GMs having to deal with the horrible squirming can of worms opened by time travel. Why do you think that most SF authors ignore the possibility of time travel created by FTL? And that's with a book, that you can control completely.

[Duos Greanleef]

I know that this isn't a 4E thread, but I feel like the 4E DMG2 did a very good job with time travel. They have an over-arcing campaign... arc called The Mobius Trippers. For the sake of copyright infringement, I'll only use the words teleportation, vehicle, disassembled, and self-exploration.
You'll have to look it up for yourself (4E DMG2 p. 172-3)
The idea could easily be ported to whatever edition you're going to use and taken from there.
Some proof supporting the fact that 4th edition really IS a win!

[abaddon13]

The Time Reaver spell from dragonlance works well at least i think it called time reaver. also the take on time travel from dragonlance works nice in rpg's. so long as you are not one of the grey gem races you can do anything to the time line. if you go back and kill important npc once you leave to your own time line it auto corrects to what history actually was.

[magic9mushroom]

The Time Reaver spell from dragonlance works well at least i think it called time reaver. also the take on time travel from dragonlance works nice in rpg's. so long as you are not one of the grey gem races you can do anything to the time line. if you go back and kill important npc once you leave to your own time line it auto corrects to what history actually was.

Please clarify. Does history "autocorrect" to what you changed it to, or to get rid of your time travel?

If 1) there's still a logical paradox as in this new timeline you will not have had any reason to go back in time.

[dsmiles]

The only way I know of to manage time travel in D&D is to make your way to the temporal plane and then somehow safely traverse it to the point in time you want to go, which is no small feat. I've heard however that there is a much easier way to enact time travel. So here's the question playgrounders: how does one engage in time travel in D&D.

You could always slingshot your spelljammer around the sun, search out and pick up two humpback whales, put them in your cargo hold that is made of clear aluminum, and slingshot your spelljammer back around the sun to save the planet from total destruction by a spelljammer that only communicates in whale-ese and destroys any planet that doesn't answer. Or has that already been done? :smallwink:

[sofawall]

Again, PM Doc Roc. He knows these things.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Wonder what the craft DC of a Flux Capacitor is...That depends on if you have a toilet to stand on near a wall with something that needs hanged. A sink nearby is also ideal :smallbiggrin:


Okay, since threads like these are already cat-girl cullings: Is there a fundamental unit of time in DnD?

[abaddon13]

by auto correct i mean, the changes you made to the past revert to the original timeline. for the non gray gem races the only real reason to time travel is to observe history and gain knowledge to use for the present. now if a gray gem race goes back in time then they can change history however they want. at least this is how i remember it working it has been some time sense i read the novels.

[RebelRogue]

Okay, since threads like these are already cat-girl cullings: Is there a fundamental unit of time in DnD?
The round seems to qualify.

[olentu]

The round seems to qualify.

Well assuming I am remembering correctly free actions and swift actions do take some amount of time that is presumably less then a round as a character could take more than one in sequence. Of course this assumes I remember correctly.

[RebelRogue]

Well assuming I am remembering correctly free actions and swift actions do take some amount of time that is presumably less then a round as a character could take more than one in sequence. Of course this assumes I remember correctly.
I suppose most actions are supposed to take time, but AFAIK it's not specified how much time, say, a standard action or swift action takes to perform. Only how many actions you can take in the course of a six second round.

[olentu]

I suppose most actions are supposed to take time, but AFAIK it's not specified how much time, say, a standard action or swift action takes to perform. Only how many actions you can take in the course of a six second round.

I do not recall standard, move, and full round actions to be said to take time so they could be discounted. However I believe that both the swift and free action are said to take some unspecified amount of time. If it is assumed that a character can take at least one swift and one free action in a round in sequence then presumably the amount of time they each take is less then a round though perhaps not the same for the two types of actions.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Okay, since threads like these are already cat-girl cullings: Is there a fundamental unit of time in DnD?

Oh god! The poor cat-girls..... What've I done? :smalleek::smallfrown:

[Myou]

I do not recall standard, move, and full round actions to be said to take time so they could be discounted. However I believe that both the swift and free action are said to take some unspecified amount of time. If it is assumed that a character can take at least one swift and one free action in a round in sequence then presumably the amount of time they each take is less then a round though perhaps not the same for the two types of actions.

They are said to take little time but given no unit, because it varies. You're not meant ot measure how long action take - that's why none of them have times on then, you just get one of each per round, and the round is the measure of time.

[olentu]

They are said to take little time but given no unit, because it varies. You're not meant ot measure how long action take - that's why none of them have times on then, you just get one of each per round, and the round is the measure of time.

Well I suppose that if nothing else a round is six seconds even if one is going to discount the unknowns. However I would still contend that without pinning down how long actions that take time take, and of course one can not really do so, one can not say that a measure of time is the one from which all others are made up.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Fundamental was the key word.

The reason I ask, is even in Planck time there is no assuredness that time is discrete. It has implications in some time travel interpretations.

[2xMachina]

A full attack takes 1 round? That's 6 seconds? And when they're done, B replies with another full attack? That's another 6 seconds.

Say, that kills it, letting C pass through without an AoO to get LoE to something and stand next to D. Tranposition E, letting D full attack E. E replies with a full attack.

So, how much seconds are in a round? Way too many.