Time manipulation

[rye0006]

I'm interested in playing a character who (as far as everyone else is concerned) is annoyingly cryptic but wise and powerful and his abilities all involve some form of manipulation of time.

I was just wondering what spells/feats/abilities there are out there that involve time manipulation (like haste and time stop) or could be fluffed that way (like fatigue/exhaustion effects)?

Also, what class progression would be best for a character of this sort?

As always, thank you in advance for your great help and ideas!

[Liekurmomma]

Which game, editions etc. is this for?

[NichG]

Zerth Cenobite is a PrC for githzerai that has time-themed abilities. Psions also get quite a few time manipulation powers (time hop, etc). There's also a 3rd party source for chronomancy, but its really not a good thing to introduce unless the campaign is built around it and everyone is onboard.

[Beheld]

Here (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=140562)

[rye0006]

This would be for DnD 3.5 - sorry should have mentioned that.

Beheld, thanks for the link - that class has ome insanely good powers, perhaps not quite broken, but certainly up for some abuse.

How could you create a character on these principles from non-home-brewed material? so like the accelerated movement in the link, perhaps 1 level of barbarian for fast movement? This could involve a lot of dips - like what???

[Psyren]

Psionics are your best bet for temporal manipulation. Be a Nomad (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/psion.htm), and take powers like Time Hop (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timeHop.htm), Deceleration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/deceleration.htm), Temporal Acceleration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/temporalacceleration.htm), Quintessence (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/quintessence.htm) (via EK), and Time Regression (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/timeRegression.htm).

Now you can speed up time, slow it down, stop it, jump people or things to the future, and even travel backwards at high levels. The more books you have, the better you can get at this - e.g. Synchronicity/Anticipatory Strike from CPsi, and Forced Dream from Magic of Eberron. Plus you have your standard suite of damaging/summoning powers and SoDs.

[CN the Logos]

The swiftblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327) might be what you're looking for; the class's powers start out being based around speeding yourself up to a ludicrous degree, and you could pretty easily select spells (assuming a sorcerer base) based around manipulation of time and space to get that "time mage" feel. As for usefulness, the swiftblade's capstone ability is considered one of the few class features that might be worth trading away the ability to cast ninth level spells for. It is awesome.

Hope that helps.

[yldenfrei]

Chronocharms from the Magic Item Compendium gives you a very very fluffy magic item in the form of a necklace. They impart the wearer the ability to slow down their perception of time, allowing them to perform either skill check rerolls or some other nifty trick. Eash charm can be used once a day. What's better, they're a mix-and-match sort: each piece costs 500gp and you can effectively wear them all (total of 6 chronocharms).
My charms of choice are:

Grand Master - (immediate) you can gain a +5 dodge AC bonus on a single ranged attack.
Horizon Walker - (swift) you can sort of freeze time and move as far as half of your movement speed (round down to 5ft) using that same swift action to activate the charm. No AoO!
Uncaring Archmage - (swift) change a 3rd level or lower spell from 1 full round casting time to 1 standard action.

[Trekkin]

If third party material is allowed, the Chronomancer could be exactly what you're looking for; they play havoc with causality and time, in payment for which they accumulate paradox that can easily be roleplayed as cryptic mysticism.

[Heliomance]

Save Game Psion, anyone?

[Psyren]

If third party material is allowed, the Chronomancer could be exactly what you're looking for; they play havoc with causality and time, in payment for which they accumulate paradox that can easily be roleplayed as cryptic mysticism.

If 3rd-party is allowed, Psion is still the way to go - thanks to the Chronorebel PrC in Hyperconscious and the new time-related powers in the same book like Causal Loop, Slow Light and Backslip.

EDIT: And of course the Save Game trick, which relies on Forced Dream (I mentioned this above.)

Psions are unmatched when it comes to fiddling with time.

[grimbold]

the previous stuff was good
but be careful this could break easily and really annoy everyone especially your dm and annoying your dm means death

[rye0006]

Here (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=140562)

I haven't done anything about creating a character based on this since it was first suggested to me.

But looking again at this homeruled class, i want to add it to an NPC in the game i run. however, i was looking at the abilities and none of them state how often these abilities can be used. eg:


Time Warp (Sp):
At third level, the Time Mage gains the ability to alter time for individuals. He may duplicate a Slow or Haste effect at any time, although only one use of it may be in effect at a time (so he may be Hasted, or an ally may be Hasted, or an enemy may be Slowed). The save DC is 10 + half level + Wis.

how often can this be used? in effect could a time mage use this to continually make himself hasted?


Age Manipulation (Sp):
Starting at level five, the Time Mage gains power over age: firstly he may alter his own appearance to seem younger or older, granting up to a +5 Enhancement bonus on Disguise checks to simply not appear as himself. Secondly, he may actually affect the ages of targets up to 30' away with a Standard action. They must pass a Fortitude save or be subject to one of the following:
• Old: the target is rendered Blind, Deaf and Exhausted
• Young: the target is treated as one size category smaller and suffers a -10 penalty to Strength and a -4 penalty to Dexterity and Constitution.

Either effect lasts for one round per level. Used on Immortal creatures without age, it has no effect. Used on Dragons, Young temporarily reduces them by 1 Age Category (minimum Wyrmling), and Old has no effect.

This could be seen as similar to a hexblade's curse, so surely it must have limited number of uses per day.
but none of them list this.

what would people suggest would be reasonable?

[Leanderthal]

The first line at the top of the post gives the answer ;)


Okay, here we go. Now, it's similar to the Fire Mage etc. in a few ways: it uses a fixed set of spell-like abilities at will, set around a theme, and doesn't stretch out to 20 levels.

"At will" generally means you can use it as much as you want.

Also, for Time Warp:

He may duplicate a Slow or Haste effect at any time, although only one use of it may be in effect at a time
This also says you can use it whenever you want and as much as you want, BUT only 1 target at a time.

Regarding Age Manipulation, I'd say limit it to 3 times a day, or have the number of uses per day scale with level (like 1/day on level 5, 2/day on 7, 3/day on 11, 4/day on 15, and 5/day on 19 if you wish to extend the class past level 15)

Edit:
Do note that, if you go with the level scale, you shouldn't neccesarily pick the levels I gave in the example above; i just picked random levels, and haven't checked if they are balanced with other abilities gained at said level (not that I'm very good at balance at any rate).

[danzibr]

Is there a spell which allows you to go back in time a considerable amount of time? As in... more than a few minutes?

[ILM]

Is there a spell which allows you to go back in time a considerable amount of time? As in... more than a few minutes?
Hindsight (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20030103a) (sorc/wiz 9, bard 6) lets you see the past but not modify it.

[Alleran]

Is there a spell which allows you to go back in time a considerable amount of time? As in... more than a few minutes?
Teleport Through Time and Timereaver. The former is from Forgotten Realms, and the latter is from Dragonlance.

[Yukitsu]

For sanity sake, neither should be allowed into a game.

[Alleran]

For sanity sake, neither should be allowed into a game.
Well, Timereaver does have the caveat that you can't change the past (unless you're a kender...), and Teleport Through Time in FR means you're under the authority of Mystra/Mystryl, who monitors time travel to make sure nothing goes awry (and will step in to deal with the problem should one be in danger of arising).

[Zonugal]

Here You Go.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pg/20030409b

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pg/20030416b

[gomipile]

I think core psionics is your best bet for building The Sphinx in 3.5. I'd go for a fairly optimized Educated Wilder for the extra manifester levels and general simplicity of build an play.

[Fizban]

My shameless ego sig leads to a thread with a homebrew time mage class. I went through most of the major non-setting books for timey wimey spells and posted a list there that should be useful.