[3.5] Kobolds, Reverse Aging and Time Travel

[Teddypimm]

Hello, my DM has posed my party (Human Sorc/Monk, Dwarf Cleric/Fighter and a Kobold Rouge(Me)), a difficult question regarding the main "quest" of the campaign.

It involves going back in time (and reversing aging in the process because magic is magic) by one year to get more time to deliver 3 metallic dragon eggs to a location and then overthrow a evil empire before time is up, although the group sending us back in time was originally going to send the party back two years.

Unfortunately, due to my character being a Kobold, going back two years would put my character back in a egg, so the DM suggested three options.

A: Go back in egg and roll up a new char, control both when egg hatches
B: Stay behind and join up with group after a year, roll up new char play both.
C: Stick with only one year extra time.

Neither of there options appeal to me, so I'm trying to find a forth option, so I ask you: Is there any way to magically age my character short of having to use wish? The group doing the time travel is a powerful group of mages so caster level shouldn't be a problem.

I thought of asking them to summon a Phane but I doubt my character would know what one is and the DM would probably make us fight it (Its CR 25 and the party is 3 third level chars). Haste is out of the question as it no long ages the target, unlike 2e.

[AmberVael]

I don't know of a way to magically age your character, but if you were to place your character in a vat quintessence, (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/quintessence.htm) and then send the vat back in time, that might work.

Granted, it would mean needing to get enough quintessence to fill a vat large enough to encase a kobold...

[lorddrake]

I have heard of some magic in Book of erotic fantasy capable of aging infants. If you think an egg is a kobold infant, you could theoretically age your kobold. It is up to your DM, though...

[Volos]

So you're looking for a RAW solution to a homebrewed problem? Just ask the DM to come up with a way for it to work. Perhaps a different version of your character from a timeline where you all fail in this quest comes to help while you remain but an egg. He is conflicted between completing the quest (and therein destroying his timeline) and saving his own scales (skin).

[Aegis013]

See if you can find an incredibly fast time flow plane, plane shift to it a 10x or more plane, go wait around there for 5.2 weeks on that plane, (material time, 52 weeks of that plane's time) plane shift back, go back to 1 year and 10 months before the offer was made? You only lose two months and you don't revert to being an egg.

[Darrin]

Is there any way to magically age my character short of having to use wish? The group doing the time travel is a powerful group of mages so caster level shouldn't be a problem.


Undergoing the Rite of Rebirth to become a Dragonborn of Bahumat resets your age to "Adult". For a kobold, that'd be 11 years.

However, I don't know exactly how your DM is running the reverse aging part... since you didn't actualy age those 11 years, rewinding 2 years might undo the becoming a Dragonborn part. Unless it doesn't, in which case you'd be a 9-year old young adult kobold. Ugh, my brain hurts now.

There's also an alternative for bestow curse in Book of Vile Darkness p. 28, which can age you into the next age category.

You could try flesh to stone, send the statue back in time, then get someone to cast break enchantment. Since you're not a creature while turned to stone, you presumably wouldn't age. Paying someone to cast smoky confinement (Complete Mage) might also work.

Otherwise, I'd ask the DM to homebrew some sort of "potion of aging", maybe something you can pick up with a short miniquest.

[Morph Bark]

I have heard of some magic in Book of erotic fantasy capable of aging infants. If you think an egg is a kobold infant, you could theoretically age your kobold. It is up to your DM, though...

It would be better to age first, then go back in time. The egg doesn't have any experience after all.

Also, you're a kobold adult at 2? I presume then that you aren't using the official kobold age as presented in Races of the Dragon, considering they are older than that when they turn adults. (IIRC, it was 6, but might have been a little more.)

[Toliudar]

Since this is a homebrew problem, let's look at an outside the box homebrew solution.

Get your dwarf colleague to go back thirty years. That should put them firmly back into the time of AD&D, when there were a ton of aging magics. Get him/her to pick up a bunch of potions of haste, which (if I recall correctly) each aged you by a year. He/she spends a few decades mining and drinking ale until they reach the present day, then brings you the potions. You drink your way into middle age, and then everyone gets sent back 2 years. Problem solved!

[Teddypimm]

Since this is a homebrew problem, let's look at an outside the box homebrew solution.

Get your dwarf colleague to go back thirty years. That should put them firmly back into the time of AD&D, when there were a ton of aging magics. Get him/her to pick up a bunch of potions of haste, which (if I recall correctly) each aged you by a year. He/she spends a few decades mining and drinking ale until they reach the present day, then brings you the potions. You drink your way into middle age, and then everyone gets sent back 2 years. Problem solved!

Sorry if I forgot to mention this but the time travel to years reversed ratio isn't 1:1, so for example, my pre-1 year back character was 8, and after being send back in time 1 year my character ended up being physically 3, but with the same mental attributes.
Also the group sending the party back in time is temporary coming forwards in time (in a localized area) to do that, we don't have much time to think of a solution or to travel to find a solution.

The ideal solution would be either a spell that ages my character or a spell that bypasses the reverse aging (like Darrin's flesh to stone, then break enchantment idea).

[Morph Bark]

Sorry if I forgot to mention this but the time travel to years reversed ratio isn't 1:1, so for example, my pre-1 year back character was 8, and after being send back in time 1 year my character ended up being physically 3, but with the same mental attributes.
Also the group sending the party back in time is temporary coming forwards in time (in a localized area) to do that, we don't have much time to think of a solution or to travel to find a solution.

With time travel, there is always enough time, despite what some movies might have you believe. You just need to make sure you don't screw up too bad on the first or second go so that your plan is viable enough to have a go at it.

Perhaps if you'd cast time stop off a scroll and then finished whatever ritual sends you back in time you would not be affected, unless the time travel is a little more time-reversal-y, but in that case none of the plans will work (other than using magic to make yourself older, which does not exist in 3.5).

[Randomguy]

Aren't there rules for retraining your race in PHB2?

Kobolds have an average weight of about 40lb. If you lose some weight and have someone cast reduce person on you, you can be stored in a glove of storing (assuming your DM lets creatures as well as objects be stored). You're stored in stasis, so you won't change age.

You could use the True Mind Switch psionic power lets you swap minds with someone else. Go to the high level, retired venerable dragonwrought kobold psion that was your clan elder or something and have him use it on you. He should agree to it, since he doesn't have long left to live and if you go back in time you'll give his body a few extra years of life. And if you don't return it, he'll easily hunt you down. And if you do return it, it'll be as if no time has passed for him, so all it costs him is 20k xp, which would still be worth it if he was on his death bed.

[Demon of Death]

other than using magic to make yourself older, which does not exist in 3.5.
I beg to differ my sir.
In the book for Dragonlance book Legend of the Twins there is a spell that does exactly what you need, the spell is 7th for Druid and 8th for Sorc/Wiz called River's Ravages, Greater, page 25, it ages or un-ages the target up to double the caster level, it can change your physical scores, it can't un-age below the Adulthood category, nor can it age it past the maximum age, it should work for just 1 or 2 years, if you can get a caster with access to it.

May be of help or completely irrelevant.

(Also, yes I know it is technically 3rd party, but it does says it's official WoTC content.

[Toliudar]

So unlike practically every other time travel trope, in which the person doing the travelling is LESS affected by the passage of time than everyone else, the DM has created a system whereby travellers are five times MORE affected? Have you considered the possibility that he's just trying to mess with your character? Is that really that he wants you to have a different character for this adventure? If time is so much of the essence, how would these characters have time to recruit someone new into their ranks once they're back in time?

Or, to give you an IC solution:
If the DM's position is that going back in time past the point at which you hatch means that you remain as an egg, have the time travellers send you back farther than the others. If they send you back ten years, you'll be an egg when you get there, and have time to hatch and grow back to your existing age. There's no indication that getting younger reduces your actual experience or memories, right? If anything, you'll have an extra eight years of life experience by the time you rejoin your colleagues.

I suggest the latter only because I think that the DM is putting silly restrictions on what is essentially a plot device, and should stop it.