Realms of Chaos
2013-10-10, 03:44 PM
Short Intro:so yeah, I saw some people thinking up time-travel mechanics over on this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307791) thread and thought that I might want to take a try at a time-traveling class. I tried to develop it without reading too deeply through the linked thread so I wasn't consciously copying an of the class features, though it is more than possible that I was inspired by what I saw there.
For most, time is a commodity that flows unceasingly in one direction, something that others may crave or ignore but rarely pay too much mind of. For a rare few individuals, however, time is far more than the trickle of sand through an hourglass. Blessed or cursed with a weakened connection to the passage of time, these individuals can manipulate the passage of time and even travel through it when desired. Known as temporal wanderers, these beings possess all of the time in the world, though their art yet comes with significant risks.
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d8
Starting age: as fighter
Class Skills:
Balance, Bluff, Climb, Diplomacy, Disguise, Craft, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (History), Move Silently, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Swim, Use Magic Device
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) × 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier
The Temporal Wanderer
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1st|+0|+0|+2|+0|Déjà vu (true strike), Unbound Form
2nd|+1|+0|+3|+0|Quantum Leap (Future), Accelerate Healing
3rd|+2|+1|+3|+1|Manipulate Object, Temporal Bubble
4th|+3|+1|+4|+1|Déjà vu (uncanny dodge)
5th|+3|+1|+4|+1|Timeless Body
6th|+4|+2|+5|+2|Quantum Leap (Past)
7th|+5|+2|+5|+2|Manipulate Creature
8th|+6/+1|+2|+6|+2|Déjà vu (Control Probability)
9th|+6/+1|+3|+6|+3|Temporal Tracing
10th|+7/+2|+3|+7|+3|Quantum Leap (Future Loop)
11th|+8/+3|+3|+7|+3|Manipulate Magic
12th|+9/+4|+4|+8|+4|Déjà vu (Never Surprised)
13th|+9/+4|+4|+8|+4|Eternal Body
14th|+10/+5|+4|+9|+4|Quantum Leap (Past Loop)
15th|+11/+6/+1|+5|+9|+5|Manipulate Age
16th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+10|+5|Déjà vu (Control Future)
17th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+10|+5|Temporal Phantom
18th|+13/+8/+3|+6|+11|+6|Quantum Leap (Superior Leap)
19th|+14/+9/+4|+6|+11|+6|Manipulate World
20th|+15/+10/+5|+6|+12|+6|Déjà vu (Quantum Immortality)
[/table]
CLASS FEATURES:
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A temporal wanderer is proficient with all simple weapons and with light armor, but not with shields.
Notes and Explanation:Yeah, I’m giving minimal proficiencies to what can nominally be called a martial character. No matter how I spin the concept in my head, nothing about time travelers is inherently warlike unless I wanted to explicitly take a “temporal warrior” approach and that didn’t really appeal too much to me. I personally don’t find the difference between marital and simple weapons to be too huge so I don’t really think it’s that big of a problem.
Wanderer’s Laws: The art of travelling through time is filled with risks and pitfalls, capable of destroying the unwary if they aren’t careful. While some claim that all manner of laws apply to those who travel through time, the four most salient laws of travel are written below.
The Law of Converging Paths: Despite the fears that some express towards time travel, the stream of time is far more resilient than most would give it credit. Indeed, more than one temporal wanderer has driven themselves insane trying in vain to change something in the past. As such, minor changes or actions never risk altering the timeline and even large changes tend not to leave a great impact over time. Slaying one tyrant as a toddler invariably leads to a different tyrant leading the same forces and saving the life of a creature rarely holds off death for more than a day, though its form may be different.
The Law of Paradoxical Compensation: Of the risks a time traveler faces, few are more extreme than the risk of causing a temporal paradox. While one could be resolved through the same power enabling time travel, this arrangement never ends well for the traveler. If a time-travelling creature risks creating a temporal paradox, his or her body vanishes from the timeline as time is repaired. The temporal wanderer can’t be restored after vanishing in this way, save by a wish or miracle. If repairing the timeline requires anything beyond the loss of the time traveler, it will be listed in the description of the relevant class feature.
The Law of Unstable Convergence: While there are all forms of duplicates and doppelgangers, the stream of time abhors holding multiple copies of a single individual in the same time and area. While you can fool the time stream by keeping far away from copies of yourself, the time stream notices something is wrong if one copy of yourself should get too close to another. If a time traveler would be seen or detected by a subjectively earlier iteration of themselves, the time traveler is jettisoned to its previous temporal coordinate before the earlier iteration can interpret what it detects. Likewise, most attempts to contact or send objects to other copies of oneself are halted through the law of converging paths, with more obvious and blatant attempts invoking the law of paradoxical compensation (eliminating both the traveler and the attempt at communication).
The Law of Forgotten Futures: Many who study the art of time travel report receiving insight or advice from futures that never occur, providing credence to the idea that each moment may possess countless possible futures. Once a time traveler has travelled to a point in time, however, he or she is eternally barred from all other possible iterations of that moment. While stories abound regarding entire parallel timelines, only the strongest of magic could hope to let someone travel to one.
Notes and Explanation:Before getting to any actual time travel mechanics, I felt that it was necessary to put forth some basic laws of time travel so that things work.
The law of converging paths is a basic means by which paradoxes can be minimized and DMs don’t have to worry about butterfly effects every time a character does anything in the past. I didn’t want paradoxes to be something that common. Similarly, I don’t think that the ability to slay the BBEG while he’s still in diapers should realistically be an option in campaigns unless they are very sandbox-oriented.
The law of paradoxical compensation, meanwhile, covers what happens when time paradoxes do happen. I know that some people on the temporal mechanics thread have suggested something along the lines of intelligence damage but considering that many settings seem to think that even one paradox could destroy all of existence, that didn’t seem extreme enough. So yeah, paradoxes are less likely due to the laws above and below but even one is perma-death.
The Law of Unstable Convergence is just a simple way to keep players from mucking about in their own past and causing a lot of headaches for players and DMS alike. Getting seen by your earlier self ejects you from the past, lesser attempts to alter the past of the game are deflected by law #1, and serious attempts to alter the past of the game are punished by law #2.
Finally, The Law of Forgotten Futures is there because actually making alternate timelines freely accessible within a game could easily ruin everything. Just as the first rule stops players from retroactively cancelling the plot, this rule stops your players from searching for a timeline where the plot just doesn’t happen in the first place.
Time is Relative: Several class features a temporal wanderer possesses refer to subjective time. Subjective time refers to the amount of time that the body of the temporal wanderer experiences, whether or not it is conscious or alive (or intact). A temporal wanderer who leaps 5 hours into the future, rests for an hour, and who then leaps backwards 7 hours before waiting for the present to resume has gone through a total of 8 subjective hours. Aging and the duration of targeted effects continue with subjective time.
Notes and Explanation:One more bit of rules regarding time travel, separate form the laws, that seemed necessary to record. In a game with time travel, time as you experience it may not equal time as it naturally passes so it seemed necessary to point out the difference between the two.
Déjà vu (Su): Before learning how to travel through time, a temporal wanderer gains access to random flashes of temporal energy and the foresight they afford. As a swift action, you may start or stop inheriting the memories of a dozen divergent futures. While this ability is active, the first attack you make each round grants you a point of flux and benefits from an effect similar to a true strike spell, save that it adds to both attack and damage rolls and that the bonus it grants equals your class level.
Starting at 4th level, these flashes of foresight grant you a certain degree of protection from attacks that should have come as surprises. While déjà vu is active, you retain your Dexterity bonus to your AC against any attack (unless you are unconscious or otherwise helpless) by gaining one point of flux per attack you defend against in this way.
Starting at 8th level, various possible futures seem to linger as you proceed through time with this ability active, granting you some control over probability. While déjà vu is active, you may force one creature to reroll a single d20 dice it has made each round by gaining two points of flux. That creature must stay with the result of the reroll, whether better or worse. This ability can be used after success or failure is declared but must be used before consequences of the roll are calculated.
Starting at 12th level, the flashes of future memories are so clear that you are prepared for nearly anything that should come. While déjà vu is active, you are entitled to take a full round of actions in any surprise round, though you gain three points of flux with each surprise round.
Starting at 16th level, you learn how to shift between possible futures to attain the best possible results. While déjà vu is active, you may replace a single d20 dice result with a natural 2 or a natural 18 (your choice) each round by gaining four points of flux. This ability must be used before the dice is rolled.
Starting at 20th level, you gain the ability to deny the direst of futures, shifting which future you come to occupy to grant you some measure of quantum immortality. Whenever you would perish through ability damage, ability drain, negative energy, hit point damage, or death effects, you may escape that death by gaining 5 points of flux, forcing yourself into an alternate present where you possess half of your maximum hit points, no more negative levels than half of your class level, and no ability score has received damage and/or drain in excess of half of its total (ability damage is lost before ability drain). If using this ability in this way would cause you to blink out of existence through unbound form, you have pressed your boundaries too hard and vanish forever as if through the law of paradoxical compensation.
Notes and Explanation:Part offense and part defense, this class feature is a decent introduction to temporal wandering as simply inheriting memories from the future. Not too disruptive but still handy. And yeah, this class feature will let you take 53 on a single attack roll each round (before ability scores, feats, and magic items). This guy is the master of the single certain strike when it comes to martial combat, I suppose. As for what flux is and what it does…
Unbound Form (Su): Manipulating the flow of time bears a heavy burden on a mortal frame, wearing down the connection between a creature and any particular point in time. Many of your class features grant you points of flux, representing this inherent instability. Whenever your flux exceeds your Wisdom modifier + 1/2 your class level, you start blinking in and out of time as your temporal footprint is forcibly reduced. This state renders you staggered, grants you a 20% miss chance against attacks, and removes a point of flux each round. Further, whenever you are already in this state and you gain more flux, you vanish altogether for 1d4 rounds, returning to the same square (or nearest empty space) and losing an additional point of flux at the end of that time. At any time, you may reduce your flux by one by partially phasing out of the world as a standard action. This flux, however, does possess at least one benefit, helping to protect you from harm and granting you a deflection bonus to your AC equal to half of your flux.
Notes and Explanation:…this is the nature of flux. You essentially gain a small amount of leeway in each encounter to manipulate time, after which you are left staggered or effectively paralyzed by your own abuse of time. High flux helps protect you against attacks but also limits how much you can do before action economy comes back to bite you.
Accelerate Healing (Su): While hardly a proper healer, you can help most creatures overcome their wounds by speeding up the natural healing process starting at 2nd level. With 10 minutes of work, you may allow a creature to benefit from natural healing as if they had just rested for 8 hours.
Notes and Explanation:This just seemed like something the class needed at some point. I was going to have it give flux before I realized that the long time needed to use it makes that pretty much pointless.
Quantum Leap (Su): Starting at 2nd level, you can finally travel through time to a limited extent. As a full-round action, you and up to eight creatures in contact with yourself can travel up to 24 hours into the future (all subjects move an equal period of time). Far from most conceptions of time-travel, however, this is a one-way trip through time, an accelerated process not unlike the normal progression of creatures through time. As you merely vanish during the intervening period, there is no risk of any travelling creature meeting with a future version of him or herself. Creatures progressing through time in this way only age by one round instead of the period skipped and gain no benefits or detriment from the objective passage of time (spell durations don’t run out, natural healing does not take place, and so forth). This ability cannot be used while under stress or pressure (such as in the middle of an encounter) and deposits travelers in the same space they left from (or the nearest open space).
Starting at 6th level, you may finally leap back in time, a process that works similarly except when noted. You and creatures travelling with you may only move up to 24 hours into the past (all subjects move an equal period of time). Unlike travel to the future, a jaunt into the past is a temporary affair, lasting for a period up to the period you moved into the past or until you end the jaunt for everyone as a standard action, at which point all subjects return to the present in the positions they previously occupied. While some creatures may be forced from the past prematurely through the law of unstable convergence, they arrive in the present at the same time as everyone else. You may not travel further into the past while already in the past.
Starting at 10th level, the distance that you may leap into the future or past increases from 24 hours to one year. Furthermore, by putting yourself on a clock, you may start a time loops to receive aid from your future self. Using any of these abilities grants you two points of flux. Receiving aid from your future self in this aid fails to violate the law of unstable convergence. The forms of aid that you may receive and the means by which you must avoid a paradox are described as follows:
Advice from the Future: As a standard action, you may imitate an augury effect with a caster level equal to your class level. Beyond simply telling yourself whether an action will possess good results or not, however, the result is a short message no longer than a sentence or two of advice from yourself in the future. While the advice is never intended to be uhhelpful, the advice may rely on knowledge your future self has forgotten that you lack and a failed augury results in the advice coming from a divergent timeline and possessing minimal relevance to your situation. In order to prevent a paradox, you must spend one hour meditating to send back the same message back to your prior self within 24 subjective hours (even if the message was of no help to you).
Gear from the Future: As a standard action, you may produce a single item worth up to 500 gp/class level, produced from a local rift in time. This item is normal for all intents and purposes. In order to prevent a paradox, you must purchase, steal, or otherwise obtain another copy of that item in the same quality as the one received and spend one hour working with it to send it back in time through a momentary rift in time within 24 subjective hours. If you cause a time paradox, you and the object you receive both vanish from the time line.
Summon from the Future: As a standard action, you may summon a version of yourself from the future. The summoned duplicate is in perfect health with all magic items and spell effects on its person suppressed and loses all memory of future events but otherwise cooperates with you (unless you are under a compulsion or charm effect) for up to one hour, until it dies (merely returning it to its own time like a normal summoning effect), or you dismiss it as a standard action. In order to prevent a paradox, you must spend ten minutes meditating to send yourself back into the past, vanishing from the present for a duration equal to the duration of the summon. This whole process must take place within 24 subjective hours of the summoning.
Starting at 14th level, the distance you can leap forward and backwards through time increases from one year to a full decade. Further, you can use these leaps to pull off more intricate time loops, relying on your future self to travel back in time and set things up for your immediate convenience (though allies are allowed to assist in all cases). These abilities function much as lesser time loops, save that each grants three points of flux. Receiving aid in this way does not violate the law of unstable convergence but that law may be violated setting up the support you are to receive if not careful. The forms of time loops made possible and the means by which you must avoid a temporal paradox are listed below:
Contacts from the Past: Within one round of meeting a creature for the first time, you may spend a swift action to increase its attitude towards yourself up to friendly or helpful (your choice), though it might be confused by your presence and its attitude towards you may change in the future. In order to prevent a temporal paradox, you must travel back to a point before activating this ability and somehow increase the attitude of the target towards you to at least the chosen degree without charm or compulsion effects. This must occur within 24 subjective hours of making the contact.
Obstacles from the Past: You may spend a swift action to put an unseen trap or obstacle somewhere within 100 feet of yourself so long as it could be constructed in no more than a day. In order to prevent a temporal paradox, you must travel back to a point before activating this ability to put the trap or obstacle in place without the knowledge of others within 24 subjective hours. If the trap would be activated between setting it up and the time of activation, you learn of this fact after returning to the present and may return back to the past to try protecting your trap if time remains.
Theft from the Past: You may spend a swift action to learn of all concealed items on the person of a creature and move one of them from its person to a location of your choice within 100 feet. In order to prevent a temporal paradox, you must travel back to a point before activating this ability and have the object stolen from the target without its knowledge before stowing it in the location where it is to be found within 24 subjective hours. If the target would learn of the missing object or the object would be found in its hiding spot between returning to the past and the time of activation, you learn of this fact after returning to the present and may return back to the past to prevent the discovery or protect the hiding place if time yet remains for you to prevent a paradox.
Starting at 18th level, the distance you can leap forward and backwards through time increases from a decade to a full century. Further, when moving forwards and backward through time, you may shift your position through the world by up to one mile, controlling your destination with perfect precision as greater teleport.
Notes and Explanation:Yup, time travel starting at level 2. You start off with what amounts to the time hop power and gain the ability to take a short jaunt into the past at level 6. The ability to make time loops at levels 10 and 14 are there because some sort of interaction with your past or future self was clearly called for. I do realize that a temporal wanderer who has decided to sacrifice him/herself and go nova with time loops can be pretty intense but the time loops generally aren’t something that a player would want to abuse unless they were pretty certain that they could get away with it. Finally, at 18th level, you gain some limited teleportation… kind of.
Manipulate Object: Starting at 3rd level, you may utilize your mastery over time not only to influence yourself or travel through time but to alter the flow of time for outside objects. As a standard action, you may utilize one of the following manipulations, targeting a single object weight up to 50 pounds/class level and granting you one point of flux each round that the manipulation remains. You may end any number of manipulations as a free action. Whenever you vanish through your unbound form class feature, all active manipulations you possess immediately end. An attended or magical object can attempt a Will save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 class level + Wisdom modifier to end the manipulation each round. Each manipulation cancels out any previous manipulation placed on the same target. All manipulations possess a range of 60 feet unless otherwise noted. The list of manipulations available to you are as listed below:
Rewind Object: The targeted object returns to its physical state as of one round earlier. All damage, alterations to its hardness, or spell effects placed on the object within the past round are reversed. Unlike other manipulations, this effect is instantaneous in duration, granting you but one point of flux. You may not target a destroyed object and targeting a corpse may repair the body but won’t reanimate it even if it had died within the past round.
Halt Object: The targeted object becomes entirely static, refusing to move except under the greatest of forces as if the object were an activated immovable rod. Saving throws made to end this effect are made with a +4 bonus.
Slow Object: The targeted object, while continuing to move, do so at a slow speed. A single attack made with an affected item requires a full-round action and is made at a -2 penalty, with thrown weapons and ammunition having their effective range increments halved. Any attended object also reduces the speed of a creature carrying it by -10 feet (minimum 5 feet) unless it is willing to and capable of leaving the object behind (this effect does not stack with itself). Skill checks made to manipulate affected items (such as an open lock check made on an affected lock) take twice as long to make. Finally, vehicles travelling without rowers, draft animals, or some similar source of power have their speeds halved.
Accelerate Object: The targeted object is capable of moving at incredible speed. A full attack made using an affected weapon allows the attacker to make an additional attack at its full Base Attack Bonus. Further, ammunition and thrown weapons have their range increments doubled and catch targets flat-footed due to the speed of their travel. Affected armor never imposes a speed penalty, skill checks made to manipulate the affected item take half as long to make, and vehicles travelling without rowers, draft animals, or similar sources of power have their speeds doubled.
Notes and Explanation:Yup I’m giving this guy the ability to reverse, halt, slow, and accelerate. Further, you gain the ability to use this suite of abilities on objects, creatures, magic, ages, and on the entire world over time, getting different effects based on what you effect in what way. This guy may not get a spell system but this ability gives you a decent amount of utility and control starting at level 3.
Temporal Bubble: Starting at 3rd level, you may utilize your manipulations not only as specific targeted effects but as semi-permanent areas trapped in time. Whenever you use a manipulation that normally bestows flux each round, you may instead manifest that manipulation as a bubble with a radius up to 30 feet centered on yourself. All appropriate targets within the bubble other than you, your gear, and/or your spell effects (depending on the manipulation) are subjected to the bubble simultaneously. Once a target has succeeded on its saving throw, it is not affected by that specific temporal bubble for 24 hours. New subjects entering the area are subjected to the effects of the bubble.
Unlike other manipulations, a temporal bubble may theoretically last indefinitely, though it collapses if you are forced out of the time stream through your unbound form class feature, if you perish, if a new temporal bubble is made with an overlapping area, or if you dismiss it as a standard action. A temporal bubble does not bestow flux each round, instead reducing the amount of flux required for your unbound form class feature to remove you from the timeline by double the normal flux per round (creating a bubble with accelerate object reduces the limit by -2, for example). You may extend the radius of the bubble beyond 30 feet when creating it by increasing the penalty by -1 per extra 5 feet of radius. If this would lower that amount below one, the temporal bubble fails to form.
Notes and Explanation:And because time bubbles are so popular, here is the ability to form a proper area effect (as well as a semi-permanent effect in general). It may technically be more cost efficient than using the normal ability but the fact that it’s centered on you and that it makes no exceptions except for you (even if you don’t want that exception) kind of evens things out, hopefully.
Timeless Body: Starting at 5th level, your power over the flow of time has started to affect your body. You no longer require food or drink or air or sleep to survive. As this protection comes from the timelessness of your own body, however, you gain no immunity from effects that create thirst, hunger, suffocation, fatigue, exhaustion, or sleep. Further, you are always perfectly aware of the date and time and gain improved initiative as a bonus feat, if you don’t already possess it.
Notes and Explanation:Just a generic feature that seemed appropriate.
Manipulate Creature: Starting at 7th level, you possess the ability to manipulate creatures much as you manipulate items. As a standard action, you may utilize one of the following manipulations, targeting a single creature weighing up to 50 pounds/class level and gaining two points of flux for each round that the manipulation remains. A target can attempt a Will save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 class level + Wisdom modifier to end the manipulation each round. Each manipulation cancels out any previous manipulations placed on the same target. The list of manipulations now available to you are as listed below:
Rewind Creature: The targeted creature returns to its physical state as of one round earlier, shrugging off all damage and effects suffered in the intervening time. Durations of ongoing effects on the target are not set back by one round, the target does not lose any flux they have gained in that round, and the equipment of the target is not affected by this ability. Unlike other manipulations, this effect is instantaneous in duration, granting only two points of flux. You may not target a slain creature.
Halt Creature: The targeted creature is held perfectly in place through an effect similar to a hold person effect. Saving throws made to end this effect are made with a +4 bonus.
Slow Creature: The targeted creature moves more sluggishly, as if affected by a slow effect.
Accelerate Creature: The targeted creature is capable of acting with great alacrity, as if affected by a haste effect.
Temporal Tracing: Starting at 9th level, your senses can reach forward into the future and back into the past. You may track targets without need for any check so long as they have passed through the area within the past 24 hours (allowing you to trace their steps) or intend to pass through the area within the next 24 hours (tracing back their intended path to their current location).
Beyond the simple paths that entities have taken or will take, you can identify areas where great acts of hostility, passion, or other emotions have taken place or are likely to occur, seeing not the specifics of the event but the auras depicting the emotional content. The range of this sense is likewise 24 hours.
Using this class feature does not require an action. Further, this class feature is incapable of tracking the temporal trails of time travelers, sparing them the possible consequences of the law of unstable convergence.
Notes and Explanation:Another filler ability that I made to help this class out. Not too much to say about it other than that I think it gives the class a bit of utility as a tracker.
Manipulate Magic: Starting at 11th level, you can manipulate raw magical energy much as you can manipulate physical objects or creatures. As a standard action, you may utilize one of the following manipulations, targeting a single active spell or spell-like ability with a caster level no higher than your class level and gaining three points of flux for each round that the manipulation remains. Each manipulation cancels out any previous manipulations placed on the same target. The list of manipulations now available to you are as listed below:
Rewind Magic: If a spell effect has been dispelled or similarly ended by force within the last round, you cause it to resume. If an ongoing effect was the cause of it being dispelled, it may still be dispelled once more. Unlike other manipulations, this effect is instantaneous in duration, granting only three points of flux. You may not target a spell that has naturally ended.
Halt Spell: You halt a spell effect in time, suspending its effects for as long as it is halted as if suppressed by an antimagic field.
Slow Spell: You inspire a spell to move on at a slow rate, doubling its remaining duration. If this manipulation ends, the remaining duration is halved once more.
Accelerate Spell: You force a spell to expend all of its energy quickly, halving its remaining duration. If this manipulation ends, the remaining duration is doubled once more.
Eternal Body: Starting at 13th level, your form is truly eternal. You cease to age unless you wish to and are incapable of aging beyond the minimum needed to reach your final age category (venerable for most time travelers). You never risk dying of old age. Further, you gain immunity to any effect that would artificially manipulate your age and gain fast healing 2 as your body automatically speeds up your healing process to incredible speeds.
Notes and Explanation:Another more passive buff associated with a bit of fast healing, because not giving this guy a class feature like this would seem a tad odd.
Manipulate Age: Starting at 15th level, you can not only control the general progression of a subject through time but control their physical age. As a standard action, you may select one of the following manipulations, targeting a single object or creature weighing up to 50 pounds/class level and gaining four points of flux for each round that the manipulation remains. Each manipulation cancels out any previous manipulations placed on the same target. A target can attempt a Will save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 class level + Wisdom modifier to end the manipulation each round. The list of manipulations now available to you are listed below:
Reverse Age: The target grows one year younger each round while under this manipulation. Whenever the target would lower an age category, you gain an additional four points of flux. Decreasing in age category instantly places any relevant penalties in place but only instils the benefits of youth after a full year spent adjusting to the body. Creatures that advance in HD through age categories are immune to this manipulation. Having one’s age reduced below zero removes them from the timeline, as through the law of paradoxical compensation, though even a wish or miracle will only return a newborn creature.
Halt Age: The target ceases to age entirely. Unlike most manipulations, maintaining this ability does not grant flux every round. Instead, each instance of this manipulation you have active reduces your capacity for flux before vanishing through unbound form by eight points. If using this manipulation would lower that limit below one, the manipulation may not be used.
Slow Age: The target ages at half the normal speed. Unlike most manipulations, maintaining this ability does not grant flux every round. Instead, each instance of this manipulation you have active reduces your capacity for flux before vanishing through unbound form by four points. If using this manipulation would lower that limit below one, the manipulation may not be used.
Accelerate Age: The target appears to age one year each round while under this manipulation. Whenever the target would raise an age category, you gain an additional four points of flux. Increasing in age category instantly places any relevant penalties in place but only instils the benefits of old age after a full year spend adjusting to the body. Creatures that advance in HD through age categories are immune to this manipulation. Having one’s age increased beyond its maximum age removes them from the timeline, as through the law of paradoxical compensation, though even a wish or miracle will only return a target creature at the start of the venerable category (or the rough equivalent).
Temporal Phantom: Starting at 17th level, your frequent time travel leads to an occasional imprint of yourself left on the timeline. This possesses two benefits for yourself.
First, while removed from the timeline through unbound form, you may place a temporal phantom in your square (or the nearest open square) at the start of any round. The phantom possesses no spell effects active on your person and has none of your magic items, though it carries any other injuries or maladies you have suffered. Otherwise, the phantom acts as a copy of you on your initiative as you dictate and lasts one round. You may use this ability only once each time unbound form removes you from existence and you may not use it on the round you return. The death of a temporal phantom fails to harm you in any observable manner. This form of temporal phantom is created without flux.
Secondly, when travelling back to the past, you may elect to first arrive as temporal phantoms. You and all creatures traveling back with you function as normal through this travel. The moment you or a creature you have carried is observed by a sentient creature or makes a notable change upon the world, however, the time travel effectively starts over. Time is reversed to the temporal destination you had set and everything that the phantoms had gone through essentially never occurred, though all creatures travelling back retain the memories of their phantoms.
Notes and Explanation:One last filler ability, but it’s pretty major. It lets you scout out the past a bit if you don’t want to instantly be doomed in your mission (especially if you’re trying to fix a time loop) and it lets you participate a bit even if you are too overloaded with flux and vanish
Manipulate World: Starting at 19th level, you can subject the entirety of the world to your temporal whims, shifting the rate of time relative to yourself. As a standard action, you may select one of the following manipulations, gaining five points of flux for each round that the manipulation remains. Each of these manipulations cancels out any of these manipulations previously in place. These manipulations may not be used as temporal bubbles and possess a range of personal instead of 60 feet. The list of manipulations now available to you are listed below:
Reverse World: you may rewind time by up to a full round. The flux paid to use this manipulation and any other flux you have gained in the reversed time is kept but all other time consequences from the time reversed are undone (creatures return to their previous locations, spells are uncast, items are unconsumed or regain charges, etc.). You may choose to stop this rewind at any specific point in initiative but not midway through an action. None but you and your allies retain any memory of what you had just perceived. Unlike most manipulations, this effect is instantaneous in duration, granting you but five points of flux.
Halt World: You halt the entire world around you, enabling you to act while the world stands still. For most purposes other than duration, this acts as a time stop effect.
Slow World: While perhaps not as useful as stopping the world altogether, there are times when one might want to slow the world instead of freezing it in place. Each round, you are entitled to two full rounds of action on your initiative count. Unlike a proper time stop effect, you are free to harm others without restriction.
Accelerate World: While action is often preferable, some might prefer to keep themselves all but indestructible that halting time seems to grant others. You lose the ability to take any action other than to cancel this manipulation but are protected from harm as if the rest of the world benefited from a time stop effect. After being forced from the timeline with unbound form, you may not use this manipulation for 1d4 rounds after returning.
Final Notes:
The wording for unbound form was reworded shortly before posting this class. If anything about the ability or references to it don't make sense, let me know.
Time travel is a very complicated, mind-bending subject and the abilities enabling it are kind of complicated as a result of this. If anything doesn't let me know, let me know and I'll see if I can give an example of how it is supposed to work.
For most, time is a commodity that flows unceasingly in one direction, something that others may crave or ignore but rarely pay too much mind of. For a rare few individuals, however, time is far more than the trickle of sand through an hourglass. Blessed or cursed with a weakened connection to the passage of time, these individuals can manipulate the passage of time and even travel through it when desired. Known as temporal wanderers, these beings possess all of the time in the world, though their art yet comes with significant risks.
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d8
Starting age: as fighter
Class Skills:
Balance, Bluff, Climb, Diplomacy, Disguise, Craft, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (History), Move Silently, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Swim, Use Magic Device
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) × 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier
The Temporal Wanderer
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1st|+0|+0|+2|+0|Déjà vu (true strike), Unbound Form
2nd|+1|+0|+3|+0|Quantum Leap (Future), Accelerate Healing
3rd|+2|+1|+3|+1|Manipulate Object, Temporal Bubble
4th|+3|+1|+4|+1|Déjà vu (uncanny dodge)
5th|+3|+1|+4|+1|Timeless Body
6th|+4|+2|+5|+2|Quantum Leap (Past)
7th|+5|+2|+5|+2|Manipulate Creature
8th|+6/+1|+2|+6|+2|Déjà vu (Control Probability)
9th|+6/+1|+3|+6|+3|Temporal Tracing
10th|+7/+2|+3|+7|+3|Quantum Leap (Future Loop)
11th|+8/+3|+3|+7|+3|Manipulate Magic
12th|+9/+4|+4|+8|+4|Déjà vu (Never Surprised)
13th|+9/+4|+4|+8|+4|Eternal Body
14th|+10/+5|+4|+9|+4|Quantum Leap (Past Loop)
15th|+11/+6/+1|+5|+9|+5|Manipulate Age
16th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+10|+5|Déjà vu (Control Future)
17th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+10|+5|Temporal Phantom
18th|+13/+8/+3|+6|+11|+6|Quantum Leap (Superior Leap)
19th|+14/+9/+4|+6|+11|+6|Manipulate World
20th|+15/+10/+5|+6|+12|+6|Déjà vu (Quantum Immortality)
[/table]
CLASS FEATURES:
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A temporal wanderer is proficient with all simple weapons and with light armor, but not with shields.
Notes and Explanation:Yeah, I’m giving minimal proficiencies to what can nominally be called a martial character. No matter how I spin the concept in my head, nothing about time travelers is inherently warlike unless I wanted to explicitly take a “temporal warrior” approach and that didn’t really appeal too much to me. I personally don’t find the difference between marital and simple weapons to be too huge so I don’t really think it’s that big of a problem.
Wanderer’s Laws: The art of travelling through time is filled with risks and pitfalls, capable of destroying the unwary if they aren’t careful. While some claim that all manner of laws apply to those who travel through time, the four most salient laws of travel are written below.
The Law of Converging Paths: Despite the fears that some express towards time travel, the stream of time is far more resilient than most would give it credit. Indeed, more than one temporal wanderer has driven themselves insane trying in vain to change something in the past. As such, minor changes or actions never risk altering the timeline and even large changes tend not to leave a great impact over time. Slaying one tyrant as a toddler invariably leads to a different tyrant leading the same forces and saving the life of a creature rarely holds off death for more than a day, though its form may be different.
The Law of Paradoxical Compensation: Of the risks a time traveler faces, few are more extreme than the risk of causing a temporal paradox. While one could be resolved through the same power enabling time travel, this arrangement never ends well for the traveler. If a time-travelling creature risks creating a temporal paradox, his or her body vanishes from the timeline as time is repaired. The temporal wanderer can’t be restored after vanishing in this way, save by a wish or miracle. If repairing the timeline requires anything beyond the loss of the time traveler, it will be listed in the description of the relevant class feature.
The Law of Unstable Convergence: While there are all forms of duplicates and doppelgangers, the stream of time abhors holding multiple copies of a single individual in the same time and area. While you can fool the time stream by keeping far away from copies of yourself, the time stream notices something is wrong if one copy of yourself should get too close to another. If a time traveler would be seen or detected by a subjectively earlier iteration of themselves, the time traveler is jettisoned to its previous temporal coordinate before the earlier iteration can interpret what it detects. Likewise, most attempts to contact or send objects to other copies of oneself are halted through the law of converging paths, with more obvious and blatant attempts invoking the law of paradoxical compensation (eliminating both the traveler and the attempt at communication).
The Law of Forgotten Futures: Many who study the art of time travel report receiving insight or advice from futures that never occur, providing credence to the idea that each moment may possess countless possible futures. Once a time traveler has travelled to a point in time, however, he or she is eternally barred from all other possible iterations of that moment. While stories abound regarding entire parallel timelines, only the strongest of magic could hope to let someone travel to one.
Notes and Explanation:Before getting to any actual time travel mechanics, I felt that it was necessary to put forth some basic laws of time travel so that things work.
The law of converging paths is a basic means by which paradoxes can be minimized and DMs don’t have to worry about butterfly effects every time a character does anything in the past. I didn’t want paradoxes to be something that common. Similarly, I don’t think that the ability to slay the BBEG while he’s still in diapers should realistically be an option in campaigns unless they are very sandbox-oriented.
The law of paradoxical compensation, meanwhile, covers what happens when time paradoxes do happen. I know that some people on the temporal mechanics thread have suggested something along the lines of intelligence damage but considering that many settings seem to think that even one paradox could destroy all of existence, that didn’t seem extreme enough. So yeah, paradoxes are less likely due to the laws above and below but even one is perma-death.
The Law of Unstable Convergence is just a simple way to keep players from mucking about in their own past and causing a lot of headaches for players and DMS alike. Getting seen by your earlier self ejects you from the past, lesser attempts to alter the past of the game are deflected by law #1, and serious attempts to alter the past of the game are punished by law #2.
Finally, The Law of Forgotten Futures is there because actually making alternate timelines freely accessible within a game could easily ruin everything. Just as the first rule stops players from retroactively cancelling the plot, this rule stops your players from searching for a timeline where the plot just doesn’t happen in the first place.
Time is Relative: Several class features a temporal wanderer possesses refer to subjective time. Subjective time refers to the amount of time that the body of the temporal wanderer experiences, whether or not it is conscious or alive (or intact). A temporal wanderer who leaps 5 hours into the future, rests for an hour, and who then leaps backwards 7 hours before waiting for the present to resume has gone through a total of 8 subjective hours. Aging and the duration of targeted effects continue with subjective time.
Notes and Explanation:One more bit of rules regarding time travel, separate form the laws, that seemed necessary to record. In a game with time travel, time as you experience it may not equal time as it naturally passes so it seemed necessary to point out the difference between the two.
Déjà vu (Su): Before learning how to travel through time, a temporal wanderer gains access to random flashes of temporal energy and the foresight they afford. As a swift action, you may start or stop inheriting the memories of a dozen divergent futures. While this ability is active, the first attack you make each round grants you a point of flux and benefits from an effect similar to a true strike spell, save that it adds to both attack and damage rolls and that the bonus it grants equals your class level.
Starting at 4th level, these flashes of foresight grant you a certain degree of protection from attacks that should have come as surprises. While déjà vu is active, you retain your Dexterity bonus to your AC against any attack (unless you are unconscious or otherwise helpless) by gaining one point of flux per attack you defend against in this way.
Starting at 8th level, various possible futures seem to linger as you proceed through time with this ability active, granting you some control over probability. While déjà vu is active, you may force one creature to reroll a single d20 dice it has made each round by gaining two points of flux. That creature must stay with the result of the reroll, whether better or worse. This ability can be used after success or failure is declared but must be used before consequences of the roll are calculated.
Starting at 12th level, the flashes of future memories are so clear that you are prepared for nearly anything that should come. While déjà vu is active, you are entitled to take a full round of actions in any surprise round, though you gain three points of flux with each surprise round.
Starting at 16th level, you learn how to shift between possible futures to attain the best possible results. While déjà vu is active, you may replace a single d20 dice result with a natural 2 or a natural 18 (your choice) each round by gaining four points of flux. This ability must be used before the dice is rolled.
Starting at 20th level, you gain the ability to deny the direst of futures, shifting which future you come to occupy to grant you some measure of quantum immortality. Whenever you would perish through ability damage, ability drain, negative energy, hit point damage, or death effects, you may escape that death by gaining 5 points of flux, forcing yourself into an alternate present where you possess half of your maximum hit points, no more negative levels than half of your class level, and no ability score has received damage and/or drain in excess of half of its total (ability damage is lost before ability drain). If using this ability in this way would cause you to blink out of existence through unbound form, you have pressed your boundaries too hard and vanish forever as if through the law of paradoxical compensation.
Notes and Explanation:Part offense and part defense, this class feature is a decent introduction to temporal wandering as simply inheriting memories from the future. Not too disruptive but still handy. And yeah, this class feature will let you take 53 on a single attack roll each round (before ability scores, feats, and magic items). This guy is the master of the single certain strike when it comes to martial combat, I suppose. As for what flux is and what it does…
Unbound Form (Su): Manipulating the flow of time bears a heavy burden on a mortal frame, wearing down the connection between a creature and any particular point in time. Many of your class features grant you points of flux, representing this inherent instability. Whenever your flux exceeds your Wisdom modifier + 1/2 your class level, you start blinking in and out of time as your temporal footprint is forcibly reduced. This state renders you staggered, grants you a 20% miss chance against attacks, and removes a point of flux each round. Further, whenever you are already in this state and you gain more flux, you vanish altogether for 1d4 rounds, returning to the same square (or nearest empty space) and losing an additional point of flux at the end of that time. At any time, you may reduce your flux by one by partially phasing out of the world as a standard action. This flux, however, does possess at least one benefit, helping to protect you from harm and granting you a deflection bonus to your AC equal to half of your flux.
Notes and Explanation:…this is the nature of flux. You essentially gain a small amount of leeway in each encounter to manipulate time, after which you are left staggered or effectively paralyzed by your own abuse of time. High flux helps protect you against attacks but also limits how much you can do before action economy comes back to bite you.
Accelerate Healing (Su): While hardly a proper healer, you can help most creatures overcome their wounds by speeding up the natural healing process starting at 2nd level. With 10 minutes of work, you may allow a creature to benefit from natural healing as if they had just rested for 8 hours.
Notes and Explanation:This just seemed like something the class needed at some point. I was going to have it give flux before I realized that the long time needed to use it makes that pretty much pointless.
Quantum Leap (Su): Starting at 2nd level, you can finally travel through time to a limited extent. As a full-round action, you and up to eight creatures in contact with yourself can travel up to 24 hours into the future (all subjects move an equal period of time). Far from most conceptions of time-travel, however, this is a one-way trip through time, an accelerated process not unlike the normal progression of creatures through time. As you merely vanish during the intervening period, there is no risk of any travelling creature meeting with a future version of him or herself. Creatures progressing through time in this way only age by one round instead of the period skipped and gain no benefits or detriment from the objective passage of time (spell durations don’t run out, natural healing does not take place, and so forth). This ability cannot be used while under stress or pressure (such as in the middle of an encounter) and deposits travelers in the same space they left from (or the nearest open space).
Starting at 6th level, you may finally leap back in time, a process that works similarly except when noted. You and creatures travelling with you may only move up to 24 hours into the past (all subjects move an equal period of time). Unlike travel to the future, a jaunt into the past is a temporary affair, lasting for a period up to the period you moved into the past or until you end the jaunt for everyone as a standard action, at which point all subjects return to the present in the positions they previously occupied. While some creatures may be forced from the past prematurely through the law of unstable convergence, they arrive in the present at the same time as everyone else. You may not travel further into the past while already in the past.
Starting at 10th level, the distance that you may leap into the future or past increases from 24 hours to one year. Furthermore, by putting yourself on a clock, you may start a time loops to receive aid from your future self. Using any of these abilities grants you two points of flux. Receiving aid from your future self in this aid fails to violate the law of unstable convergence. The forms of aid that you may receive and the means by which you must avoid a paradox are described as follows:
Advice from the Future: As a standard action, you may imitate an augury effect with a caster level equal to your class level. Beyond simply telling yourself whether an action will possess good results or not, however, the result is a short message no longer than a sentence or two of advice from yourself in the future. While the advice is never intended to be uhhelpful, the advice may rely on knowledge your future self has forgotten that you lack and a failed augury results in the advice coming from a divergent timeline and possessing minimal relevance to your situation. In order to prevent a paradox, you must spend one hour meditating to send back the same message back to your prior self within 24 subjective hours (even if the message was of no help to you).
Gear from the Future: As a standard action, you may produce a single item worth up to 500 gp/class level, produced from a local rift in time. This item is normal for all intents and purposes. In order to prevent a paradox, you must purchase, steal, or otherwise obtain another copy of that item in the same quality as the one received and spend one hour working with it to send it back in time through a momentary rift in time within 24 subjective hours. If you cause a time paradox, you and the object you receive both vanish from the time line.
Summon from the Future: As a standard action, you may summon a version of yourself from the future. The summoned duplicate is in perfect health with all magic items and spell effects on its person suppressed and loses all memory of future events but otherwise cooperates with you (unless you are under a compulsion or charm effect) for up to one hour, until it dies (merely returning it to its own time like a normal summoning effect), or you dismiss it as a standard action. In order to prevent a paradox, you must spend ten minutes meditating to send yourself back into the past, vanishing from the present for a duration equal to the duration of the summon. This whole process must take place within 24 subjective hours of the summoning.
Starting at 14th level, the distance you can leap forward and backwards through time increases from one year to a full decade. Further, you can use these leaps to pull off more intricate time loops, relying on your future self to travel back in time and set things up for your immediate convenience (though allies are allowed to assist in all cases). These abilities function much as lesser time loops, save that each grants three points of flux. Receiving aid in this way does not violate the law of unstable convergence but that law may be violated setting up the support you are to receive if not careful. The forms of time loops made possible and the means by which you must avoid a temporal paradox are listed below:
Contacts from the Past: Within one round of meeting a creature for the first time, you may spend a swift action to increase its attitude towards yourself up to friendly or helpful (your choice), though it might be confused by your presence and its attitude towards you may change in the future. In order to prevent a temporal paradox, you must travel back to a point before activating this ability and somehow increase the attitude of the target towards you to at least the chosen degree without charm or compulsion effects. This must occur within 24 subjective hours of making the contact.
Obstacles from the Past: You may spend a swift action to put an unseen trap or obstacle somewhere within 100 feet of yourself so long as it could be constructed in no more than a day. In order to prevent a temporal paradox, you must travel back to a point before activating this ability to put the trap or obstacle in place without the knowledge of others within 24 subjective hours. If the trap would be activated between setting it up and the time of activation, you learn of this fact after returning to the present and may return back to the past to try protecting your trap if time remains.
Theft from the Past: You may spend a swift action to learn of all concealed items on the person of a creature and move one of them from its person to a location of your choice within 100 feet. In order to prevent a temporal paradox, you must travel back to a point before activating this ability and have the object stolen from the target without its knowledge before stowing it in the location where it is to be found within 24 subjective hours. If the target would learn of the missing object or the object would be found in its hiding spot between returning to the past and the time of activation, you learn of this fact after returning to the present and may return back to the past to prevent the discovery or protect the hiding place if time yet remains for you to prevent a paradox.
Starting at 18th level, the distance you can leap forward and backwards through time increases from a decade to a full century. Further, when moving forwards and backward through time, you may shift your position through the world by up to one mile, controlling your destination with perfect precision as greater teleport.
Notes and Explanation:Yup, time travel starting at level 2. You start off with what amounts to the time hop power and gain the ability to take a short jaunt into the past at level 6. The ability to make time loops at levels 10 and 14 are there because some sort of interaction with your past or future self was clearly called for. I do realize that a temporal wanderer who has decided to sacrifice him/herself and go nova with time loops can be pretty intense but the time loops generally aren’t something that a player would want to abuse unless they were pretty certain that they could get away with it. Finally, at 18th level, you gain some limited teleportation… kind of.
Manipulate Object: Starting at 3rd level, you may utilize your mastery over time not only to influence yourself or travel through time but to alter the flow of time for outside objects. As a standard action, you may utilize one of the following manipulations, targeting a single object weight up to 50 pounds/class level and granting you one point of flux each round that the manipulation remains. You may end any number of manipulations as a free action. Whenever you vanish through your unbound form class feature, all active manipulations you possess immediately end. An attended or magical object can attempt a Will save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 class level + Wisdom modifier to end the manipulation each round. Each manipulation cancels out any previous manipulation placed on the same target. All manipulations possess a range of 60 feet unless otherwise noted. The list of manipulations available to you are as listed below:
Rewind Object: The targeted object returns to its physical state as of one round earlier. All damage, alterations to its hardness, or spell effects placed on the object within the past round are reversed. Unlike other manipulations, this effect is instantaneous in duration, granting you but one point of flux. You may not target a destroyed object and targeting a corpse may repair the body but won’t reanimate it even if it had died within the past round.
Halt Object: The targeted object becomes entirely static, refusing to move except under the greatest of forces as if the object were an activated immovable rod. Saving throws made to end this effect are made with a +4 bonus.
Slow Object: The targeted object, while continuing to move, do so at a slow speed. A single attack made with an affected item requires a full-round action and is made at a -2 penalty, with thrown weapons and ammunition having their effective range increments halved. Any attended object also reduces the speed of a creature carrying it by -10 feet (minimum 5 feet) unless it is willing to and capable of leaving the object behind (this effect does not stack with itself). Skill checks made to manipulate affected items (such as an open lock check made on an affected lock) take twice as long to make. Finally, vehicles travelling without rowers, draft animals, or some similar source of power have their speeds halved.
Accelerate Object: The targeted object is capable of moving at incredible speed. A full attack made using an affected weapon allows the attacker to make an additional attack at its full Base Attack Bonus. Further, ammunition and thrown weapons have their range increments doubled and catch targets flat-footed due to the speed of their travel. Affected armor never imposes a speed penalty, skill checks made to manipulate the affected item take half as long to make, and vehicles travelling without rowers, draft animals, or similar sources of power have their speeds doubled.
Notes and Explanation:Yup I’m giving this guy the ability to reverse, halt, slow, and accelerate. Further, you gain the ability to use this suite of abilities on objects, creatures, magic, ages, and on the entire world over time, getting different effects based on what you effect in what way. This guy may not get a spell system but this ability gives you a decent amount of utility and control starting at level 3.
Temporal Bubble: Starting at 3rd level, you may utilize your manipulations not only as specific targeted effects but as semi-permanent areas trapped in time. Whenever you use a manipulation that normally bestows flux each round, you may instead manifest that manipulation as a bubble with a radius up to 30 feet centered on yourself. All appropriate targets within the bubble other than you, your gear, and/or your spell effects (depending on the manipulation) are subjected to the bubble simultaneously. Once a target has succeeded on its saving throw, it is not affected by that specific temporal bubble for 24 hours. New subjects entering the area are subjected to the effects of the bubble.
Unlike other manipulations, a temporal bubble may theoretically last indefinitely, though it collapses if you are forced out of the time stream through your unbound form class feature, if you perish, if a new temporal bubble is made with an overlapping area, or if you dismiss it as a standard action. A temporal bubble does not bestow flux each round, instead reducing the amount of flux required for your unbound form class feature to remove you from the timeline by double the normal flux per round (creating a bubble with accelerate object reduces the limit by -2, for example). You may extend the radius of the bubble beyond 30 feet when creating it by increasing the penalty by -1 per extra 5 feet of radius. If this would lower that amount below one, the temporal bubble fails to form.
Notes and Explanation:And because time bubbles are so popular, here is the ability to form a proper area effect (as well as a semi-permanent effect in general). It may technically be more cost efficient than using the normal ability but the fact that it’s centered on you and that it makes no exceptions except for you (even if you don’t want that exception) kind of evens things out, hopefully.
Timeless Body: Starting at 5th level, your power over the flow of time has started to affect your body. You no longer require food or drink or air or sleep to survive. As this protection comes from the timelessness of your own body, however, you gain no immunity from effects that create thirst, hunger, suffocation, fatigue, exhaustion, or sleep. Further, you are always perfectly aware of the date and time and gain improved initiative as a bonus feat, if you don’t already possess it.
Notes and Explanation:Just a generic feature that seemed appropriate.
Manipulate Creature: Starting at 7th level, you possess the ability to manipulate creatures much as you manipulate items. As a standard action, you may utilize one of the following manipulations, targeting a single creature weighing up to 50 pounds/class level and gaining two points of flux for each round that the manipulation remains. A target can attempt a Will save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 class level + Wisdom modifier to end the manipulation each round. Each manipulation cancels out any previous manipulations placed on the same target. The list of manipulations now available to you are as listed below:
Rewind Creature: The targeted creature returns to its physical state as of one round earlier, shrugging off all damage and effects suffered in the intervening time. Durations of ongoing effects on the target are not set back by one round, the target does not lose any flux they have gained in that round, and the equipment of the target is not affected by this ability. Unlike other manipulations, this effect is instantaneous in duration, granting only two points of flux. You may not target a slain creature.
Halt Creature: The targeted creature is held perfectly in place through an effect similar to a hold person effect. Saving throws made to end this effect are made with a +4 bonus.
Slow Creature: The targeted creature moves more sluggishly, as if affected by a slow effect.
Accelerate Creature: The targeted creature is capable of acting with great alacrity, as if affected by a haste effect.
Temporal Tracing: Starting at 9th level, your senses can reach forward into the future and back into the past. You may track targets without need for any check so long as they have passed through the area within the past 24 hours (allowing you to trace their steps) or intend to pass through the area within the next 24 hours (tracing back their intended path to their current location).
Beyond the simple paths that entities have taken or will take, you can identify areas where great acts of hostility, passion, or other emotions have taken place or are likely to occur, seeing not the specifics of the event but the auras depicting the emotional content. The range of this sense is likewise 24 hours.
Using this class feature does not require an action. Further, this class feature is incapable of tracking the temporal trails of time travelers, sparing them the possible consequences of the law of unstable convergence.
Notes and Explanation:Another filler ability that I made to help this class out. Not too much to say about it other than that I think it gives the class a bit of utility as a tracker.
Manipulate Magic: Starting at 11th level, you can manipulate raw magical energy much as you can manipulate physical objects or creatures. As a standard action, you may utilize one of the following manipulations, targeting a single active spell or spell-like ability with a caster level no higher than your class level and gaining three points of flux for each round that the manipulation remains. Each manipulation cancels out any previous manipulations placed on the same target. The list of manipulations now available to you are as listed below:
Rewind Magic: If a spell effect has been dispelled or similarly ended by force within the last round, you cause it to resume. If an ongoing effect was the cause of it being dispelled, it may still be dispelled once more. Unlike other manipulations, this effect is instantaneous in duration, granting only three points of flux. You may not target a spell that has naturally ended.
Halt Spell: You halt a spell effect in time, suspending its effects for as long as it is halted as if suppressed by an antimagic field.
Slow Spell: You inspire a spell to move on at a slow rate, doubling its remaining duration. If this manipulation ends, the remaining duration is halved once more.
Accelerate Spell: You force a spell to expend all of its energy quickly, halving its remaining duration. If this manipulation ends, the remaining duration is doubled once more.
Eternal Body: Starting at 13th level, your form is truly eternal. You cease to age unless you wish to and are incapable of aging beyond the minimum needed to reach your final age category (venerable for most time travelers). You never risk dying of old age. Further, you gain immunity to any effect that would artificially manipulate your age and gain fast healing 2 as your body automatically speeds up your healing process to incredible speeds.
Notes and Explanation:Another more passive buff associated with a bit of fast healing, because not giving this guy a class feature like this would seem a tad odd.
Manipulate Age: Starting at 15th level, you can not only control the general progression of a subject through time but control their physical age. As a standard action, you may select one of the following manipulations, targeting a single object or creature weighing up to 50 pounds/class level and gaining four points of flux for each round that the manipulation remains. Each manipulation cancels out any previous manipulations placed on the same target. A target can attempt a Will save with a DC of 10 + 1/2 class level + Wisdom modifier to end the manipulation each round. The list of manipulations now available to you are listed below:
Reverse Age: The target grows one year younger each round while under this manipulation. Whenever the target would lower an age category, you gain an additional four points of flux. Decreasing in age category instantly places any relevant penalties in place but only instils the benefits of youth after a full year spent adjusting to the body. Creatures that advance in HD through age categories are immune to this manipulation. Having one’s age reduced below zero removes them from the timeline, as through the law of paradoxical compensation, though even a wish or miracle will only return a newborn creature.
Halt Age: The target ceases to age entirely. Unlike most manipulations, maintaining this ability does not grant flux every round. Instead, each instance of this manipulation you have active reduces your capacity for flux before vanishing through unbound form by eight points. If using this manipulation would lower that limit below one, the manipulation may not be used.
Slow Age: The target ages at half the normal speed. Unlike most manipulations, maintaining this ability does not grant flux every round. Instead, each instance of this manipulation you have active reduces your capacity for flux before vanishing through unbound form by four points. If using this manipulation would lower that limit below one, the manipulation may not be used.
Accelerate Age: The target appears to age one year each round while under this manipulation. Whenever the target would raise an age category, you gain an additional four points of flux. Increasing in age category instantly places any relevant penalties in place but only instils the benefits of old age after a full year spend adjusting to the body. Creatures that advance in HD through age categories are immune to this manipulation. Having one’s age increased beyond its maximum age removes them from the timeline, as through the law of paradoxical compensation, though even a wish or miracle will only return a target creature at the start of the venerable category (or the rough equivalent).
Temporal Phantom: Starting at 17th level, your frequent time travel leads to an occasional imprint of yourself left on the timeline. This possesses two benefits for yourself.
First, while removed from the timeline through unbound form, you may place a temporal phantom in your square (or the nearest open square) at the start of any round. The phantom possesses no spell effects active on your person and has none of your magic items, though it carries any other injuries or maladies you have suffered. Otherwise, the phantom acts as a copy of you on your initiative as you dictate and lasts one round. You may use this ability only once each time unbound form removes you from existence and you may not use it on the round you return. The death of a temporal phantom fails to harm you in any observable manner. This form of temporal phantom is created without flux.
Secondly, when travelling back to the past, you may elect to first arrive as temporal phantoms. You and all creatures traveling back with you function as normal through this travel. The moment you or a creature you have carried is observed by a sentient creature or makes a notable change upon the world, however, the time travel effectively starts over. Time is reversed to the temporal destination you had set and everything that the phantoms had gone through essentially never occurred, though all creatures travelling back retain the memories of their phantoms.
Notes and Explanation:One last filler ability, but it’s pretty major. It lets you scout out the past a bit if you don’t want to instantly be doomed in your mission (especially if you’re trying to fix a time loop) and it lets you participate a bit even if you are too overloaded with flux and vanish
Manipulate World: Starting at 19th level, you can subject the entirety of the world to your temporal whims, shifting the rate of time relative to yourself. As a standard action, you may select one of the following manipulations, gaining five points of flux for each round that the manipulation remains. Each of these manipulations cancels out any of these manipulations previously in place. These manipulations may not be used as temporal bubbles and possess a range of personal instead of 60 feet. The list of manipulations now available to you are listed below:
Reverse World: you may rewind time by up to a full round. The flux paid to use this manipulation and any other flux you have gained in the reversed time is kept but all other time consequences from the time reversed are undone (creatures return to their previous locations, spells are uncast, items are unconsumed or regain charges, etc.). You may choose to stop this rewind at any specific point in initiative but not midway through an action. None but you and your allies retain any memory of what you had just perceived. Unlike most manipulations, this effect is instantaneous in duration, granting you but five points of flux.
Halt World: You halt the entire world around you, enabling you to act while the world stands still. For most purposes other than duration, this acts as a time stop effect.
Slow World: While perhaps not as useful as stopping the world altogether, there are times when one might want to slow the world instead of freezing it in place. Each round, you are entitled to two full rounds of action on your initiative count. Unlike a proper time stop effect, you are free to harm others without restriction.
Accelerate World: While action is often preferable, some might prefer to keep themselves all but indestructible that halting time seems to grant others. You lose the ability to take any action other than to cancel this manipulation but are protected from harm as if the rest of the world benefited from a time stop effect. After being forced from the timeline with unbound form, you may not use this manipulation for 1d4 rounds after returning.
Final Notes:
The wording for unbound form was reworded shortly before posting this class. If anything about the ability or references to it don't make sense, let me know.
Time travel is a very complicated, mind-bending subject and the abilities enabling it are kind of complicated as a result of this. If anything doesn't let me know, let me know and I'll see if I can give an example of how it is supposed to work.