Celerity & Time Stop Question

[TimeStop]

How celerity interacts with time stop has been the subject of a lot of discussions and arguments on the forums, in particular, the question when the celerity's daze effect occurs.

I've been looking at a few threads addressing the issue, but none had a clear answer to the problem, especially the question whether apparent rounds of time imply new turns for the character.


(...) You are free to act for 1d4+1 rounds of apparent time. (...)


(...) However, after you take the standard action granted by this spell, you are dazed until the end of your next turn. (...)

While I know there are several other interpretations, I'd like you to help me with one of these two (I'd like to stay as close to RAW as possible):

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Option A

Celerity's daze takes place inside the time stop, effectively taking the first of the apparent rounds.

Reasoning: Because the spell gives the caster several apparent rounds, this includes apparent turns. Thus, you have a new turn on your first round of time stop, on which the daze occurs.

Consequences: You can use swift actions during these rounds, because the rounds imply that you also have several turns.
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Option B

Celerity's daze takes place after the time stop.

Reasoning: The time stop takes effect at the end of the standard action used to cast it, before another turn begins. Thus, it is still your turn. The time stop's apparent rounds do not imply a new turn.

Consequences: Because you can only use one swift action per turn, the time stop's apparent rounds would not let you use swift actions. Seems odd to me.
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Balance-wise, Option B would appeal to me, because it lets the caster pay the prize for the extra actions, but it seems weird and mechanically unwieldy to have rounds to acts without swift actions. I'm the DM, by the way.

Please note: I am not looking for ways to bypass daze. I am not looking to discuss whether celerity and/or time stop should be banned or nerfed or houseruled. So if your post would only address these topics, I'd ask you to reconsider in order to stop moving this off-topic.

[Renen]

You can also use only 1 standard action per turn. If time stop is all one round then... wait a second...

[Zweisteine]

The time soo changes your personal time. The Celerity would fce t you within your personal time.

[rmnimoc]

While I don't believe there is actually a set in stone RAW way to interpret it, option A makes far more sense from a logical standpoint. The spell dazes you and it takes you six seconds to clear your head. Not six seconds by some grand atomic clock in that LN plane, but six seconds from your personal timeframe.

The "The time stop's apparent rounds do not imply a new turn" sounds completely silly. In my mind, you are dazed as a result of the fact you are acting before your mind is really ready for it. Of course, it is possible that you are dazed because the god of balance just said so, and the daze uses his personal subjective time, but that just sounds silly, and the fewer things that have to be made up to make a theory right, the more likely that theory is. So it is more likely you are just dazed by acting too fast (which requires no extra unconfirmed things to be true) than it is that magic itself is dazing you for balance reasons (which requires quite a few unconfirmed things to be true).

That's my view of it anyway.

[Jack_Simth]

Option C: The daze doesn't wear off until after your next turn (in the next combat round), so you're dazed for the entire duration of the Time Stop, plus some.

... not that I'm seriously going to argue that interpretation, mind, but it's needed for completeness.

[Chronos]

Option C: The daze doesn't wear off until after your next turn (in the next combat round), so you're dazed for the entire duration of the Time Stop, plus some.

... not that I'm seriously going to argue that interpretation, mind, but it's needed for completeness.
I would actually argue for that interpretation. Celerity isn't you overexerting yourself and then needing to rest for a bit afterwards-- It's you borrowing a slice of time from the future. As such, the time needs to be paid back according to the clocks of the timestream in general, not according to your own personal clock.

[Juntao112]

I would actually argue for that interpretation. Celerity isn't you overexerting yourself and then needing to rest for a bit afterwards-- It's you borrowing a slice of time from the future. As such, the time needs to be paid back according to the clocks of the timestream in general, not according to your own personal clock.

But, as Einstein has shown us, all clocks are personal.

[Endarire]

Option A is how I'd run it. It's also in line with the Baldur's Gate series (effectively interrupting the enemy with your own time stop), where time stop + improved alacrity + fast cast speeds meant empty spellbooks.

[Chronos]

But, as Einstein has shown us, all clocks are personal.
The point is that you have to pay back the time using the same clock you used to borrow it.

[Seclora]

Personally, I would argue Option B. You have borrowed this moment of time from the future, yours or otherwise, and have now frozen it for 1d4+1 rounds so you can get as much out of it as you would have if you had waited until that moment of time had arrived anyways. Then, with the moment exhausted, you are dazed until the end of your next turn.

Also causing both spells to function normally, rather than nullifying the effects or side-effects of either.

[Renen]

I dont think you can freeze time. You can freeze others in time, but if you freeze time itd be hella hard to move with all those unmoving air molecules in the air. Not to mention a tonn of other things, like light not moving towards your eyes.

[Ruethgar]

I dont think you can freeze time. You can freeze others in time, but if you freeze time itd be hella hard to move with all those unmoving air molecules in the air. Not to mention a tonn of other things, like light not moving towards your eyes.

Time stop doesn't freeze time, it is basically improved celerity. It makes you able to move and perceive so quickly that everyone else seems frozen. That being said, I would go with option B. The apparent time does not matter, that is only your characters perception of time. In your 1d4+1 rounds only 6 seconds pass and all actions within those 6 seconds are part of one turn of yours. In the next six seconds you get your next turn and get hit with daze.

[Juntao112]

The point is that you have to pay back the time using the same clock you used to borrow it.

What's wrong with making more time by reversing the polarity of the flux capacitor?

[Cruiser1]

Option C: The daze doesn't wear off until after your next turn (in the next combat round), so you're dazed for the entire duration of the Time Stop, plus some.
Daze shouldn't ever affect your Time Stop. The daze from Celerity doesn't start until after you take the standard action it provides you. If you cast Celerity (immediate action) and then Time Stop (free standard action), the standard action doesn't end until after your bonus Time Stop rounds (because the Time Stop rounds are nested "inside" of the standard action). Once Time Stop ends, only then does the standard action from Celerity end, meaning only then does the daze begin.

[Vhaidara]

Option A is how I'd run it. It's also in line with the Baldur's Gate series (effectively interrupting the enemy with your own time stop), where time stop + improved alacrity + fast cast speeds meant empty spellbooks.

I remember doing that. Then casting 9 million magic missiles.

I also agree with option A.

[TimeStop]

The main question is what constitutes a new turn.


Turn: The point in the round at which you take your character's action(s). On your turn, you may perform one or more actions, as dictated by your current circumstances.

Do the rounds in time stop represent turns for the character or not?

I'd like to make a ruling that is consistent with RAW and that I can make a case for.

[DarkSonic1337]

I'd argue that the reasoning on option B is flawed.

Celerity's daze takes place after the standard action it grants.

Time stops ENTIRE EFFECT happens within a standard action (the effect being 1d4 rounds of apparent time). Whether time stop's rounds constitute their own turns is then irrelevant. Thus we can conclude that celerity's daze takes place after timestop without necessarily implying the consequence you listed. I'm in favor of this interpretation both from a logic standpoint and from a balance standpoint.

[Douglas]

Personally I don't think there's any real question about whether you get swift actions in the Time Stop rounds. You get 1 round's worth of actions for each round of apparent time Time Stop gives you, and that includes every type of action you would normally get.

On the interaction with Celerity, first the strict RAW perspective:
The relevant Celerity text:

After you take the standard action granted by this spell, you are dazed until the end of your next turn.

The critical question that must be answered to determine how this interacts with Time Stop is "At what point is the action of casting Time Stop considered to be complete?"

The answer to this is ambiguous, and determines whether Celerity causes daze during the Time Stop. If you interpret the apparent time to come after the casting (and thus Celerity's daze to occur during it), then you must also answer exactly what is considered to be "your next turn". The answer to this second question then results in either option A or option C, from those previously labeled.

My preferred interpretation is that an action is not considered complete until its non-deferred effects have been resolved. Thus, when you are acting inside a Time Stop, the standard action used to cast it is not yet completed. You can take however many actions the rounds of apparent time allow (including swift actions, as normal for that amount of time), and the original standard action is complete only when the Time Stop ends. At that point, Celerity's daze kicks in.

Result: You take 1d4+1 rounds worth of actions, including swift actions, and are then dazed until the end of your next turn outside the Time Stop.

Now the fluff perspective:
Celerity isn't overexertion that you need to recover from, it's literally borrowing time from the future. The daze is a mechanical representation of paying back that time, so it should happen at the time that you are borrowing from. You are borrowing time from the future of the normal time stream, and Time Stop itself is really just powered-up Haste rather than actual time manipulation, so of course the actions you take during Time Stop are not involved in paying back the time debt. After Time Stop ends, you enter the slice of time that Celerity borrowed and are dazed to represent paying it back.

Incidentally, I also house rule based on this fluff that Celerity's daze bypasses any and all ways to prevent it, because it isn't actually dazing you - you're actually caught in a short temporal snarl that happens to have the same mechanical effect as daze.

[Twilightwyrm]

What's wrong with making more time by reversing the polarity of the flux capacitor?

You shouldn't be messing with that sort of thing, it tends to mess with the neutron flow.