Laboratory of the Chronomancer

[MrStabby]

So doing a bit of world-building at the moment and i am thinking of adding a time themed dungeon. This is giving me a few challenges.

One thing I wanted to implement was time running at different rates in different parts of the dungeon. I was going to divide it up into about 6 different time zones, each with time passing at different rates. When players were in different time zones then the people in the slower time zone would be subjected to a slow effect (allies and enemies alike). If the party is ever spread over three time zones I may need to use an effect of the haste spell as well.

My problem with this is that it probably wont have much of an effect unless a battle happens across the boundary between zones and it might be hard to engineer other noteworthy outcomes without artificially splitting the party. Could this be fun? Or is is just a gimmick? What could provide an advantage to having the party split up and spread out more so characters actually experience the difference? I see each zone as being 3-4 rooms.

Other features I am intending to use include golems that can trigger time stop (to effectively teleport and get a free attack), wizards able to cast haste/slow, hold person and an archmage that has spells like maze and power word stun.

[Ninja_Prawn]

My problem with this is that it probably wont have much of an effect unless a battle happens across the boundary between zones and it might be hard to engineer other noteworthy outcomes without artificially splitting the party. Could this be fun? Or is is just a gimmick?

I think it's a great premise, but probably not well suited to a tabletop game. It'd work much better if you could split and reform the party repeatedly: they could mess around with spell durations, evade pursuit by shutting off the faster zones, all sorts of shenanigans.

Random thought: I'd be tempted to apply a cost to spending time in the faster zones - maybe sickness or exhaustion.

Also, you might want to look at my Chronomancy supplement (https://www.dropbox.com/s/kphn7s8xqlfr4fp/Chronomancy.pdf?dl=0). I never did finish the subclasses, but I've had a lot of people compliment the spells.

[RickAllison]

Some suggestions:

For permanent zones, make them strategic locations. A Haste crystal that gives a small radius could give a significant boost to any crossbowmen in its reach, enough that the suppressing fire could be quite deadly (each could attack on their turns, then ready their main action to fusillade anyone who steps out of cover). If the party wants to advance, they can forge a path or try and disable the empowering crystal.

A Slow crystal could shut down offensive charges, leaving them ripe for the picking by the defenders. Meanwhile, control abilities become important as neither side wants to be dragged into it. If the party wants to advance through the checkpoint, they need to destroy it.

For a more dynamic and chaotic combat, I recommend using waves of lethargy (columns of Slow zones moving in one direction) and energy spikes (nodes that release outward moving Haste zones). Deal XdY force damage to anyone caught in both fields as they torn in multiple temporal directions.

[smcmike]

I'd also include some really extreme time gradations - particularly extreme slow zones, where years may pass before you can step back out, though perhaps with outside kill switches to rescue people trapped in these time prisons. Also, extreme fast zones, where the world outside is basically paused - not really risky, since you can step back out a second after stepping in, but good for a long rest mid-combat, perhaps, or an individual fight that the rest of the party doesn't even notice.

[Avigor]

One cheap but easy method is to, if the party becomes split, have them take different lengths of time reuniting. To one group, they were separated for 6 hours; to the other, it was 2. Granted, you'd almost have to put them in different rooms to avoid spoiling the surprise, but that could be fun to screw with them.

Oh, and you could pull an alternate future, feral cannibal or bitterly abandoned to their fate in the dungeon senior citizen doppelganger of one or more characters. Watch the Dr Who ep "The Doctor's Wife" for an example of the latter with Rory...

[Farecry]

Instead of slow or haste effects across them, you could have them working on a ratio of rounds. So for every 2 rounds in a normal one the faster time gets 3 and the slower time gets 1, or something like that.

[Safety Sword]

It's a different concept, but you could also make each different room go to a different point in time.

For your PCs this would mean taking them back to events or places they have already been to and possibly NPCs they've already interacted with. Perhaps the NPCs are only aware of their particular location and can't interact with other rooms.

You can also hint at future events by having a future room! (Although, perhaps this future isn't realised because of the actions of the PCs).

Perhaps the "chronomancer" scans their brains and produces these "places" from their memories... or something.

This way you can just run the whole thing as regular encounters but it still has the time manipulation theme you're going for.