Give me Chronomancy: A challenge for hombrewers

[clash]

I want to start incorporating chronomancy heavily into one of my homebrew settings. So I am looking for any ideas for time based abilities, feats, subclasses, classes, spells, ideas etc. Give me all you want to share whether pre-existing or ideas you havent bothered brewing yet.

Thanks in advance for all the help!

[Grod_The_Giant]

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but the "retroactive purchase" is a favorite of mine for precondition-- "oh yeah, I foresaw the giant snaked and stocked up on antivenom last time we were in town." Here's an example from a 3.5 brew:

Always Prepared (Ex): Knowing what the future will hold makes planning a whole lot easier. Beginning at 5th level, a Seer almost always has the right tool for the job somewhere on their person.

At any point, a Seer may spend any amount of gold, adding it to a sort of trust fund. As a move action, he may expend one Foresight Point to spend up to 500 gold per Seer level to purchase a single item, such as a scroll or vial of acid, at its full market price. Items produced in this fashion may be deposited back into the fund— they are lost, but two-thirds of their market price is added to the fund.

This ability only functions if the Seer has access to his own storage space— pockets, backpacks, saddlebags, and so on. The DM may veto rare or otherwise unavailable items, in which case this ability is not considered used— neither action nor Foresight point nor gold is expended.

I also did a super-speed class for 3.5, which might give you some good inspiration-- there's plenty of overlap between the two themes. https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?216746-The-Speedster-3-5-base-class-PEACH

[clash]

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but the "retroactive purchase" is a favorite of mine for precondition-- "oh yeah, I foresaw the giant snaked and stocked up on antivenom last time we were in town." Here's an example from a 3.5 brew:

Always Prepared (Ex): Knowing what the future will hold makes planning a whole lot easier. Beginning at 5th level, a Seer almost always has the right tool for the job somewhere on their person.

At any point, a Seer may spend any amount of gold, adding it to a sort of trust fund. As a move action, he may expend one Foresight Point to spend up to 500 gold per Seer level to purchase a single item, such as a scroll or vial of acid, at its full market price. Items produced in this fashion may be deposited back into the fund— they are lost, but two-thirds of their market price is added to the fund.

This ability only functions if the Seer has access to his own storage space— pockets, backpacks, saddlebags, and so on. The DM may veto rare or otherwise unavailable items, in which case this ability is not considered used— neither action nor Foresight point nor gold is expended.

I am really looking for anything, and this is fantastic! Got any more?

[MrStabby]

So first spitball:


Way of the Sands: Monk Subclass

Monks of the way of the sands are the masters of time. Through study and meditation they delve into the myseries of time itself learning how to bend it to their will and use it to speed themselves or to slow their enemies.

Mystic alacrity
Level 3 - Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you begin to be able to manipulate time, speeding up beyond what is possible. Whenever you use Ki to take a dodge or dash you may also make a single unarmed strike.

Student of Time
If you are not already proficient you gain proficiency in the History skill.

Tilt the Hourglass
Level 6 - At level 6 you gain the ability to change time in the world around you. You are able to cast the spells haste and slow. Once you use this ability you may not use it again until you finish a long rest

Turn Back Time
Level 11 - At level 11 you may expend Ki to turn back time. At the end of any player's turn you may spend 2 Ki points. If you do you return to the number of hitpoints you had at the start of your turn and you lose the effects of all conditions and spells that influenced you that turn.

Ageless Mystery
Level 11 - at level 11 you do not die of old age and cannot be aged by magical means.

Time Twister
Level 17 - At level 17 you become a master of time itself,becoming able to completely freeze enemies in time. When you hit a creature with an unarmed attack you may expend 4 Ki to cast hold monster on that creature as a reaction.

[Segev]

In the 1001 homebrew spells thread, I just wrote a 3.5 1st level divination called "Pessimistic Prediction" that let you spend a round divining what WOULD happen if you took a particular action during that round, instead of casting the spell. With the worst possible die roll results; you always fail the saves and spot checks, enemies always succeed on attack rolls, etc. Useful for determining what sorts of traps or ambushes await you if you were to open the door, or whether you can run safely across that bridge (if there's a check required lest you fall, you fall in the premonition), etc.

As a higher-level spell, it could let you do a bonus action to get a similar prediction, leaving you your action and movement to follow through on it if you wish on the same turn.

Unlike most of my "what if...?" idea type spells, this one avoids a lot of the extra work because you're not really going to roll anything out. The DM just tells you what happens in a single round's turn and doesn't even need to roll dice.


An idea for a hermit discovery I had involved a secret to eternal youth; one of the variants was a technique for manipulating your own age. Basically take the wizened appearance (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/w/wizened-appearance) and youthful appearance (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/y/youthful-appearance) spells and wrap them into a feat. You can adjust your physical age at will. A bit weak for a feat, honestly, despite the disguise opportunities, unless you're facing something that can manipulate your age in a negative way.


6th level or higher spell: quick backstep. You declare you're going to cast it in 2 rounds, and what you plan to do when you come back from 2 rounds in the future to right now. The mechanics of the spell leave your future self spatially where he is when he casts it, so future-you appears where you will be standing when you cast it. Future-you then performs the actions you said he would, or that the DM says he does (he might surprise you, since he knows what happened in those 2 rounds and you don't), and then you cast the spell and go back to do it.

When you say what you plan to do, the DM can tell you that your future self doesn't appear. This means that, for whatever reason, you won't cast the spell in 2 rounds. Usually, the DM will do this because he knows your plan for what to do is impossible, or won't leave you in a position to cast it from the spot that you're saying you will.

Uses for this spell include appearing behind yourself to untie you from a chair, or appearing on the far side of a locked door that opens from the inside to open the door for yourself to walk through. Now freed or through the door, you can cast the spell and go back in time to untie your past self or open the door to let yourself in.

Because the spell doesn't have you appear if you don't cast it, the DM can enforce your casting it when the time comes. If, for any reason, he isn't absolutely sure you can pull off casting it at the appropriate time, he just tells you that you don't appear when you declare you intend to cast it. (For example, if you couldn't untie yourself for whatever reason, or the door doesn't, in fact, open from the other side.)



A spell on the Archfey Patron Warlock's list: Past Bargains Paid. Cast the spell with a creature you can see as the target, and name a favor you want from it. The creature's player may choose to make a Wisdom save to resist. If they fail or if they choose not to, the player of the creature names a favor you must have already done for the creature in order to make the creature feel indebted enough to do you the favor you're requesting. If you agree, the DM decides whether to have you play out the favor now or later, depending on the needs of the game. But either way, you will, at some point in the near future (possibly when you next take a long rest) be whisked to the past, to a position where you can attempt the favor asked of you.

In the moment of casting the spell, assuming the creature didn't resist and you agreed to the favor, the creature remembers your past aid, and, feeling indebted, will perform for you the favor you ask of it.

Beware; paradox due to failure to complete the favor can lead to the death of your character. It may be that the creature just thinks it's reminded of the noble person who died trying to do it the favor it's paying forward, now, for example.

[clash]

These are great. Both the spells and monk subclass have since good stuff. Not sure about the spell that lets you do something in 2 rounds. It seems a bit complex but live the idea of knowing worst case scenario for upcoming action

[aimlessPolymath]

Another Day's Problem
Once per short rest, when you take damage, you can choose to delay it, taking no damage. One hour later, you take that damage.

Three Futures
When you ready an action, you can ready three different actions, all with different triggers. When you take one, the other two are lost.

Flowmotion
By spending #RESOURCE, you can take three actions in one turn instead of one. Each of them must be of a different type (Attack, Cast a Spell, Dash, Dodge, activating a feature, etc).

Rewind
When a target fails a saving throw against this ability, mark their location. Once during the next minute, you can teleport them back to that location as a bonus action.

[Damon_Tor]

Borrowed Time
7th level Transmutation
Casting Time- 1 Action
Range- 30 Feet
Components- VSM (A gold wire braid woven into an oroboros)
Duration- 1 Round (6 Seconds)
You reach forward in time a few seconds and pull yourself back: a future version of you emerges from a time portal into a point you can see in range. This future version of yourself is identical to you in every way, including equipment, current hitpoints, current spell slots, and any status conditions. You and the duplicate share a pool of all resources: if the duplicate uses a spell slot, that spell slot becomes unavailable to you. If you are dealt damage, the duplicate takes the same amount of damage. If you drink a potion, the duplicate cannot drink that same potion. The duplicate shares your initiative and takes his turn directly after yours. The dungeon master decides what the duplicate knows about the immediate future from which he arrived, but his arrival in the past has certainly altered the timeline, so events are unlikely to unfold in the same way.

At the end of the turn on which the spell ends, you and all your equipment disappear into the past, closing the loop. You can continue to adventure as the version of yourself which came from the future.

At Higher Levels: When cast with an 8th level spell slot, the spell lasts for one minute. When cast with a 9th level spell slot, it lasts for one hour.

[GnomeWorks]

This doesn't have any of the spell-equivalent writeups, but may be aligned with what you're looking for:

The Templar (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1boAbSBZTMMLi_12oHfVBlcvgfp9WOXGh/view?usp=drivesdk)

[JeenLeen]

Some spell ideas that metaphysically might not make much sense, but could be useful for social things. The "not make sense" is "why can't I use them in combat?". Reason: magic. OOC reason: because combat involves more rolls and tactical movement, whereas resetting a social situation is a LOT simplier.

1. You "rewind" the memory of a person (or, at higher level casting, a set of people or a localized area) in order to try a new attempt at social rolls. You can't "rewind" the same scene twice. But it could let you grill someone for info then "rewind" so they don't know they told you. Or try one skill to get info and try again if it failed or try an alternate skill.
This spell automatically fails if any violence has occurred in the time to be rewound, or if an item has left (either by being given or stolen) their person. Or other caveats to prevent cheating.

2. You look into the future and see multiple interactions with a person that you could attempt. This gives you a +<reasonable modifier> to a single skill check. The DM should also reveal if that skill will always fail or lead to violence. EXAMPLE: you cast this on Thug A to see multiple Intimidate interactions. You either see which ones work better, giving you a bonus, or see that they always react negatively.

3. Cantrip: you can subtly manipulate timelines in order to cause a game of chance to get the outcome you want. The outcome must be one that is possible; if the person is a con artist who "always wins" due to cheating, you can't make the result a winning one. But you can decide how a deck of cards shuffles or the flipping of a coin.
Maybe make it a cantrip or level 1 for a simple thing and higher level for probability like shuffling cards, if you're worried about PCs doing high-stakes gambling. But I reckon any casinos or illegal gambling parlours have antimagic precautions in a setting that would have spells like this. Thus, it's probably okay as a cantrip for some harmless fun.

[clash]

Havent looked at the templar just yet, but the borrowed time spell looks interesting.

Also love the out of combat abilities. Great way to make time magic a thing without making it op.

[Segev]

Warlock Patron: Self-Fulfilling Prophet

You know you're destined for great things: you're being mentored by yourself, from the future! At least, he claims he is....

(I'm not going to throw together a spell list here, because this is just a rough draft idea.)

Memo From Your Future Self

After a Long Rest, you have an insight from some crytpic communication from your Patron. Roll a d20. This functions just like a Diviner's Portent die. (A more thorough writing would spell it out precisely.) Once, during a short rest when you have expended this die, you may roll another one as something becomes clear from your Patron's warnings. You recover this ability after a long rest.

Excellent Paradox

When you reach 6th level, your Patron has taught you some of the limited secrets of time travel. Amongst them, the crucial component being that you can't let paradox catch up to you. So, if you didn't see yourself, don't go introduce yourself when you go back. This doesn't mean you can't help yourself out (after all, that's what your Patron is doing)!

You can travel up to one day in the past to perform an action that is relatively unopposed, whose consequences play out right away. This doesn't take an action in and of itself, but must be done as part of an action to exploit your temporal machinations. A common way to do this is to leave items for yourself in hidden locations that you decide upon just as you go looking for them. The DM will have a final say over whether you could acquire the item in the next 24 hours and get back here early enough to hide it. Or could otherwise accomplish what you say you will do. Because this act must be relatively unopposed, you do not need to play out actually accomplishing the deed; after all, you wouldn't go back and do it if you didn't know it had already succeeded. But the DM may decide that you can't achieve it based on opposition, obstacles, or just plain impossibility.

You may do this successfully once. After a long rest, you may make new attempts.

You also have learned a little bit of your Patron's talent for cryptic messages to the past. You can send yourself such notes, alerting you to specific things you will need when you are preparing your journeys. If the last place you went shopping had an item, you can decide you were warned you would need it, and cross off enough gp to pay for it now; you actually bought it back then and it is on your person. The DM may forbid this if you're using money you have picked up since then, or the good or service wasn't available at that location at that time, or even if he just decides it's been stolen from you in the meantime. Such are the risks of temporal shenanigans.

Bogus Death Fakeout

You know you live to become your own mentor. Though perhaps you've already started giving your past self advice, you also still receive it from your Patron. Therefore, you know you can't actually die. That would be paradoxical! Starting at 10th level, once when you would otherwise die, you instead leave a very convincing corpse (or otherwise "die" in a way that makes it impossible to verify your corpse is, in fact, dead). In reality, your Patron rescues you, and helps to arrange the incident to look like you'd died. Of course, this means you're going to have to figure out how to make the arrangement, but at least you know exactly how cool it will look.

Any time after your apparent "death," as an action on your turn, you may appear anywhere within a day's walk of your location, revealing yourself to have survived. Usually, this will involve coming out from hiding somewhere nearby, often the very next round. You enjoy all benefits of having had a long rest when you do, but you count as having used this ability since the rest (which means you must take another long rest before you can use it again).

When you complete a long rest, you regain the ability to rely on your Patron's timely rescue.

Self-Help

Starting at 14th level, you've made contact with your past self for the first time, and begun his mentorship. As your own Patron, you know you can trust yourself with the delicacies of time travel, and no longer need to hide your aid in order to protect the timeline from your own paradox-inducing mistakes. Once, if you have not yet used Bogus Death Fakeout to prevent your own death, you may, as a reaction or as a non-action when you are Surprised, have your future self (from tomorrow) show up to help out. Your future self has just enjoyed a long rest, appears within 60 feet of you, and acts on his own initiative. He benefits from the effects of foresight, having seen this from your perspective just yesterday. Though he is under your player's control, the DM may, if he believes knowledge your future self has would dictate an optimal action, take control of him to perform said optimal action.

Your future self remains for up to five minutes, or until the current crisis is over, or either of you are forced to use Bogus Death Fakeout...whichever comes first. After taking a long rest, you go back in time and re-experience this crisis, this time as the "future self." Thus, after that long rest, you return having expended resources (hit points, abilities that refresh only on a short or long rest, etc.) that your future self spent when you last used this ability. This does mean, amongst other things, that if your future self had to use Bogus Death Fakeout, it and this ability are unavailable to you after your next long rest. Note that, if your future self had to use Bogus Death Fakeout, his effective time to "reappear" is right after you go back to fulfill your duties to yourself and your timeline, so you at least enjoy a full long rest except for the loss of Bogus Death Fakeout, rather than having to bear the injuries and costs of the Self-Help from yesterday.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Hope you can see the link:

https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/171468

I fell in love with this tradition (I think it, way more flavorful than the Wildemount Chronoturgist).

Also here’s a spell sorry bout formatting, on my phone):

Stolen Moment
Level 1 transmutation (or chronomancy)
Range: Touch
Casting time: 1 minute
Components: V, S, M (a time piece worth at least 10gp)
Duration: Instant
When you cast this spell a creature takes the Use an Object, Dash, or Disengage action and performs it again and again with variations before finally declaring a condition under which it will occur, just like readying an action. For example, they might pantomime feeding a creature a potion or picking a lock, then set the condition to readying a potion or their lock picks, or declare that when a foe gets within 10 feet they will dash away.

When the triggering condition occurs the variations of the action the creature performed are synthesized into the most appropriate version and it occurs at blistering speed as the character performs the action by rote with no action required.

A creature can only benefit from 1 casting of this spell at a time.
At higher levels: When cast with a 4th Level or higher Spell slot 2 Actions or the attack action can be prepared but no more than 1 can be triggered on a turn.

Rationale: this creates some real tactical options and the 4th level up cast makes it an Eldritch Knight capstone. I’d maake this a Rare magic item equivalent reward.

[nonsi]

.
Feel free to draw inspiration from my Time Bender (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=18777492&postcount=25) class.
As far as 3e goes, it has more options than anything else I could get my hands on (combined).
I'm sure you can tweak the math and the mechanics to suit your needs.

[Red Bear]

not sure if this count as something you're looking for, but I saw this warlock archetype called "time lord"

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?546520-Timebender-Time-Lord-Warlock-Patron&p=22726260#post22726260