Wizard Tradition
Comments from the Finger: We've playtested this extensively in Horde of the Dragon Queen with my character Gary Wright, a normal dude from the future trapped in the fantasy past. This Wizard Tradition is for players who want a little more from the traditional schools of magic, without a total departure from the flavor of D&D wizards, if you like that sort of thing. This one slots easily into most campaigns, provided the DM is okay with a small amount of time travel in the campaign world, whether or not the characters have access to it.
School of Chronomancy
The focus of the School of Chronomancy is harnessing the energies of flowing time, and manipulating them to suit your gain. It is a most dangerous tradition, as the practice of slowing, reversing, or diverting the flow of time can accidently tear novices to pieces, spreading them thinly across millennia, or sometimes even drop them wholesale into a new or old era, with no way of returning home. Masters, however, walk the generations as planeswalkers walk the cosmos. Experienced chronomancers can reliably (and literally) end most conflicts before they even begin.
Temporal Savant
Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, the time you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook is halved.
Chronoshift
At 2nd level, when you cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 action, you can change the casting time to 1 bonus action for this casting. After you use this ability, you must finish a short or long rest before using it again.
Alter Causality
At 6th level, you add the spells slow and haste to your spellbook, if it they are not there already. You can cast one of these spells without expending a spell slot. If you cast haste, you can target only yourself. Once you cast one of these spells in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest, though you can still cast it normally.
Quantum Lag
At 10th level, when you cast a spell, you can delay its effect one to three turns. Before the spell is cast, you select the duration, the target, and roll any relevant attack rolls. Any effects on the spell's targets, including saving throws, are resolved when the spell triggers. If any conditions change between casting and effect of the spell that would make the spell impossible – such as the target leaving the spell’s maximum range before the spell goes off – the spell fails. After you use this ability, you must finish a short rest before using it again.
Timewalker
Beginning at 14th level, you can borrow time from the present as an action, and use it in the future. Select a duration, either one round or two rounds. Time stops for you for this duration and you may take no actions. When this duration ends, no time passes for other creatures and you may move and act normally for the chosen duration. Time restores to normal if one of the actions you use during this period, or any effects that you create during this period, affects a creature other than you or an object being worn or carried by someone other than you. In addition, the effect ends if you move to a place more than 100 feet from the location where you cast it. After you use this ability, you must finish a long rest before using it again.
Comments from the Finger: We've playtested this extensively in Horde of the Dragon Queen with my character Gary Wright, a normal dude from the future trapped in the fantasy past. This Wizard Tradition is for players who want a little more from the traditional schools of magic, without a total departure from the flavor of D&D wizards, if you like that sort of thing. This one slots easily into most campaigns, provided the DM is okay with a small amount of time travel in the campaign world, whether or not the characters have access to it.
School of Chronomancy
The focus of the School of Chronomancy is harnessing the energies of flowing time, and manipulating them to suit your gain. It is a most dangerous tradition, as the practice of slowing, reversing, or diverting the flow of time can accidently tear novices to pieces, spreading them thinly across millennia, or sometimes even drop them wholesale into a new or old era, with no way of returning home. Masters, however, walk the generations as planeswalkers walk the cosmos. Experienced chronomancers can reliably (and literally) end most conflicts before they even begin.
Temporal Savant
Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, the time you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook is halved.
Chronoshift
At 2nd level, when you cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 action, you can change the casting time to 1 bonus action for this casting. After you use this ability, you must finish a short or long rest before using it again.
Alter Causality
At 6th level, you add the spells slow and haste to your spellbook, if it they are not there already. You can cast one of these spells without expending a spell slot. If you cast haste, you can target only yourself. Once you cast one of these spells in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest, though you can still cast it normally.
Quantum Lag
At 10th level, when you cast a spell, you can delay its effect one to three turns. Before the spell is cast, you select the duration, the target, and roll any relevant attack rolls. Any effects on the spell's targets, including saving throws, are resolved when the spell triggers. If any conditions change between casting and effect of the spell that would make the spell impossible – such as the target leaving the spell’s maximum range before the spell goes off – the spell fails. After you use this ability, you must finish a short rest before using it again.
Timewalker
Beginning at 14th level, you can borrow time from the present as an action, and use it in the future. Select a duration, either one round or two rounds. Time stops for you for this duration and you may take no actions. When this duration ends, no time passes for other creatures and you may move and act normally for the chosen duration. Time restores to normal if one of the actions you use during this period, or any effects that you create during this period, affects a creature other than you or an object being worn or carried by someone other than you. In addition, the effect ends if you move to a place more than 100 feet from the location where you cast it. After you use this ability, you must finish a long rest before using it again.
Is there a reason that quantum lag is limitied to once per short rest? Although it combos very well with time walker, I personally think that the effect is weak enough to warrant multiple uses per short rest such as (int mod) uses per short rest. Then again I'm not very keen on balancing things. Just seems to me that there is rarely a benefit to waiting 2 turns for a spell to take effect in combat rather than the spell taking effect immediately, or 1 or 3 turns for that matter.
ReplyDeleteWell, let me put it this way; If you quantum lag a fireball to land 2 turns later, then you can also cast fog cloud or darkness before it lands. (Which you can also do using Chronoshift)
DeleteI feel like Alter Causality should do something more similar to Gae Bolg in Fate/Stay Night, guaranteeing an attack hits, misses, or does max dmg. Or something along those lines
ReplyDeletewhile that does seem appropriate, that also seems overpowered for a sixth level ability.
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ReplyDeleteto be perfectly honest, it's a good idea, but it seems you made it a little underpowered.
ReplyDeletealter causality should do something like allowing you to reroll a failed attack or saving throw and add your intelligence modifier to the throw.
ReplyDeleteI think adding this option in addition to the existing delayed effect and allowing you to choose one of the two would be appropriate, myself. With the condition you can only use it a certain number of times per rest/combat.
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