I was inspired by another thread to pick up a few of the time magic abilities I'd dropped a while ago when I was considering a time-flavored wizard.I shelved the project due to the overwhelming amount of time-related homebrew stuff out their, and the difficulty of making time-related abilities that are interesting without a burdensome amount of record-keeping.
With that in mind, what do you think about the wording of the following abilities? I've deliberately excluded mention of how often these abilities can be used. For now, assume they're per-rest abilites, or limited by an ability score modifier. I'm particularly focused on the wording. I don't know if any similar abilities exist in RAW, and I want to be sure that they don't result in truly game-breaking situations. Once I have the wording set, I can determine where they belong (spell, subclass ablility, etc.), and their balance.
Regression
On your turn, you can use a bonus action to create an anchor in time in your space. When you create the temporal anchor, record your hit points, spell slots, conditions, consumable items, and limited-usage abilities. Until the end of your next turn, you can use your reaction to teleport to the space containing the temporal anchor, or if that space is occupied, the nearest unoccupied space. When you do so, any reduction in your hit points, spell slots, conditions, consumable items, and limited-usage abilities are restored to the values you recorded.
Borrow from the Future
You can use a bonus action to pull your future self into the present. Your future self appears in an unoccupied space within 30 feet of you. Your future self acts on your initiative, and uses your statistics. Changes to your hit points and condition immediately carry over to your future self. You and your future self share spell slots, consumable items, and limited-usage abilities.
At the end of your turn, you and your future self vanish. You reappear at the end of your next turn in the space your future self left, or in an unoccupied space nearest to that space if it’s occupied, with the hit points and conditions that your future self had before it vanished.
Split Timeline
You can observe two divergent timelines, and choose which to pursue. On your turn, you can take two actions which take place simultaneously. Track the outcomes of these actions separately, including any reactions. Once the results of your actions are known, you can choose which version of reality occured. Only the results of the chosen action are realized. No other creature is aware of the action that you did not choose.
These are all cool ideas but horribly impractical in a pen and paper game; the amount of bookkeeping required to make them work is just too much. Contrast these with:
True Strikenarratively gives you a glimpse into the future but mechanically it just gives you a bonus.
Portent narratively lets you foresee an event, but you don't have to know what those events are up front! You simply decide "Oh, this is what my character foresaw" at the time that you use one of your foretelling rolls.
Time Stop requires no bookkeeping, you just take a bunch of turns and if you do anything that affects someone else the spell ends early.
Wish's ability to undo one bad roll within the past round is the closest to any of these and that complexity is gated behind a 9th level spell slot and the risk of never casting Wish again.
One way you could streamline Split Timeline a lot is to change it so it just lets you roll 1 attack roll or ability check or force an enemy to make a saving throw and see what the result is. If you like the result, you can take an action that involves making that roll happen (e.g. make an attack, cast a spell on the enemy) and automatically get that result. Otherwise, you can ignore the result and do whatever, even do whatever you were planning to do anyways but roll again hoping for a different outcome.
Borrow From the Future could be salvaged if you seriously decrease the scope. It should have an instantaneous effect so it's a lot harder to mess with your other self, and it'd also be better to borrow your past self because you actually know what state you were in 1 round ago. If all the spell does is call your past self in for one attack or cantrip, it's a heck of a lot easier to use.
I'm really not sure what you're hoping to achieve with Regression but one way to spin it is to limit its scope to your HP, and the next time you take damage it's nullified and you warp back to the anchor point.
These are all cool ideas but horribly impractical in a pen and paper game; the amount of bookkeeping required to make them work is just too much. Contrast these with:
True Strikenarratively gives you a glimpse into the future but mechanically it just gives you a bonus.
Portent narratively lets you foresee an event, but you don't have to know what those events are up front! You simply decide "Oh, this is what my character foresaw" at the time that you use one of your foretelling rolls.
Time Stop requires no bookkeeping, you just take a bunch of turns and if you do anything that affects someone else the spell ends early.
Wish's ability to undo one bad roll within the past round is the closest to any of these and that complexity is gated behind a 9th level spell slot and the risk of never casting Wish again.
One way you could streamline Split Timeline a lot is to change it so it just lets you roll 1 attack roll or ability check or force an enemy to make a saving throw and see what the result is. If you like the result, you can take an action that involves making that roll happen (e.g. make an attack, cast a spell on the enemy) and automatically get that result. Otherwise, you can ignore the result and do whatever, even do whatever you were planning to do anyways but roll again hoping for a different outcome.
Borrow From the Future could be salvaged if you seriously decrease the scope. It should have an instantaneous effect so it's a lot harder to mess with your other self, and it'd also be better to borrow your past self because you actually know what state you were in 1 round ago. If all the spell does is call your past self in for one attack or cantrip, it's a heck of a lot easier to use.
I'm really not sure what you're hoping to achieve with Regression but one way to spin it is to limit its scope to your HP, and the next time you take damage it's nullified and you warp back to the anchor point.
So we're probably going to veer into a philosophical argument here. Yes, a time magic player could play through the game roleplaying the results of plenty of spells as though they take effect by manipulating time. I personally don't find that sufficient. Although the devs rightfully want to keep things as simple as possible, I feel that there's still scope to give life to certain abilities we associate with time manipulation beyond what we see in the RAW, and without forbidding the idea of time wizards altogether.
I've tried the best I can to bring these abilities into 5e without bookkeeping. They're all basically simplified ports of abilities from 3e or Pathfinder, so I wouldn't say they're beyond the scope of pen and paper RPGs. They're more complex than a simple "advantage on one ability check/saving throw" abilities, but it's ultimately up to the gaming group to decide whether they care for it or not. Regression is the most complicated ability here, but would require a player to record a few stats about themself from one round back, and that's only if they premeditate. Nobody except the player using the ability needs to do any record keeping. In reality, they player would just have to keep track of the events of one round. I agree that it would be best to limit the amount of record keeping for that player though.
Split timeline is only complex in that it gives the player the equivalent of two turns in real time. I wouldn't say that's any more complicated than a fighter's action surge, and it's less powerful given that only one of the actions materializes.
Borrow from the future serves a few purposes beyond what we see in RAW. It gives a player one extra turn, and takes them out of combat for another round. I'm curious about what you had in mind by "messing with themselves". There's no real record-keeping. Both copies share limited-usage abilities, spell slots, consumables, etc. My intent was that only hit points would be different, but would ultimately catch up with the player. Granted, I think I made this unclear in the description. I'll fix it up.
So we're probably going to veer into a philosophical argument here. Yes, a time magic player could play through the game roleplaying the results of plenty of spells as though they take effect by manipulating time. I personally don't find that sufficient.
Ok, but are the spells for you or your players? Years of Unearthed Arcana has given us good insight into what kind of design works and the evidence overwhelmingly points to flavor, not complex mechanics. As long as the narrative behind what the spell does is clear and it's a concept that resonates with the player (which time manipulation surely will), it's going to be a hit. The mechanics are just there to support the narrative, not the other way around.
I've tried the best I can to bring these abilities into 5e without bookkeeping. They're all basically simplified ports of abilities from 3e or Pathfinder, so I wouldn't say they're beyond the scope of pen and paper RPGs.
There's a reason 5e's designers streamlined the heck out of 3.5e and Pathfinder. Those systems are just plain user-unfriendly, even with all of the corners that Pathfinder managed to smooth over. I should know; by the time my 3.5/PF group got to around level 10 the bookkeeping got so complex I had to make an incredibly sophisticated spreadsheet to keep track of all the bonuses that were being constantly applied and unapplied due to spells and magic items and whatnot.
Regression is the most complicated ability here, but would require a player to record a few stats about themself from one round back, and that's only if they premeditate. Nobody except the player using the ability needs to do any record keeping.
They do however have to sit around waiting for the player to write things down. Speed of play was at the top of the list of design considerations for 5e based on player feedback and playtesting.
Split timeline is only complex in that it gives the player the equivalent of two turns in real time. I wouldn't say that's any more complicated than a fighter's action surge, and it's less powerful given that only one of the actions materializes.
The problem is that it's more complex than it needs to be to actually achieve what you want. At its core, it's meant to empower your decision-making by looking into the future. Since you're not going to actually take two actions, you don't need to simulate two actions. In fact, after sleeping on it some more I realized all you really need is to let the player roll one d20 and let them apply it to any attack roll/ability check/saving throw or on an enemy's saving throw that turn, if they want to. If they do so, they're acting out the future they saw. If they don't like the d20, they can just ignore it and try another future. And since it can be applied to an enemy's saving throw, odds are the d20 will be usable either way; if it's high, use it on your own roll, if it's low, use it on the enemy.
Borrow from the future serves a few purposes beyond what we see in RAW. It gives a player one extra turn, and takes them out of combat for another round. I'm curious about what you had in mind by "messing with themselves".
Let's say you use Borrow From The Future and during your turn an enemy uses a reaction that incapacitates you (possibly without touching your HP). How did a non-incapacitated version of yourself show up, then? Also, what happens in the same scenario of your future self becomes incapacitated instead? Do you apply that condition at the end of your turn?
That's why I suggested borrowing your past self, which is in a state you can actually know, and making the ability instantaneous, which makes it much harder to get into situations where enemies can change your other self's HP or conditions.
There's no real record-keeping. Both copies share limited-usage abilities, spell slots, consumables, etc. My intent was that only hit points would be different, but would ultimately catch up with the player. Granted, I think I made this unclear in the description. I'll fix it up.
This one's my bad, I didn't fully grasp that both copies share one set of spell slots and the likes. Still feels a bit wonky since your future self using a slot retroactively takes it away from you. If it's your past self helping you it fully makes sense why them using a slot causes you to not have a slot.
Regression is the ability with the most obvious intent. To create a "save point" so, that if anything terrible happens, you press reset. Seems powerful, incredibly useful.
Borrow from the Future I don't really get. If you have the same resources available, how is the ability useful? If you were out of spell slots and had your well rested future self step in to drop a spell bomb, that would be some amazing sh#%!
Split Timeline is a solid concept. I also agree that fully playing out 2 possible courses of action is unnecessary. All that's needed is narrative of fore knowledge as it applies to a considered course of action. Example: I use Split Timeline to advise me on my idea to cast Fireball with my Sword of Elemental Force into the pack of Spined Devils. As you see the outcome of your proposed course of action in your mind's eye, you note that Spined Devils are immune to fire. Time for plan B.
First off, if this level of crunch is common in your games - meaning your Time Player isn't doing more work than anyone else in your party - then I think these are solid.
If I were to simplify these for ease of play while still keeping with their intention I would make the following changes.
Regression:
Instead of tracking the past (which has been a thorn in Time effects since TTRPGs were just called RPGs), I would leave this as an ability/spell that uses your Reaction to activate. Then you move some distance backwards and away from the thing you're reacting to (Spell, attacker, etc), and immediately gain the benefit of a short rest (spend HD to heal, regain Features that key off a short rest, and I'd borrow Arcane Recovery if you're a spellcaster). If you don't want the effect to spend the resources, then you can load the effect with these already (gain 1/2HD per level to heal and 4 levels of spell slots, whatever).
It's not a perfect "Rewind Time" effect, but I think it's close, or a good jumping off point.
Borrow from the Future:
Don't know if you've have the it, but this is very similar to a power from the Cypher System Rulebook. This basically gives you two characters to perform two actions in one round. The Future you (from here out called You2) is only from a few seconds in the future, so I get him/her not having more resources than you have when he'she is summoned.
Instead of tracking another character for one round, I would say that any damage and/or conditions to You2 affect you instead. If that's too harsh and you're worried you'll die before you get a chance to do anything, then you could probably say for this round, you have Damage Resistance and Advantage on Saves. I would say if you're a spellcaster, then any spells You2 casts comes from your spell slots (this would probably the only case when you could cast two, full spells in one round). Other than that, You and You2 act independently.
At the end of your turn You fall through a time hole and disappear (your past self is summoning you), and you now continue on from You2's position.
This seems to be more "quantum superposition" than "time travel," but I think it's a little less bookkeeping.
Split Timeline:
This is a really cool ability... that grinds the pacing to a halt while we all wait for you think about two things you want to do, roll dice, roll dice again, then potentially mull over the better option.
What if instead, it gave you some number of "do over's" for one round? Any die can be rerolled, but once accepted that decision and roll is locked in time (meaning you can't reverse it). You can either give them a number, like 4 so you can pick an choose, or instead say that every roll caused by your action can be rerolled once (so attack roll, roll to save, damage roll, etc.), maybe twice if you're high enough level.
Regression is the most complicated ability here, but would require a player to record a few stats about [themselves] from one round back, and that's only if they premeditate. Nobody except the player using the ability needs to do any record keeping.
The biggest issue I see is the player recording this every round since they don't know when they're going to use regression.
Split timeline is only complex in that it gives the player the equivalent of two turns in real time. I wouldn't say that's any more complicated than a fighter's action surge, and it's less powerful given that only one of the actions materializes.
That's true, but like I said above, it feels like time wasted for everyone else while they wait for the player to carry out two full actions, then choose one. Could be even longer if they can't decide and try to poll the group.
Borrow from the future serves a few purposes beyond what we see in RAW. It gives a player one extra turn, and takes them out of combat for another round. I'm curious about what you had in mind by "messing with themselves". There's no real record-keeping. Both copies share limited-usage abilities, spell slots, consumables, etc. My intent was that only hit points would be different, but would ultimately catch up with the player. Granted, I think I made this unclear in the description. I'll fix it up.
I complete misread this then. I thought your future self was summoned with their own set abilities/spells/consumables when I read it. Ignore that portion from my suggestion, please.
There's a reason 5e's designers streamlined the heck out of 3.5e and Pathfinder. Those systems are just plain user-unfriendly, even with all of the corners that Pathfinder managed to smooth over. I should know; by the time my 3.5/PF group got to around level 10 the bookkeeping got so complex I had to make an incredibly sophisticated spreadsheet to keep track of all the bonuses that were being constantly applied and unapplied due to spells and magic items and whatnot.
I agree with you in spirit. I'm not arguing that we should embrace complexity for its own sake, just that a simplified version of one of the spells from those editions shouldn't be ruled out. I'm pretty opposed to floating modifiers and excessive book-keeping like Chronomancy in 2e, which just gives players the abilitiy to erase a minute (hour?, more?) of time arbitrarily, and pretend that everybody including the DM knows all that happened. I'm trying to keep things limited in scope. Maximum a round, which only affects one player.
As for why I'm going this route, there are just some abilities that aren't fully captured by a narrative approach. Of these abilities, I like Split Timestream the most because it allows a player to pursue two completely separate courses of action, rather than letting them redo one. This is also valuable for actions that aren't strictly associated with a roll. I would like to see social encounters in which a player gets to test out two different lines of argument (projecting them both six seconds into the future). In combat this is more than a roll. A player could discover whether a creature is an illusion, whether an enemy has a resistance, etc.
Also, what kind of character was that! Some kind of blood-sucking wizard with a bunch of combat abilities?
They do however have to sit around waiting for the player to write things down. Speed of play was at the top of the list of design considerations for 5e based on player feedback and playtesting.
I heartily understand, but I think having a player mark down three or four numbers isn't that hard. If they want to use the ability, they can be prepared. In reality, they'd just have to track what's happened to themselves or their equipment for one round. That's not too hard. Usually it ends up being the use of a spell slot, some damage, and a condition here or there.
The problem is that it's more complex than it needs to be to actually achieve what you want. At its core, it's meant to empower your decision-making by looking into the future. Since you're not going to actually take two actions, you don't need to simulate two actions. In fact, after sleeping on it some more I realized all you really need is to let the player roll one d20 and let them apply it to any attack roll/ability check/saving throw or on an enemy's saving throw that turn, if they want to. If they do so, they're acting out the future they saw. If they don't like the d20, they can just ignore it and try another future. And since it can be applied to an enemy's saving throw, odds are the d20 will be usable either way; if it's high, use it on your own roll, if it's low, use it on the enemy.
See my comments about the utility of it above. It's more than just the equivalent of a reroll. I want players to try completely inane actions just to see what happens.
Let's say you use Borrow From The Future and during your turn an enemy uses a reaction that incapacitates you (possibly without touching your HP). How did a non-incapacitated version of yourself show up, then? Also, what happens in the same scenario of your future self becomes incapacitated instead? Do you apply that condition at the end of your turn?
That's why I suggested borrowing your past self, which is in a state you can actually know, and making the ability instantaneous, which makes it much harder to get into situations where enemies can change your other self's HP or conditions.
This one's my bad, I didn't fully grasp that both copies share one set of spell slots and the likes. Steel feels a bit wonky since your future self using a slot retroactively takes it away from you. If it's your past self helping you it fully makes sense why them using a slot causes you to not have a slot.
I think I need to change the wording a bit. Here's what would go down. In round 1 I conjure the duplicate. We both take actions. An enemy incapacitates your current self, which carries over to the future self, who is incapacitated. If your future self becomes incapacitated, your current self does not become incapacitated immediately. In round 2, you both vanish. When you reappear in round 3, you are incapacitated, inheriting the status of your future self.
So to map out your idea, a player would vanish in turn 1, reappear with a duplicate in round 2, and in round three the duplicate vanishes for good. That's a good idea. However, I could rationalize the spell slot and limited-use sharing by appealing to a magical law which forbids paradoxes. Your future self can't use a spell slot or alchemist's fire flask if you've already used it. To do otherwise would offend the forces of magic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ One could have them share resources then mandate that the future copy acts strictly after yourself in initiative order for another fix.
Regression is the ability with the most obvious intent. To create a "save point" so, that if anything terrible happens, you press reset. Seems powerful, incredibly useful.
Borrow from the Future I don't really get. If you have the same resources available, how is the ability useful? If you were out of spell slots and had your well rested future self step in to drop a spell bomb, that would be some amazing sh#%!
Split Timeline is a solid concept. I also agree that fully playing out 2 possible courses of action is unnecessary. All that's needed is narrative of fore knowledge as it applies to a considered course of action. Example: I use Split Timeline to advise me on my idea to cast Fireball with my Sword of Elemental Force into the pack of Spined Devils. As you see the outcome of your proposed course of action in your mind's eye, you note that Spined Devils are immune to fire. Time for plan B.
Regression is the ability among the three that I like the least, just because it requires the most record-keeping. But in principle it's a save + soft reset function. Set an anchor, run into the cave, find out a dragon lives there, then reset.
Borrow from the future serves a bunch of purposes. It gives you an extra turn, lets you avoid the entirety of the next round (which could be a vluable defensive tactic), and allows you, in a sense, to teleport should you decide to move your future avatar.
Split timeline is my favorite. It's a more concise version of regression that has lots of roleplaying potential. I could see a player using it in a social situation: "I try both intimidating and groveling before the king to see which works best!"
If I were to simplify these for ease of play while still keeping with their intention I would make the following changes.
Thanks for the suggestions. I like the teleportation plus rest ability. A short rest may be powerful, but I think healing some amount according to HD is appropriate, plus an extra spell slot. Also your suggestion about the Cypher system is still valuable. It may resolve the wackiness of sharing resources if the duplicate is summoned at the end of your turn or in the next place in initiative, rather than taking actions simultaneously.
The biggest issue I see is the player recording this every round since they don't know when they're going to use regression.
They wouldn't have any reason to do this. You'd only start tracking once you place the anchor. You'd have to premeditate to use the ability. I was definitely aware of this problem from the aforementioned 2e Chronomancy book.
That's true, but like I said above, it feels like time wasted for everyone else while they wait for the player to carry out two full actions, then choose one. Could be even longer if they can't decide and try to poll the group.
Maybe, but is it really that much when compared with something like Action Surge or Haste, or any number of abilities that mess with action economy? My players like to take forever with almost every action. I feel like they'd, if anything, take less knowing that they don't have to narrow their choice down to just one action. Of course, I'd have to playtest with more group.
I complete misread this then. I thought your future self was summoned with their own set abilities/spells/consumables when I read it. Ignore that portion from my suggestion, please.
I thought a short rest might be too OP as well. I don't know how many abilities have a short rest reset though.
Maybe, but is it really that much when compared with something like Action Surge or Haste, or any number of abilities that mess with action economy? My players like to take forever with almost every action. I feel like they'd, if anything, take less knowing that they don't have to narrow their choice down to just one action. Of course, I'd have to playtest with more group.
The difference with Action Surge or Haste is that the action still happens. In Split Timeline, people are sitting around watching all the work for an action that didn't happen. Your group meta might be fine with that though.
Maybe, but is it really that much when compared with something like Action Surge or Haste, or any number of abilities that mess with action economy? My players like to take forever with almost every action. I feel like they'd, if anything, take less knowing that they don't have to narrow their choice down to just one action. Of course, I'd have to playtest with more group.
The difference with Action Surge or Haste is that the action still happens. In Split Timeline, people are sitting around watching all the work for an action that didn't happen. Your group meta might be fine with that though.
I suppose. In my experience the players will take forever with their decisions anyway. I suspect that during an actual session, a player will pick one inane action, or the same action twice, in which case they would quickly pick the more succesful result. Playtesting ensues!
Yeah, it's possible that you find your player just doubles the same action every time and chooses the better one. In that case, you can probably modify the spell to Double Timeline or something.
Hi all,
I was inspired by another thread to pick up a few of the time magic abilities I'd dropped a while ago when I was considering a time-flavored wizard.I shelved the project due to the overwhelming amount of time-related homebrew stuff out their, and the difficulty of making time-related abilities that are interesting without a burdensome amount of record-keeping.
With that in mind, what do you think about the wording of the following abilities? I've deliberately excluded mention of how often these abilities can be used. For now, assume they're per-rest abilites, or limited by an ability score modifier. I'm particularly focused on the wording. I don't know if any similar abilities exist in RAW, and I want to be sure that they don't result in truly game-breaking situations. Once I have the wording set, I can determine where they belong (spell, subclass ablility, etc.), and their balance.
Regression
On your turn, you can use a bonus action to create an anchor in time in your space. When you create the temporal anchor, record your hit points, spell slots, conditions, consumable items, and limited-usage abilities. Until the end of your next turn, you can use your reaction to teleport to the space containing the temporal anchor, or if that space is occupied, the nearest unoccupied space. When you do so, any reduction in your hit points, spell slots, conditions, consumable items, and limited-usage abilities are restored to the values you recorded.
Borrow from the Future
You can use a bonus action to pull your future self into the present. Your future self appears in an unoccupied space within 30 feet of you. Your future self acts on your initiative, and uses your statistics. Changes to your hit points and condition immediately carry over to your future self. You and your future self share spell slots, consumable items, and limited-usage abilities.
At the end of your turn, you and your future self vanish. You reappear at the end of your next turn in the space your future self left, or in an unoccupied space nearest to that space if it’s occupied, with the hit points and conditions that your future self had before it vanished.
Split Timeline
You can observe two divergent timelines, and choose which to pursue. On your turn, you can take two actions which take place simultaneously. Track the outcomes of these actions separately, including any reactions. Once the results of your actions are known, you can choose which version of reality occured. Only the results of the chosen action are realized. No other creature is aware of the action that you did not choose.
These are all cool ideas but horribly impractical in a pen and paper game; the amount of bookkeeping required to make them work is just too much. Contrast these with:
Wish's ability to undo one bad roll within the past round is the closest to any of these and that complexity is gated behind a 9th level spell slot and the risk of never casting Wish again.
One way you could streamline Split Timeline a lot is to change it so it just lets you roll 1 attack roll or ability check or force an enemy to make a saving throw and see what the result is. If you like the result, you can take an action that involves making that roll happen (e.g. make an attack, cast a spell on the enemy) and automatically get that result. Otherwise, you can ignore the result and do whatever, even do whatever you were planning to do anyways but roll again hoping for a different outcome.
Borrow From the Future could be salvaged if you seriously decrease the scope. It should have an instantaneous effect so it's a lot harder to mess with your other self, and it'd also be better to borrow your past self because you actually know what state you were in 1 round ago. If all the spell does is call your past self in for one attack or cantrip, it's a heck of a lot easier to use.
I'm really not sure what you're hoping to achieve with Regression but one way to spin it is to limit its scope to your HP, and the next time you take damage it's nullified and you warp back to the anchor point.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
So we're probably going to veer into a philosophical argument here. Yes, a time magic player could play through the game roleplaying the results of plenty of spells as though they take effect by manipulating time. I personally don't find that sufficient. Although the devs rightfully want to keep things as simple as possible, I feel that there's still scope to give life to certain abilities we associate with time manipulation beyond what we see in the RAW, and without forbidding the idea of time wizards altogether.
I've tried the best I can to bring these abilities into 5e without bookkeeping. They're all basically simplified ports of abilities from 3e or Pathfinder, so I wouldn't say they're beyond the scope of pen and paper RPGs. They're more complex than a simple "advantage on one ability check/saving throw" abilities, but it's ultimately up to the gaming group to decide whether they care for it or not. Regression is the most complicated ability here, but would require a player to record a few stats about themself from one round back, and that's only if they premeditate. Nobody except the player using the ability needs to do any record keeping. In reality, they player would just have to keep track of the events of one round. I agree that it would be best to limit the amount of record keeping for that player though.
Split timeline is only complex in that it gives the player the equivalent of two turns in real time. I wouldn't say that's any more complicated than a fighter's action surge, and it's less powerful given that only one of the actions materializes.
Borrow from the future serves a few purposes beyond what we see in RAW. It gives a player one extra turn, and takes them out of combat for another round. I'm curious about what you had in mind by "messing with themselves". There's no real record-keeping. Both copies share limited-usage abilities, spell slots, consumables, etc. My intent was that only hit points would be different, but would ultimately catch up with the player. Granted, I think I made this unclear in the description. I'll fix it up.
Ok, but are the spells for you or your players? Years of Unearthed Arcana has given us good insight into what kind of design works and the evidence overwhelmingly points to flavor, not complex mechanics. As long as the narrative behind what the spell does is clear and it's a concept that resonates with the player (which time manipulation surely will), it's going to be a hit. The mechanics are just there to support the narrative, not the other way around.
There's a reason 5e's designers streamlined the heck out of 3.5e and Pathfinder. Those systems are just plain user-unfriendly, even with all of the corners that Pathfinder managed to smooth over. I should know; by the time my 3.5/PF group got to around level 10 the bookkeeping got so complex I had to make an incredibly sophisticated spreadsheet to keep track of all the bonuses that were being constantly applied and unapplied due to spells and magic items and whatnot.
They do however have to sit around waiting for the player to write things down. Speed of play was at the top of the list of design considerations for 5e based on player feedback and playtesting.
The problem is that it's more complex than it needs to be to actually achieve what you want. At its core, it's meant to empower your decision-making by looking into the future. Since you're not going to actually take two actions, you don't need to simulate two actions. In fact, after sleeping on it some more I realized all you really need is to let the player roll one d20 and let them apply it to any attack roll/ability check/saving throw or on an enemy's saving throw that turn, if they want to. If they do so, they're acting out the future they saw. If they don't like the d20, they can just ignore it and try another future. And since it can be applied to an enemy's saving throw, odds are the d20 will be usable either way; if it's high, use it on your own roll, if it's low, use it on the enemy.
Let's say you use Borrow From The Future and during your turn an enemy uses a reaction that incapacitates you (possibly without touching your HP). How did a non-incapacitated version of yourself show up, then? Also, what happens in the same scenario of your future self becomes incapacitated instead? Do you apply that condition at the end of your turn?
That's why I suggested borrowing your past self, which is in a state you can actually know, and making the ability instantaneous, which makes it much harder to get into situations where enemies can change your other self's HP or conditions.
This one's my bad, I didn't fully grasp that both copies share one set of spell slots and the likes. Still feels a bit wonky since your future self using a slot retroactively takes it away from you. If it's your past self helping you it fully makes sense why them using a slot causes you to not have a slot.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Regression is the ability with the most obvious intent. To create a "save point" so, that if anything terrible happens, you press reset. Seems powerful, incredibly useful.
Borrow from the Future I don't really get. If you have the same resources available, how is the ability useful? If you were out of spell slots and had your well rested future self step in to drop a spell bomb, that would be some amazing sh#%!
Split Timeline is a solid concept. I also agree that fully playing out 2 possible courses of action is unnecessary. All that's needed is narrative of fore knowledge as it applies to a considered course of action. Example: I use Split Timeline to advise me on my idea to cast Fireball with my Sword of Elemental Force into the pack of Spined Devils. As you see the outcome of your proposed course of action in your mind's eye, you note that Spined Devils are immune to fire. Time for plan B.
First off, if this level of crunch is common in your games - meaning your Time Player isn't doing more work than anyone else in your party - then I think these are solid.
If I were to simplify these for ease of play while still keeping with their intention I would make the following changes.
Regression:
Instead of tracking the past (which has been a thorn in Time effects since TTRPGs were just called RPGs), I would leave this as an ability/spell that uses your Reaction to activate. Then you move some distance backwards and away from the thing you're reacting to (Spell, attacker, etc), and immediately gain the benefit of a short rest (spend HD to heal, regain Features that key off a short rest, and I'd borrow Arcane Recovery if you're a spellcaster). If you don't want the effect to spend the resources, then you can load the effect with these already (gain 1/2HD per level to heal and 4 levels of spell slots, whatever).
It's not a perfect "Rewind Time" effect, but I think it's close, or a good jumping off point.
Borrow from the Future:
Don't know if you've have the it, but this is very similar to a power from the Cypher System Rulebook. This basically gives you two characters to perform two actions in one round. The Future you (from here out called You2) is only from a few seconds in the future, so I get him/her not having more resources than you have when he'she is summoned.
Instead of tracking another character for one round, I would say that any damage and/or conditions to You2 affect you instead. If that's too harsh and you're worried you'll die before you get a chance to do anything, then you could probably say for this round, you have Damage Resistance and Advantage on Saves. I would say if you're a spellcaster, then any spells You2 casts comes from your spell slots (this would probably the only case when you could cast two, full spells in one round). Other than that, You and You2 act independently.
At the end of your turn You fall through a time hole and disappear (your past self is summoning you), and you now continue on from You2's position.
This seems to be more "quantum superposition" than "time travel," but I think it's a little less bookkeeping.
Split Timeline:
This is a really cool ability... that grinds the pacing to a halt while we all wait for you think about two things you want to do, roll dice, roll dice again, then potentially mull over the better option.
What if instead, it gave you some number of "do over's" for one round? Any die can be rerolled, but once accepted that decision and roll is locked in time (meaning you can't reverse it). You can either give them a number, like 4 so you can pick an choose, or instead say that every roll caused by your action can be rerolled once (so attack roll, roll to save, damage roll, etc.), maybe twice if you're high enough level.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
The biggest issue I see is the player recording this every round since they don't know when they're going to use regression.
That's true, but like I said above, it feels like time wasted for everyone else while they wait for the player to carry out two full actions, then choose one. Could be even longer if they can't decide and try to poll the group.
I complete misread this then. I thought your future self was summoned with their own set abilities/spells/consumables when I read it. Ignore that portion from my suggestion, please.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
I agree with you in spirit. I'm not arguing that we should embrace complexity for its own sake, just that a simplified version of one of the spells from those editions shouldn't be ruled out. I'm pretty opposed to floating modifiers and excessive book-keeping like Chronomancy in 2e, which just gives players the abilitiy to erase a minute (hour?, more?) of time arbitrarily, and pretend that everybody including the DM knows all that happened. I'm trying to keep things limited in scope. Maximum a round, which only affects one player.
As for why I'm going this route, there are just some abilities that aren't fully captured by a narrative approach. Of these abilities, I like Split Timestream the most because it allows a player to pursue two completely separate courses of action, rather than letting them redo one. This is also valuable for actions that aren't strictly associated with a roll. I would like to see social encounters in which a player gets to test out two different lines of argument (projecting them both six seconds into the future). In combat this is more than a roll. A player could discover whether a creature is an illusion, whether an enemy has a resistance, etc.
Also, what kind of character was that! Some kind of blood-sucking wizard with a bunch of combat abilities?
I heartily understand, but I think having a player mark down three or four numbers isn't that hard. If they want to use the ability, they can be prepared. In reality, they'd just have to track what's happened to themselves or their equipment for one round. That's not too hard. Usually it ends up being the use of a spell slot, some damage, and a condition here or there.
See my comments about the utility of it above. It's more than just the equivalent of a reroll. I want players to try completely inane actions just to see what happens.
I think I need to change the wording a bit. Here's what would go down. In round 1 I conjure the duplicate. We both take actions. An enemy incapacitates your current self, which carries over to the future self, who is incapacitated. If your future self becomes incapacitated, your current self does not become incapacitated immediately. In round 2, you both vanish. When you reappear in round 3, you are incapacitated, inheriting the status of your future self.
So to map out your idea, a player would vanish in turn 1, reappear with a duplicate in round 2, and in round three the duplicate vanishes for good. That's a good idea. However, I could rationalize the spell slot and limited-use sharing by appealing to a magical law which forbids paradoxes. Your future self can't use a spell slot or alchemist's fire flask if you've already used it. To do otherwise would offend the forces of magic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ One could have them share resources then mandate that the future copy acts strictly after yourself in initiative order for another fix.
Regression is the ability among the three that I like the least, just because it requires the most record-keeping. But in principle it's a save + soft reset function. Set an anchor, run into the cave, find out a dragon lives there, then reset.
Borrow from the future serves a bunch of purposes. It gives you an extra turn, lets you avoid the entirety of the next round (which could be a vluable defensive tactic), and allows you, in a sense, to teleport should you decide to move your future avatar.
Split timeline is my favorite. It's a more concise version of regression that has lots of roleplaying potential. I could see a player using it in a social situation: "I try both intimidating and groveling before the king to see which works best!"
Thanks for the suggestions. I like the teleportation plus rest ability. A short rest may be powerful, but I think healing some amount according to HD is appropriate, plus an extra spell slot. Also your suggestion about the Cypher system is still valuable. It may resolve the wackiness of sharing resources if the duplicate is summoned at the end of your turn or in the next place in initiative, rather than taking actions simultaneously.
They wouldn't have any reason to do this. You'd only start tracking once you place the anchor. You'd have to premeditate to use the ability. I was definitely aware of this problem from the aforementioned 2e Chronomancy book.
Maybe, but is it really that much when compared with something like Action Surge or Haste, or any number of abilities that mess with action economy? My players like to take forever with almost every action. I feel like they'd, if anything, take less knowing that they don't have to narrow their choice down to just one action. Of course, I'd have to playtest with more group.
No problems!
I thought a short rest might be too OP as well. I don't know how many abilities have a short rest reset though.
The difference with Action Surge or Haste is that the action still happens. In Split Timeline, people are sitting around watching all the work for an action that didn't happen. Your group meta might be fine with that though.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
I suppose. In my experience the players will take forever with their decisions anyway. I suspect that during an actual session, a player will pick one inane action, or the same action twice, in which case they would quickly pick the more succesful result. Playtesting ensues!
Yeah, it's possible that you find your player just doubles the same action every time and chooses the better one. In that case, you can probably modify the spell to Double Timeline or something.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew