Hi guys,

I'm currently running a game for myself and 4 others. One of the characters backstory's has led me to create some homebrew spells around the theme of time travel. This is an early draft of these spells and I hope you can help me out with balancing and other ideas and feedback :). I plan on making the list available to Sorcerers and Wizards. The last spell on the list can be ignored in the balancing discussion because it involves more of a story beat than anything i seriously intend to utilise in the everyday running of the game. 

Chronomancy Spells

Chronomancy is a specific school of the arcane usable by only the most skilled of wizards and some sorcerers. It focuses on the manipulation of time both in isolated individual uses as well as larger more permanent effects.

Cantrips

Unmake

cantrip chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60 feet
• Components: S
• Duration: Instantaneous
• You cause the cells in a localised area of one targets physicality to revert back to a previous stage of their timeline. This impedes their bodies ability to function at full capacity. The target makes a constitution saving throw vs your spell DC. On a failure they take 1d4 necrotic damage and are unable to use their bonus action and action on the same turn instead choosing between the two. This spells damage increases by 1d4 when you reach 5 level (2d4), 11 level (3d4), and 17 level (4d4).

1 Level

Reconstruction of years

1-level chronomancy (ritual)

• Casting Time: 1 minute
• Range: Touch
• Components: V, S, M (A pinch of dirt and gem dust worth around half of the items worth)
• Duration: Instantaneous
• You touch one item no bigger than a medium sized creature and manipulate its individual time stream to a previous state. Any damage or wear the item has received within the last ten years is restored by the spell. The spell may repair magical equipment but cannot restore magical properties to them. The spell cannot be used on any living material such as plants or creatures.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell at higher levels the size of the item in which you can manipulate increases. At 3 level you can manipulate an item equal to a large size creature, a huge size creature at 5 level and a gargantuan size creature at 7 level.

Ulgrin’s mind of mercury

1-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: Touch
• Components: V, S, M (a jar containing a small piece of mercury)
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
• You touch one willing creature giving them the power to see events unfold before them at a slower place than normal. For the duration of the spell the creature you touch gains an additional reaction each turn.

At Higher Levels: Upon casting this spell at a higher level you can bestow this effect upon one additional creature for every level above 1st

2level

Relive suffering

2-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 reaction
• Range: 60 feet
• Components: S
• Duration: Instantaneous
• When a creature you see within range takes damage you may use your reaction to reverse their timestream by a few moments reliving the pain once more. The target takes 2d6 of the damage type taken in the previous instance, if the target took two or more damage types simultaneously then you can choose the type this spell inflicts.

At Higher Levels: Upon casting this spell at higher level you can increase the damage by 1d6 for each level above 2

3 level

Frozen in time

3-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: self
• Components: V, S
• Duration:1 round
• You freeze yourself within a pocket of time until the start of your next turn. Whilst you are frozen in this pocket you are removed from the current plane of existence not being able to effect it or be affected by it still able to observe it. At any time between when this spell is cast and the start of your next turn you can choose to re-enter the plane in the same spot that you left, breaking the spell. You can take your next turn immediately, but you forfeit that turn at the normal initiative count instead taking it when you choose to re-enter the plane.  At the start of your next turn if you haven’t broken the spell, the spell automatically breaks bringing you back to the current timestream.

4 Level

Restrict division

4th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60ft
• Components: V, S, M (A broken clock or similar timepiece)
• Duration: Concentration up to 1 minute
• You cause the molecular chemistry of one target you can see within range to freeze preventing their cells from multiplying and causing immense pain. The target makes a wisdom saving throw vs your spell DC. On a fail they take 5d8 necrotic damage. They also gain disadvantage on Constitution saving throws as well as being unable to heal lost HP from any source whilst the spell is active. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each turn. On a success they take half as much damage and the spell ends.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell at higher levels the damage increases by 1d8 for each level over 4th

Ulgrin’s temporal fling

4th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 40ft
• Components: S
• Duration:1 round
•  You pick a creature within range that you can see and temporarily fling them back through time to the primordial birth of the planes of existence. The target makes a Wisdom saving throw vs your spell DC. On a success they take 4d10 fire damage and are temporarily flung from the plane of existence until the start of your next turn reappearing in the same space as before.

At Higher Levels: Casting this spell at higher levels allows you to target one additional creature and does an additional 1d10 fire damage for each level above 4.

 5 Level

Ozymandias’s momentary setback

5th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 reaction
• Range: 120ft
• Components: V, S, M (A crafted golden cog worth 500 gp)
• Duration: Instantaneous
• As a reaction you attempt to reverse the timestream of one creature you can see within range by a couple of seconds. You can cast this spell when another creature takes a movement, action, bonus action or reaction. The target makes a Wisdom saving throw. On a success nothing happens. On a fail the targets movement, action, bonus action or reaction are rewound as if they never happened and they lose this part of their turn. Any spells, consumables, abilities or any effect that has limited uses retains that the target tried to use retains those uses. The target may then continue with the rest of their turn as normal  

Environmental Disruption

5th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60ft
• Components: V, M (A piece of tree moss and a tinderbox)
• Duration: Instantaneous
• As an action you cause one part of the environment around you, no bigger than a 20ft radius circle, that you can see to relieve a point in its timeline for 6 seconds. You may pick any effect that was active on the area (such as a smoke cloud, darkness spell, or fireball effect for example) you choose within the last hour. That effect takes place again as soon as you finish casting the spell and, if able to, continues to the start of your next turn. If the previous effect was the result of a concentration spell cast by you or some other source it does not require concentration to be maintained. Any effects recreated by this spell use the spell saving DC of the original caster instead of yourself. This spell cannot be used to reverse the timestream to effects that are of a greater spell level than 5.

6 level

Ulgrin’s renewal of spirit

6th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 action (ritual)
• Range: 30ft
• Components: V, S, M (A hourglass filled with 1000gp of gold dust which the spell consumes)
• Duration: 1 hour
• You give up to 4 targets of your choice within range that you can see the ability to temporarily refresh some of their spent vigour in order to renew their abilities. For the duration, any target that receives this spell can use it in replacement of one use of a class feature, racial ability or feat that has limited uses between rests or days. This spell cannot be used to restore spell slots or in place of a feature if the intent is to restore spell slots with that feature. Once the spell has been used once by each target or the duration is over the spell ends.

7 level

Time Prison

7th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 hour
• Range: 120ft
• Components: V, S, M (Expensive inks and chalk worth 2,500 gp which the spell consumes)
• Duration: Until Dispelled  
• You target one creature you can see within range and attempt to trap them in a continuous prison at a point in their own timeline. Upon finishing the spell, the target makes a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure the targets consciousness is banished to a point in their timeline until you choose to end the effect or until it is dispelled. The target becomes unconscious, does not require food, water or air and does not age. The target cannot be awakened by any means whilst under this effect. The target can only be harmed whilst under this effect from the effects of a Wish spell or a similar powerful magic. The targets consciousness relieves a one-hour loop of a point from its own timestream that you choose. The point in the targets timeline that you choose could be as specific or as vague as you like, i.e. a happy moment from their childhood. Whilst in this loop, the target can interact with their environment and previous timeline differently. If they die whilst in the loop their body dies in the current timeline. You may choose whether the target is aware of the loop or not and whether they remember being imprisoned in it or not.

Ozymandias’s arrest of years

7th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 hour
• Range: self
• Components: S, M (A frozen mixture of gem dust worth around 5000 GP and a humanoids worth of blood of a rare magical creature which the spell consumes)
• Duration: 50 years or until dispelled
• You manipulate the magical qualities of one creatures’ blood in order to freeze your body’s cells in their individual timelines effectively halting the aging process. From the point in which you cast this spell your body no longer ages for the next 50 years. After 50 years your body begins aging again at the regular rate. Whilst this spell is active you are immune to any effects that would magically age you.

8 level

Power Word Loop

8th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 reaction
• Range: 120ft
• Components: V
• Duration: 1 minute
• You target one creature that has just finished its turn. That creature must make a Wisdom saving throw vs your spell save DC. On a success the spell has no effect. On a fail that creature becomes stuck in a temporal time loop. The creature moves back to where it first began at the start of its turn and can’t take any reactions. At the start of its next turn it repeats the same movement, action and bonus actions it took from the turn it finished just as the spell was cast. If for any reason it can’t mirror a part of its previous turn its wastes that part of its turn. At the end of each of its turns, the creature moves back to the start of the loop then repeats the saving throw.

9 level

The weight of time

9th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 1 action
• Range: 60ft
• Components: V, S
• Duration: Instantaneous
• You bend the timestream of all of one targets individual cells so that they begin to revert to a cellular state. You choose one target within range that you can see. That target makes a Constitution saving throw. On a failure it loses 10d10 of its maximum hp. This loss of hit points can only be reverted by a 9 level Greater Restoration spell or a Wish effect. If this hp loss would result in the target being reduced to 0 hit points or less then the target is reduced to a cellular clump of flesh and is unable to be brought back by resurrection spells other than a True Resurrection spell.

Ulgrin’s Time Travel

9th-level chronomancy

• Casting Time: 24 hours
• Range: self
• Components: V, S, M (Can only be performed in Ulgrin’s inner sanctum)
• Duration: 1 hour
• You warp the fabric of the whole worlds timestream allowing you and up to 8 targets of your choice to travel back to any point in time in which the sanctum is calibrated to. After one hour you are pulled back to the point in time in which you finish this spell. You cannot physically interact with anything whilst this spell is active, you may only speak and observe. Using this spell causes extra planar beings to become aware of your presence and can result in you being hunted down by said beings.

Time prison is a little too overpowered. I would recommend making it so that maybe every 2 weeks or something they spend in it they can make a wisdom saving throw to escape. Also, the temporal fling is a little too overpowered. I would recommend reducing the damage. Other than those though, the list is great!

Restrict division does more average damage and applies a status effect