drewnchick said:
Hi all. I'm rather new to EN World (though not new to D&D). I've been browsing around for a bit -- lurking, I think you call it -- when the thread on Time Magic caught my eye. I, too, have developed a fully-functional chronomancer, although with a more "traditional" build.
Now, I'm not going to steal stratovarius' thunder, so I won't comment on my own version. But having read this thread through, allow me to make a few observations.
1) "Impact of the Eons" -- this is a 1st-lvl ability with the power to kill irrevocably. There is no bringing back from the dead one who has died of old age, which this ability has the capability of doing, especially at higher slicer levels. Even at mid-levels the reverse of this ability can render someone "unborn." With naught but a Will save to stave it off, this is immense power.
2) On a similar note, many of the listed powers and/or abilities of the chronomancer deal with aging and de-aging. It seemed somewhat repetitive, but perhaps this is necessary to fill it out, given that you're working with three distinct classes that deal with different aspects of time.
3) A word of caution in general, from my own experience with building and playtesting a chronomancer, playing around with the time continuum invariably leads to "messy" situations where several rounds of combat have to be redone. Even several hours' worth of gaming can be wiped clean with a single spell. On the other hand, peering into the future creates the need for "prophesying" events...something that blows most DMs' minds.
4) All that said, I think time magic is one of the most intriguing and potentially satisfying endeavors for DM or player to take on. I am most fascinated by your "take" on this subject. I like the forward/backward sense of each slice, from a "flavor" sense.
5) It's obvious that you have put an abundance of well-formed thought into this. I think your design abilities are excellent, and I encourage you to continue these kind of endeavors.
Drew
#1) This does have that power with some creatures (humanoids, player races, dragons, and the like), but it doesn't with more than a few others, as many monster races/types have no listed aging or lifespan, meaning that at best in those cases it is relying on the generous nature of the DM (Never a good thing to rely on from a mechanical point of view), or it simply does nothing. However, this is the first draft of the Chronomancer class and things can always be twisted around.
#2) I'm not entirely satisfied with the somewhat limited scope of the class abilities of the Chronomancer, either. I have a feeling it is going to get another pass, and a reworking, especially compared to the much more flavourful and fulfilling class abilities that the Echocaller and the Historian acquire.
The "Aspects of Time" design was not designed, as such, it just ended up that way when the third class was put down (the Historian). The Echocaller is (as the name suggests), based around the notion that objects in time repeat themselves, or mimic one another. The Historian pulls from the abilities of long ago, although given the general lack of technological progression and unusually flatlined rate of research in the DnD universe, this basically means giving it interesting abilities that seem to fit one another along with a lot of flavour text. The Chronomancer has a somewhat less defined roll, being designed as the manipulator of "pure time", and I think this is where the abilities start to become a little staid.
#3) By and large, most of the Slices that the Chronomancer possesses (and he's the main one for this kind of mess) affect a grand total of three rounds of action, a limiting factor introduced in large part to suggest that the manipulation of time is very difficult and cannot be done in any large part. Also, because he uses a Tome of Battle derived recovery system, the Chronomancer is probably never out of slices to use. It's the class that will likely need the most playtesting, although the Historian is going to cause all kinds of havoc with its rewriting of the magic system hidden as a class feature.
#4) This is based on the idea of the much-maligned Truenaming system from the Tome of Magic, with the normal and reversed Utterances. I felt it appropriate and interesting to have that applied to time, where it can move both forwards and backwards.
#5) Now you flatter me beyond the measure of my abilities. I certainly plan on continuing, but I'd like to see these classes in action in a well-run DnD game before I call them anything close to excellent. Right now they're just the roughcuts, unedited material.
EP said:
Count me in for the editing and I'll see what playtesting I can do, but can't promise much right now unless I fit it in with the playtesting I'm already doing for other projects.
Thanks. There's no immediate rush on this, as it falls second on the list of things that are being worked on over on this end, but the more early feedback I can get, the more I can tweak the classes before prestige classes and feats and the like get locked in and a single change may have ripple-effects.
Ishmayl said:
I think I would definitely be down for helping out with this (as well as chronomancy, if you keep working on it). These are some great projects, and I've already talked to my players about trying to introduce them to our game, so that would be some good playtesting experience. Just PM me if you need my help.
Cheers!
Well, this is the Chronomancy thread
I'll message you about the Ritual Magic content since that is closer to being finished, if you want to show your players that first. For now, aside from about 10 Eras for the Historian, this is more or less all of the Chronomancy material that has been created.
Aus_Snow said:
I've done a bit of editing, and I have an interest in these projects. So yeah, sign me up.
Thanks. I'll be sending a PM around soon with a link to a pdf of the material.
