D&D 3E/3.5 CAMPAIGN HELP 3.5

[meltinbradley]

My players are almost epic in level and yesterday during the game they began discussing something that I did not anticipate: Time travel. The reason for time travel is because the world they are on has been blocked from off world travel. Of the several trails they have they feel that going off world and taking care of some things in other places is their best option at the moment. (portals are closed, spells that allow for planar travel do not work, etc. There are ways to get out they just need to dig.)
They want to travel to a time when the world was not blocked from planar travel. This, to me makes sense and ill allow it if they are able to figure it out.
The PC's have been cursed by a new race of "abominations" similar to demons/devils but from a place beyond their known universe that dont follow the normal rules and laws of their own universe. This means these abominations have a lot of abilities the PC's have never seen and many immunities.
These abominations are able to locate the PC's wherever they go and because they are "different" they are very difficult to kill. Aside from their quests and building the campaign itself they are constantly running a game of cat and mouse with these creatures. These creatures dont care about time, space, or distance.

Im not particularly interested in the PC's traveling back in time, on the other hand I feel a DM needs to be open minded and open to things they may have not thought of. With that said, I dont mind that they time travel, but because the fabric of space and time and just the universe itself is in a very delicate time right now I want them to realize that time traveling at this point in time to any point whether it be future or past will have unforseen consequences.

I am aware of the extraplanar creatures who hunt those who tamper with time. Also since the PC's are "marked" by these new abominations they will have the ability to follow them. So time travel will allow them to go off world but not hide them from the abominations nor the time keepers.

Theres been enough hunting going on and another group hunting the pc's is going to make things more difficult (and more fighting, which i want to aviod) but im looking for something else. A sort of paradox that would not destroy the world but something that would give any high level group pause before doing, but at the same time because the stakes are great they might be willing to attempt time travel even with setting off this particular paradox.
The question is I cant think of anything at the moment. This just happened last night so I have some time to think about it, but would love some nasty creative ideas.

I have a smart group, I need things to make sense. The deeper and/or crazier, the better as long as it makes sense.

It doesnt have to be something that affects the world or the known universe, it could be something that affects the players themselves as well, or both. I just want something that is not combat based. Would love to hear some ideas from you guys.

Thanks,
MB

 

[captnq]

Dramatic Time Travel System (Homebrew)

Why Use Time Travel?

Time travel as defined here is Dramatic Time Travel. DTT differs from regular time travel in that we really don't try to pigeonhole time travel and force DMs to make elaborate and complex maps and charts of the changes that Time Travel causes. We don't want to get caught up in explaining how you can travel through time, adventure, kill a few dozen monsters, and then return to an unchanged future. Time travel should be an adventure, not a lesson in quantum mechanics.

Because we use DTT, we can have multiple different settings all on the same world that the players can interact with and not cause massive headaches when you switch backdrops. With DTT you can have the players adventure in a city for a while, then travel back to become responsible for founding the city. When they try to return, they may find themselves far in the future being hailed as the returning heroes of old.


Time Rules

The flow of time is fractured. Time can be altered, but time itself is sluggish and resistant to change. Like a river, it tends to stick with the contours of the landscape.

Rule 1: Time moves forward at all points in time.
There are several time periods that seems easier to reach then others. From the point of view of the individual observer, they are all moving forward in time. A day spent in the present, generally results in a day in the past. Thus when someone goes back in time to change things, you have time to go back and stop them.

Rule 2: The same being cannot exist in two places at the same time.
You can't go back and meet yourself. If you try, you are shunted forward in time to the point where there would be only one of you. You don't travel through space, only time. Thus if you screw up, it is possible to be shunted forward past the point of your own death. You cannot fool time by transforming yourself into something else, or existing only as thought or energy. Time knows and you are displaced to a point where there is no longer a conflict. For unknown reasons, this doesn't seem to apply if you are reincarnated.

Rule 3: Some things cannot change
Some things simple do not change regardless of what happens in time. Certain individuals are simply fixed and the universe changes around them. Some events simply will always be a certain way. They can only be changed in their relative present time, whenever that might be. Player characters are always fixed and no amount of mucking about in time will ever change them, for good or for bad.
In fact, it is possible to go back, Kill someone who's fixed as a baby, then return to the present to find them still alive. While the rest of the world believes they were dead and continued on as such, in the present, the target is still very much alive. It is only possible to end their lives in their 'present.' Whatever point in time that might be.

Rule 4: Changes happen going forward.
Things from the present that travel into the past as the past changes, are immune to those changes and remain unchanged if they return to the future.

Rule 5: Changes require a breaking point.
Simply going back in time and stepping on a butterfly or bumping someone on the street will almost never have far reaching effects on the flow of time. These minor changes are simply ignored as time flows over them. Before any major change is possible the breaking point must be determined. Stopping a treaty isn't always shooting the king making it, sometimes it's changing an event that happened six years previously that set the chain of events into motion that resulted in the treaty. The treaty itself may be the inescapable conclusion of previous events and thus is highly resistant to change.

Rule 6: Paradoxes resolve themselves.
If time doesn't reach a breaking point, it finds a way to reach the same results. For example, if you travel back in time and kill your grandfather before he meets your grandmother, then return to the future, you will find that you were never born, but someone a lot like you with the same attitude and outlook was born who did all the things you would have done, had you been alive. Usually when this sort of thing happens, your replacement seems to invariably hate you and wish to see you dead. Which brings us to the final rule…

Rule 7: Time doesn't like you.
Attempting to change time and alter events seems to result in random chance and events going against you. Time resists deliberate change. However, accidental or unintentional change seems to be just fine. Traveling between ages without having an agenda seems to lessen the resistance of time. Going somewhere to participate in the age without trying to make the age something it's not seems to allow the traveler more leeway. Someone trying to deliberately kill a king because of the future actions he will take is often thwarted by chance events, even to the point of being randomly shunted to another time. But someone who has no knowledge of future events from another time who tries to kill the same king for his gold, may find it goes rather easily.
For reasons unknown, intent and purpose seems to have far more influence about changes to the timeline then the results.


Have Fun.

 

[Ragmon]

Heya, simple time travel cheat:

12 Monkeys cheat: Anything you do the result will be the same cause everything already happened.
- Thus anything the players do in the past will lead to their future where they came from. (trouble shooting examples: they killed the king in his infancy, the kings parents had a baby later with the same name....simply put Bulls*** is your friend. ).

 

[meltinbradley]

Thanks guys. Apparently they just want to go back in time only to leave the world and travel somewhere that takes of time. If their not meddling around it should be all good.

 

[Ragmon]

Just thought of this,toss em into the future instead of the past. That way you don't have to worry about the players interfering with the timeline, intentionally or accidentally.

I think this way you as the DM get the artistic freedom with some plot stuff in the present, showing them some long running consequences of their actions, or give them hints about some of the present stuff you have going. And if you give them some spoilers and they change the present if they go back, no harm done, the future is changed.

Or just lock them into that timeline and you dont have to think about Back to the Future kind of changes.

 

[Dandu]

Perhaps your players discover that the reason planar travel is so hard is because a group of idiots went back in time and damaged the fabric of reality...

 

[Ragmon]

Perhaps your players discover that the reason planar travel is so hard is because a group of idiots went back in time and damaged the fabric of reality...

Perfection.

 

[was]

Maybe they discover a portal used by the abominations. Maybe they need to obtain some abomination blood to key it and have no real control over where, or when, the portal leads to. If the trip is one way, and consumes their current stock of abomination blood, new quests for additional blood would open up some unique questing opportunities.