D&D 5E The Time Warped for Sorcerers; Unleash the Paradoxes

[Herosmith14]

Yeah, I had this one cooking for a while, and just got around to making it. During maintenance. And this doesn't have any back to the future powers. Well, I guess karma is a fitting punishment for messing with temporal mechanics.

Anyway, I thought this was a fitting Sorcerous Origin, even though I originally brainstormed it as mystic. Yeah, Time's Child is going to be annoying if you don't keep decent combat records but I thought the capstone should be some kind of time shifting, and it's next to impossible to create a future. Let me know if you have any other gripes.

Sorcerer: Time Warped​

The magic of sorcerers is always mysterious, and comes from many sources. Some wield the power of mighty dragons and storms, some become avatars of light and darkness, and others still fight to control the chaos inside of them. All manipulate the foundations of the world in some way, whether it be chaos, the morals poles, the elements, or even time itself.
Little is known about what causes the emergence of a Time Warped. Some believe it is random chance. Others say that if one is born close to a crossing to the temporally unstable Feywild may cause it. No one really knows, but one thing is certain. Time Warped sorcerers wield powers of few others.

[h=1]Temporal Archive[/h]When you choose this origin at 1st level, you have a tendency to recall events better than most. You gain proficiency in the History skill, if you don’t have it already, and you double your proficiency bonus for any Intelligence (History) checks you make.

[h=1]Time Slow[/h]At 1st level, you know how to roughly mold time in crises. When you are hit with an attack, you can use your action to move up to half your movement, and the attack misses you. This movement does not provoke opportunity attacks as you slow down time to keep yourself from harm.

[h=1]Temporal Repositioning[/h]By 6th level, you have learned how to change your placement in time. As an action, you may spend 3 sorcery points to reroll your initiative, and you end your turn, taking your next one at your new initiative.

[h=1]Temporal Stall[/h]Starting at 14th level, you have learned how to distort time in order stall your enemies. As a reaction, at the start of an enemies turn, you may force them to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the DM skips the rest of their turn, as temporal manipulation prevents them from acting.

[h=1]Time’s Child[/h]At 18th level, you have become a master of time. For every 10 years, you only physically age 1.
Also, you can turn back the clock for a short time. As an action, you may spend sorcery points to rewind a number of rounds. You may spend 6 sorcery points per round you wish to rewind. All characters, NPCs, and monsters return to the position they were at at the start of the round you rewind to, and regain all hit points, spell slots, and other limited resource abilities that were spent in that time frame. The initiative count for lair actions also rewinds, and any conditions that were bestowed or faded fade or return, respectively. You do not regain the sorcery points you spent on this ability.

 

[Coroc]

All fine up to the 18th Level skill. I suggest you replace 18th Level ability with something like a time stop spell instead.

With theoretical time travel it is like that: You know if you would fly close to lightspeed in a spacecraft time would pass slower for you than for your friends who remain on earth. Means theoretically you could "time travel" into the future w/o problems and not break any laws of the physics known today.

But traveling to the past is a different thing: Lots of paradoxes would be possible: Imagine you travel to the past and kill your former ego.
What happens then? Your former ego would die but that also means he could not travel to the past in the future because he already died.
Which means that your former ego would also not be killed by your future ego and therefore live on to create the possibility that in the future it could travel back and so on and on ... it is a rabbit hole bigger than everything.

Newest scientific research resulted in theories that on the event horizon of a super massive black hole the existence of a being could actually be divided, one half dying instantly and the other carrying on w/o noticing, other theories state the possibility that time stands still or might be even flowing backward in these surroundings, but those are theories.

On your table you need to protocol every single move and that is your RL rabbit hole, at what point in the initiative sequence does your time sorcerer enter the former round etc. Traveling to the past is not really possible to do easily even in gaming as you can see. If you got smart players they will complicate matters with that possibility.

 

[Herosmith14]

All fine up to the 18th Level skill. I suggest you replace 18th Level ability with something like a time stop spell instead.

With theoretical time travel it is like that: You know if you would fly close to lightspeed in a spacecraft time would pass slower for you than for your friends who remain on earth. Means theoretically you could "time travel" into the future w/o problems and not break any laws of the physics known today.

But traveling to the past is a different thing: Lots of paradoxes would be possible: Imagine you travel to the past and kill your former ego.
What happens then? Your former ego would die but that also means he could not travel to the past in the future because he already died.
Which means that your former ego would also not be killed by your future ego and therefore live on to create the possibility that in the future it could travel back and so on and on ... it is a rabbit hole bigger than everything.

Newest scientific research resulted in theories that on the event horizon of a super massive black hole the existence of a being could actually be divided, one half dying instantly and the other carrying on w/o noticing, other theories state the possibility that time stands still or might be even flowing backward in these surroundings, but those are theories.

On your table you need to protocol every single move and that is your RL rabbit hole, at what point in the initiative sequence does your time sorcerer enter the former round etc. Traveling to the past is not really possible to do easily even in gaming as you can see. If you got smart players they will complicate matters with that possibility.

Okay, yeah. That makes sense. A time stopping ability would also fit the fluff. Thanks.


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[Guest 6801328]

Temporal Archive

When you choose this origin at 1st level, you have a tendency to recall events better than most. You gain proficiency in the History skill, if you don’t have it already, and you double your proficiency bonus for any Intelligence (History) checks you make.


Time Slow

At 1st level, you know how to roughly mold time in crises. When you are hit with an attack, you can use your action to move up to half your movement, and the attack misses you. This movement does not provoke opportunity attacks as you slow down time to keep yourself from harm.

How many times before short/long rest?

Other, similar abilities from other classes tend to impose Disadvantage rather than making it an automatic miss. Just sayin'.

Temporal Repositioning

By 6th level, you have learned how to change your placement in time. As an action, you may spend 3 sorcery points to reroll your initiative, and you end your turn, taking your next one at your new initiative.

This is potentially cool and interesting. I can see why it would be useful to switch your initiative, but I think (maybe I'm missing something?) that its value is negated by costing you a whole action (plus three Sorcery points). What are the use cases you are thinking of? The most obvious one I'm thinking of is that you are at a low initiative count and if you can have a high initiative count on the next round that's roughly equivalent to getting two turns in quick succession. But the value of this is negated if it costs you your action, and you might still end up with a low initiative.

Maybe:
1) Make it a bonus action, so you can take your Action and then try to take your action again.
2) For each Sorcery point invested, roll 1d6 and add it to your current Initiative.

Temporal Stall

Starting at 14th level, you have learned how to distort time in order stall your enemies. As a reaction, at the start of an enemies turn, you may force them to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the DM skips the rest of their turn, as temporal manipulation prevents them from acting.

This one also needs specificity on how often it can be used. It could either be x times per short/long rest, or it could consume sorcery points or spell slots.

Time’s Child

At 18th level, you have become a master of time. For every 10 years, you only physically age 1.
Also, you can turn back the clock for a short time. As an action, you may spend sorcery points to rewind a number of rounds. You may spend 6 sorcery points per round you wish to rewind. All characters, NPCs, and monsters return to the position they were at at the start of the round you rewind to, and regain all hit points, spell slots, and other limited resource abilities that were spent in that time frame. The initiative count for lair actions also rewinds, and any conditions that were bestowed or faded fade or return, respectively. You do not regain the sorcery points you spent on this ability.

Flavor-wise I love this one, but it means that everybody...players & DM...have to always keep track of where everything was each round, and what resources (spells, HP, etc.) they are spending, just in case the Sorcerer decides to rewind time.

 

[Herosmith14]

All right, I've taken your advice and revised it. Let me know what you think.



Sorcerer: Time Warped
The magic of sorcerers is always mysterious, and comes from many sources. Some wield the power of mighty dragons and storms, some become avatars of light and darkness, and others still fight to control the chaos inside of them. All manipulate the foundations of the world in some way, whether it be chaos, the morals poles, the elements, or even time itself.
Little is known about what causes the emergence of a Time Warped. Some believe it is random chance. Others say that if one is born close to a crossing to the temporally unstable Feywild may cause it. No one really knows, but one thing is certain. Time Warped sorcerers wield powers of few others.
Temporal Archive
When you choose this origin at 1st level, you have a tendency to recall events better than most. You gain proficiency in the History skill, if you don’t have it already, and you double your proficiency bonus for any Intelligence (History) checks you make.
Time Slow
At 1st level, you know how to roughly mold time in crises. When you are hit with an attack, you can use your action to move up to half your movement, and the attack misses you. This movement does not provoke opportunity attacks as you slow down time to keep yourself from harm.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier. You gain all expended uses at the end of a long rest.
Temporal Repositioning
By 6th level, you have learned how to change your placement in time. As a bonus action, you may spend 3 sorcery points to reroll your initiative, and you end your turn, taking your next one at your new initiative.
Temporal Stall
Starting at 14th level, you have learned how to distort time in order stall your enemies. As a reaction, at the start of an enemies turn, you may force them to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the DM skips the rest of their turn, as temporal manipulation prevents them from acting.
You may use this feature twice. You regain all expended uses at the end of a short or long rest.
Time’s Child
At 18th level, you have become a master of time. For every 10 years, you only physically age 1.
Also, you can stop the clock for a time as an action. Choose a number of creatures within 60ft equal to your Charisma modifier. All creatures except you and the selected freeze in time. All timed effects do not advance while this effect is active. The selected creatures can take their turns normally, and everyone else other than you do not get turns while this effect is active. You must use your entire turn to concentrate on this effect (as if concentrating on a spell). If you stop concentrating, this effect ends. You can maintain this effect for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier.
Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you have finished a long rest.

 

[Coroc]

Quite powerful still, it sounds like the 3e Version of time stop. It should last a maximum of 1-4 rounds and legendary creatures could be immune. Unless you limit the actions on intra group actions (aka no attacks neither with weapons or spells on the creatures which are stopped) like the 5e time stop spell does. You could still e.g. heal up, do something to the environment, flee or establish distance in a fight situation.