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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    starwoof's Avatar

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    Default "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Chronomancer

    "We have to go back! Back... to the future!"

    The chronomancer is a manipulator of time and its forces, not its master. he simply understands the ebb and flow and can surf it as he pleases... to an extent. The ability to travel freely through time is a power that no mortal possesses, though a Chronomancer can visit the past as a ghost and get hints toward possible futures. They are an elite and rare corps of wizards, each one seeing the others as allies in knowledge. Most are neutral. They see it as their personal mission to stop those manipulating the flow of time with abandon and to rein in rogue Chronomancers. They adventure to gain knowledge of ancient civilizations and to gain insight as to whats coming. Chronomancers tend to be well versed on many topics.

    Requirements
    Spellcasting: Able to Cast 3rd level arcane spells
    Skills: Knowledge (History) 5 ranks, Knowledge (arcana) 5 ranks, concentration 8 ranks
    Feats: Quicken Spell or Sudden Quicken, any other metamagic spell
    Special: Must have received training from an experienced Chronomancer.

    Chronomancer
    Hit Die: d4
    Class Skills: Knowledge (all) (int), Concentration (con), Spellcraft (int), Appraise (int), Craft (int), Profession (int), Speak Language, Gather Information (cha), Decipher Script (int)
    Skill Points: 3+intelligence per level
    {table=head]Level|Base Attack[br]Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spells

    1st|
    +0
    |
    +0
    |
    +0
    |
    +2
    |Time Walk, Speed Manipulation +1, Chronological Awareness|

    2nd|
    +1
    |
    +0
    |
    +0
    |
    +3
    |Prescience|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

    3rd|
    +1
    |
    +1
    |
    +1
    |
    +3
    |Speed Manipulation +2|

    4th|
    +2
    |
    +1
    |
    +1
    |
    +4
    |Precience|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

    5th|
    +2
    |
    +1
    |
    +1
    |
    +4
    |Speed Manipulation +3|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

    6th|
    +3
    |
    +2
    |
    +2
    |
    +5
    |Prescience|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

    7th|
    +3
    |
    +2
    |
    +2
    |
    +5
    |Speed Manipulation +4|

    8th|
    +4
    |
    +2
    |
    +2
    |
    +6
    |Prescience|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

    9th|
    +4
    |
    +3
    |
    +3
    |
    +6
    |Speed Manipulation +5|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

    10th|
    +5
    |
    +3
    |
    +3
    |
    +7
    |Ultimate Chronological Manipulation, Prescience|[/table]

    Time Walk [sp]: Time Walking is the Chronomancer's primary ability. It allows the chronomancer to visit the past. When using this ability the Chronomancer may travel backwards in time a number of centuries equal to his character level x2. The chronomancer may bring along a number of creatures equal to half his chronomancer level. This ability lasts a number of hours equal to the chronomancers character level. When the time period is up the chronomancer and any creatures that have returned with him will immediately be brought back to the present, at the exact moment they left. The chronomancer does not teleport in any way, he remains in the exact same spot. If staying in the same spot would result in him entering a solid object, he will be shunted to the nearest open space, taking 1d6 damage per 10 feet he is moved. The chronomancer cannot affect the past in any way, and for all intents and purposes he is not there. He can activate items, cast spells, attack, or do anything else he could normally do, though it will not affect the past at all. Note that neither he nor any creatures he brings along are incorporeal. The chronomancer can affect other creatures that have been brought along with him as spells.He can use this ability once per week.

    Chronological Awareness [ex]: The chronomancer always knows exactly what time it is, down to the millisecond, on all possible methods of measurement.

    Prescience [su]: At every even numbered level the Chronomancer gains one of the following abilities, chosen by the chronomancer. He cannot choose a new ability if he somehow manages to travel back in time. *ahem*

    Uncanny Dodge [b](Requires Uncanny Dodge)[/b [su]]: The Chronomancer retains her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) regardless of being caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. (She still loses any Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.)

    Improved Uncanny Dodge [su]: The chronomancer can no longer be flanked. This defense denies rogues the ability to use flank attacks to sneak attack the shadowdancer. The exception to this defense is that a rogue at least four levels higher than the shadowdancer can flank her (and thus sneak attack her).

    If a character gains uncanny dodge (see above) from a second class the character automatically gains improved uncanny dodge, and the levels from those classes stack to determine the minimum rogue level required to flank the character.

    Combat Prescience [su]: The chronomancer gains a bonus to attack rolls equal to one third his chronomancer level, rounding down. This includes attack rolls for rays and the like.

    Defensive Prescience [su]: The chronomancer gains a dodge bonus to his armor class equal to one third his chronomancer level, rounding down.

    Evasion [su]:The chronomancer can avoid even magical and unusual attacks with great agility. If she makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if the chronomancer is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless chronomancer does not gain the benefit of evasion.

    Speed Manipulation [sp]: A chronomancer can use this ability a number of times per day equal to half his chronomancer level (rounding down). He may affect a number of creatures with the spell slow or haste, but with the folowing changes. The spells have a duration of one minute per level of this ability. The save DC for the spells are at +2. The range is increased to 100 ft +50 ft per level of this ability. The caster level is equal to the chronomancers arcane spellcaster level.

    Ultimate Chronological Manipulation [sp]: The chronomancer unlucks the ultimate ability of his class. Once per week he can force time to skip backwards by 12 seconds. Only he will be aware of this shift, and other creatures will act similarly to how they acted before unless given a warning. If the chronomancer can warn an ally of something then he gains a +2 insight bonus to the roll in question (such as a reflex to avoid a fireball or climb check to avoid falling). There is no save for this ability, but the chronomancer must make a DC 30 spellcraft check to activate it. Failure results in him wasting his daily use of the ability. Good uses of this ability would be to avoid a danger, stop the death of a comrade, etc.

    The chronomancer can spend a use of this ability to cast time stop instead. This is at the chronomancer's caster level (even if he couldnt normally cast time stop.


    [hr]
    Ive been woeking on this for a while, but seeign the broken and poorly formatted (sorry) other one I decided to kikc it up. Rip this apart.
    Last edited by starwoof; 2007-03-11 at 04:36 PM.
    I used to do avatars on request, feel free to use them.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    I really like the class, but it's quite powerful. Due to the amount of extra abilities, I'd tone down the spellcasting advancement. Take it out of 3 or 4 levels (have no advancement at 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th for example).

    The end ability is quite strong, but I don't see a solution at the moment. Maybe making it 1/week?

    Also, what will the people outside the 50 ft. radius notice of the effect?


    All that remains to be said: Poor DM's...
    Last edited by flawed.Perfection; 2007-03-06 at 06:15 AM.

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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Is a chronomancer's perception of time frozen in the past when using Time Walk? If not, what happens when someone walks through him?

    If a chronomancer visits the same time twice, what happens? Can he relay information to his past self that way if he meets himself face to face?
    Last edited by Jothki; 2007-03-06 at 06:58 AM.

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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Yeah, it's probably too strong for full spellcasting progression. Also, the skill points he gets are "3+Int"? Is that intentional? And where is the class feature Speed Time?
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    Ogre in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    I've seen a very similar class under the same name that was epic level, and due to the effect of the class, I can't honestly justify a less than epic level class devoted to Chronomancy.
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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    MindFlayer

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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    I agree with Logic completely. At least, you should rase the prereqs so they would have to be considerably higher than 5th level. It is cool, and i was planning to make an epic time-ish kinda guy, so this might be a nice prc for them to use.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    I understand the calls of epic, but I have a good reason to not make an epic PRC. I dont *do* epic. Ever. I dont understand it and its broken as hell.

    Ah, speed time was not meant to be there.

    Time passes when time walking.

    Re-do and time stop are made to be once a week.

    3+int is intentional. Chronomancers pick up skills in their travels and really, 2 skill points just sucks.

    Spellcasting progression is reduced a bit.
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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    dragon 350 (i think) says that time magic should be hard to find and even harder to learn.
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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Thats what inspired me. I included the part about needing to be trained by an experienced Chronomancer for a reason, you know.
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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    So go back in time and train yourself ;)

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    Ogre in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Quote Originally Posted by Latronis View Post
    So go back in time and train yourself ;)
    Can't. With TIme Walk, you only observe.
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    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    I love it. You have to put in some numbers for Ultimate Chronological Manipulation though. what kind of bonus does someone get if you shout out what their opponent is about to do? Of course if they can understand you they'd just do something else anyways. If you warn your party of a fireball while he casts it, what bonus do you all get to your reflex save? etc etc.

    Excellent class, and pulled of with no paradoxical time problems! woohoo!

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    HalfOrcPirate

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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Key question:

    When you go back in time and shout, "Duck, it's a trap!" does your friend re-roll his Ref save, or does he simply add +2 to the roll he already made? I imagine it's the former (as otherwise the ability would rarely be useful), but given the paradoxes involved in time travel, you might want to specify that a new roll is made, with a +2 insight bonus applied.

    Also, you might want to add that if your friend rolls a natural 1 on his re-rolled Ref save, he turns to you and says "My name's not Duck" just before being impaled by the great scythe which comes out of the wall.

    A second, more serious question: you describe Time Walk as enabling Chronomancers to visit the past without any possibility of disturbing the past. Yet the Chronomancer and his companions aren't incorporeal. What are they? By what mechanism (beyond DM fiat) are they prevented from affecting the past? This ability definitely needs some fluff to make it feel plausible.

    Taken literally, the inabilty of Time Walking Chonomancers to afffect the past world would seem to impede their gathering of information: how do they open doors? how do they turn the pages of books they find?

    Also, given that Chronomancers cannot affect the past with their Time Walk, I was puzzled by the fact that they see it as their duty "to stop those manipulating the flow of time with abandon and to rein in rogue Chronomancers." For none of the powers which you grant to Chronomancers would seem to enable them to mess up the flow of time.

    Finally, where's the joy of time travel if there's no possibility of generating a time paradox? Given that nearly every movie, book or TV show which features time travel has a plot that centers on a time paradox, it seems perverse to create a role-playing scenario where time paradoxes have been ruled out.

    I wonder if you might modify Time Walk so that the Chronomancer gradually gains greater capacity to change the past as she gains levels. Thus, the capstone ability of "Ultimate Chronological Manipulation" is subsumed into Time Walk as simply the only legal application of Time Walk once you've gained the ability to impact the past when you travel back in time.

    In this version, Time Walk can affect just the chronomancer or himself and a number of creatures = 1/2 his level. But only the chronomancer can act in such a way as to affect the past, and he only gains this ability at higher levels.

    As for the fluff explanation for why you can't affect the past, I can think of two possibilities:
    1) you're incorporeal (perhaps some different kind of incorporeal than the incorporeality of ghosts: call it a time spectre). If you play it this way, the chronomancer and his companions can move through doors and read open books, but cannot manipulate objects which are part of the past world.
    2) you and your companions are in a time bubble: a time-stopped past moment. If you play it this way, the chronomancer and his companions can open doors, read books, etc., but cannot witness the words and actions of past individuals, except as freeze-frame statues. This version has the advantage of building upon an extant spell (Time Stop); it also offers a means of affecting the past even at low levels, for the Chronomancer might leave a message written in chalk, or steal a spellbook. Of course, such activities would be considered illegal by the Chronomaster guild, and that's precisely the point. Unless there's the possibility of messing up royally, much of the fun goes out of time travel stories.

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    But Marty, you must be careful to never encounter yourself, for you see, the consequences could catastrophic!! You could collapse time space continuoum all the way unto itself!!! Great Scotts!

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    Dwarf in the Playground
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Quote Originally Posted by henebry View Post
    2) you and your companions are in a time bubble: a time-stopped past moment. If you play it this way, the chronomancer and his companions can open doors, read books, etc., but cannot witness the words and actions of past individuals, except as freeze-frame statues. This version has the advantage of building upon an extant spell (Time Stop); it also offers a means of affecting the past even at low levels, for the Chronomancer might leave a message written in chalk, or steal a spellbook. Of course, such activities would be considered illegal by the Chronomaster guild, and that's precisely the point. Unless there's the possibility of messing up royally, much of the fun goes out of time travel stories.
    You could also switch the body of a dying friend with a clone in order to stop him from being disintegrated by a collosal interstellar porcupine. Cronomancy is awesome.
    Quote Originally Posted by Indon View Post
    "Okay, roll a sunder attempt. Do you have a ghost touch weapon? Abstract concepts are incorporeal, don't you know."

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    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Quote Originally Posted by henebry View Post
    A second, more serious question: you describe Time Walk as enabling Chronomancers to visit the past without any possibility of disturbing the past. Yet the Chronomancer and his companions aren't incorporeal. What are they? By what mechanism (beyond DM fiat) are they prevented from affecting the past? This ability definitely needs some fluff to make it feel plausible.
    I read it as "You can do whatever you want, but nothing's different when you return." So you could travel back in time and kill Hitler and your grandfather, but when you come back, WWII still happened, people still use the name "Nazi" to talk about every stickler for the rules, and you were still born.
    Quote Originally Posted by Winterwind View Post
    Mewtarthio, you have scared my brain into hiding, a trembling, broken shadow of a thing, cowering somewhere in the soothing darkness and singing nursery rhymes in the hope of obscuring the Lovecraftian facts you so boldly brought into daylight.

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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    HalfOrcPirate

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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Quote Originally Posted by Mewtarthio View Post
    I read it as "You can do whatever you want, but nothing's different when you return." So you could travel back in time and kill Hitler and your grandfather, but when you come back, WWII still happened, people still use the name "Nazi" to talk about every stickler for the rules, and you were still born.
    Possibly so. But if so, where's the fun in that? Aside from enabling sports fans to actually see how Mark McGwire would stack up to Babe Ruth. Or how your PC would stack up against one of the heroes of the golden age from early in the campaign's history. To my mind, the fun of time travel lies primarily in the peril of time paradoxes.

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    Troll in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    I'm trying to think of a way to make money out of this class. Ultimate Chronological Manipulation simply doesn't send you far back enough to cheat at the lottery, seeing as they take at least half a minute to pick up all the numbers.
    Last edited by UglyPanda; 2007-03-27 at 10:13 AM.

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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    HalfOrcPirate

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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    If everything is re-rolled when you go back in time, enabling your friend to re-roll his Ref save, presumably re-rolling includes the outcome of the lottery.

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    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Quote Originally Posted by henebry View Post
    Possibly so. But if so, where's the fun in that? Aside from enabling sports fans to actually see how Mark McGwire would stack up to Babe Ruth. Or how your PC would stack up against one of the heroes of the golden age from early in the campaign's history. To my mind, the fun of time travel lies primarily in the peril of time paradoxes.
    Well, you can go back in time, do whatever you feel like doing (beat the crap out of your boss, for instance), then return to the present with no reprecussions. Or you can "re-do" a failed mission to practice different methods of performing it (you'll have to kill your past selves, of course, but none of it really matters).

    Quote Originally Posted by UglyPanda View Post
    I'm trying to think of a way to make money out of this class. Ultimate Chronological Manipulation simply doesn't send you far back enough to cheat at the lottery, seeing as they take at least half a minute to pick up all the numbers.
    Gambling. Particularly fast-moving games like roulette. "I put it all on red." "Oh! It came up Black 14!" *Ultimate Chronological Manipulation!* "I put it all on Black 14."

    Heck, the once-per-week thing actually makes this more fun: Imagine some random stranger waltzing into your casino, placing $50,000 on Black 14, winning, then immediately cashing his chips in and walking out nonchalantly.

    Quote Originally Posted by henebry View Post
    If everything is re-rolled when you go back in time, enabling your friend to re-roll his Ref save, presumably re-rolling includes the outcome of the lottery.
    No, only things you affect are rerolled, like the power Time Regression (which this ability basically is, except more powerful and with no XP cost).
    Quote Originally Posted by Winterwind View Post
    Mewtarthio, you have scared my brain into hiding, a trembling, broken shadow of a thing, cowering somewhere in the soothing darkness and singing nursery rhymes in the hope of obscuring the Lovecraftian facts you so boldly brought into daylight.

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    Halfling in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    This looks sweet, even though I can see many many potential situations for abuse.

    But, I guess if you're creative enough to abuse time, you deserve the ability to abuse it.
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    Titan in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: "We have to go back! Back... to the future!" [Prestige Class]

    Have you read the (A)D&D Chronomancer Supplement?
    It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one’s own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between.

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