Alternative uses for Time Stop & some questions [Archive] - Wizards Community

Alternative uses for Time Stop & some questions [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Kazbadan
08-24-05, 07:15 PM 1- I dont understand very well Time Stop. First, it says that you can affect objects that are not being held. Thats ok, what i dont get if you make a time stop while something is falling into the floor, such object is suspended in the air or not. Like: you are fighting near an house when a jar falls down from a high window on that house. You use the time stop (not for the jar! but because you need it on the fight).

What happens to the jar (suppose that its in the area of effect of the spell)? Does it get "caught" and it stops in the middle of the air? Or does it still ge falling down? What about spells that were already launched and have an area of effect? Do they still work?

What about people out of the area of effect? How do they see the scene? Do they see everything stopped except one guy (the mage) doing everything at normal speed? Can they enter the area?

YOu get the kind of problems that i have. If you can answer to that...thanks :)

2- My second problem with that spell its not exactly a problem but more of ideas for rpg. Magic in the world can have many used, not only for fights. So, what i ask its what kind of uses would you give to such a spell if you could have it. Uses in real life, uses in medieval life, uses if you were a king, a builder, a peasant, a blacksmith, etc. Such ideas wil help me improve my game, because i can "see" better what kind of things great spellcasters would do if they had Time Stop (i will open - maybe - a similar thread but for no specific spells..everyone speaks of alternate uses of other spells, anyone they want).
Coffee
08-24-05, 08:22 PM 1- I don’t understand Time Stop very well. First, it says that you can affect objects that are not being held. That’s ok, however I don’t understand if time is stopped while something is falling into the floor, such object suspended in midair.

An example: you are fighting near a house when a jar falls from a high window. You quickly cast Time Stop. What happens to the jar (suppose that it’s in the area of effect of the spell)? Does it get "caught" and stops in midair, or does it still fall? What about spells that were already cast and are still active? Do they still work?

What about people out of the area of effect? How do they see the scene? Do they see everything stopped except one guy (the mage) doing everything at normal speed? Can they enter the area?

Time Stop is a misnomer; you are actually traveling at an incredibly fast speed. As a mage casts Time Stop, then takes the 1d4+1 rounds to act as he/she sees fit, to the observers, they see the mage vanish then reappear--or not at all depending how quickly you or a DM rules the actual spell effect takes place.

In the case of your falling object example; by the time the object starts to fall from the window, the mage would not have enough time to cast Time Stop. In an ideal situation, when by chance the mage cast Time Stop as someone pushed the object from the window, the object would appear frozen in time to the eyes of the caster. Keep in mind that Time Stop is not stopping time, merely making the caster move exceptionally fast.

2- My second problem with that spell, it’s not exactly a problem but more of ideas for rpg, magic in the world can have many uses, not only for fights. What I am asking is what kind of uses would you give to such a spell if you could have it? Uses in real life, uses in medieval life, uses if you were a king, a builder, a peasant, a blacksmith, etc. Such ideas would help me improve my game, because I can "see" better kinds of things great spellcasters would do if they had Time Stop.

Time Stop is typically used if a mage is caught off guard and needs a few rounds to cast “buffing” or summoning spells. In the worse case scenario, it can be used to allow the mage to escape a certain precarious situation and still do something to prepare for a possible chase.
Kazbadan
08-24-05, 08:35 PM 1- So if the mage its caught in the middle of the sea with high waves surrounding, i suppose that when casting the time stop the waves would freeze?! is that so?

about how people view the situation:
A) Inside the area of effect:
- People around the mage will see him vanish or moving fast as Blade/Neo
- Mage will see people moving slowly like turtles

B) People out of the area of effect: well i have no idea (for some reason i made the question :) ) but know i am thinking: these guys are not affected, so they will see the mage moving at normal speed i suppose. That means that the mage will not have the 1d4+1 rounds? Btw, can someone enter the area of effect of the spell? Or act out of it? in the last case it slike i said no? i mean, the mage will not have the 1d4+1 rounds and the other people wil seem frozen, but if they are frozen out of the area that means that the spell its good for the guys out of the area because they can attack too the frozen guys inside of that area? Jesus!! so much confusion, lol!

2- Thanks for the example, but i was asking for more trivia things. More construtive uses for the time stop.
Immoral Sniper
08-24-05, 08:44 PM 1- So if the mage its caught in the middle of the sea with high waves surrounding, i suppose that when casting the time stop the waves would freeze?! is that so?

They would not freeze, simply stop moving in the perspective of the caster. It is still water.

B) People out of the area of effect: well i have no idea (for some reason i made the question ) but know i am thinking: these guys are not affected, so they will see the mage moving at normal speed i suppose. That means that the mage will not have the 1d4+1 rounds? Btw, can someone enter the area of effect of the spell? Or act out of it? in the last case it slike i said no? i mean, the mage will not have the 1d4+1 rounds and the other people wil seem frozen, but if they are frozen out of the area that means that the spell its good for the guys out of the area because they can attack too the frozen guys inside of that area? Jesus!! so much confusion, lol!

Time Stop has no area of the effect. No matter where you are it is the exact same, as the spell only affects the speed of the caster.

2- Thanks for the example, but i was asking for more trivia things. More construtive uses for the time stop.

The three main uses of time stop: escape, buff, summon. Generally not too useful other than that.
Kazbadan
08-24-05, 08:59 PM What means buff? ( in my dictionary speaks something skin? can you explain that word? thanks)

Now i see, in fact when i read the spell there is no limitations on the area of effect. Thats good because things get easy to understand! So, with time stop you are a Neo able to dodge bullets. It looks like that time stop should be more a kind of Epic Spell than a normal on, even 9th level.

I dont understand why we cannot move people or touch or harm them. I know that its for the sake (balancing) of the game, but thats the "metareason". Now i want a "physical"/magical/logical, etc reason for the fact that you cannot harm people.
2- Some uses: if you are able to cast TS (time stop) while falling down from a high place you can use it to open gates or teleport (using such spells of course).

TS can be useful if you need to cross a street without being noticed (specially if you can cast haste in yourself).

TS could be useful to avoid accidents: imagine a car/boat/rock etc coming in your direction. What to do? TS

TS could be useful to accelerate normal tasks during the day, like cooking, lol.

btw can i cast another TS while TS? Whats the effect?

waiting for more ideas
colyn kell
08-24-05, 09:09 PM Buffing youre character means casting any spell that has a possitive effect on ability scores, or saves or "to hit" modifiers.
colyn kell
08-24-05, 09:11 PM Other ideas for Time stop are any of the "cloud" spells.
But the really good one is Delayed Blast Fireball.
Kazbadan
08-24-05, 09:22 PM thanks ;)

what about the underlined questions (in my last post before this one)? Specially the last one: can i cast one time stop inside of another stop and so on? For example, cast 4 time stops in a row and win 4d4 +4 rounds (less 3 rounds fro the last 3 time stops that were casted while in the effect of the first time stop)? Is that possible or the effects dont stack? In this last case it woul mean that when cast my second TS (time stop) the first one will no longer take effect and the second one will start imeddiatly. Which one of these 2 options its the most correct?

thanks again :)
Callista
08-24-05, 09:27 PM A "physical reason" for Time Stop? I assume you mean some explanation that will work in-game, other than the "balance" reason that works for metagame.

Well, let's look at it in the way that magic seems to work.

Creatures are always harder to affect than objects. They get saves; an object doesn't. Attended objects are protected by the creature holding them.

I would say there's something about being a creature rather than an object--life-force, perhaps--that makes it harder to affect such things with magic. That includes Time Stop.

Stopping time (or at least speeding up so drastically that time seems to stop) is a very powerful effect as it is; time is fundamental to the plane you're on. There just isn't any energy left, after time has been stopped, to extend the spell and allow you to affect living creatures beyond just stopping their motion.
sineous blackspell
08-24-05, 09:34 PM casting multiple timestops while under the effect already would be a waste after your out of timestop recast it as your hasted action! :D or if for some wierd reason your arent hasted(which you should do while in timestop if you werent)you can ready your action to recast it when the current one ends!
Kazbadan
08-24-05, 09:35 PM Thanks, thats a good reason. I was thinking more or less in something similar. Now i must get sleep (2:30 am here in Portugal).

Hey guys, dont forget to answer that question about using a time stop and then casting another while in the effect of the first one (read my last post).

bye ;)
was_fired
08-24-05, 10:12 PM Basicly time stop slips you slightly outside of the time stream. In D&D creatures are special when it comes to physics so you can't pull them with you, but you can effect objects which arn't being effected by other creatures.

Multiple time stops do not stack, but instead overlap. So if you cast it once and got 4 rounds and then cast it again on your first time stopped round and end up with 2 rounds you will only have 3 rounds left. Since your first stop has 3 rounds left and your second round has 2 rounds total you take the higher number in this case 3 rounds.
Immoral Sniper
08-25-05, 07:58 AM casting multiple timestops while under the effect already would be a waste after your out of timestop recast it as your hasted action! or if for some wierd reason your arent hasted(which you should do while in timestop if you werent)

It would be important to note that since 3.5, Haste no longer gives you an extra standard action. Now shapechanging into a Choker, yes... Haste, no.
Kazbadan
08-25-05, 11:03 AM how do you know that it will overlap instead of stack? where can i get such info?

So, when someone uses TS (time stop) time will stop for him and that will stop other people to do other TSs at the same time. This is a little stupid: imagine different mages in different fights (they are not related in any way). If we have 6 mages in different parts of the planet trying to make TS, only one of them will be able to do it and the others must wait ("Hey, why cant i do the TS?").

EDIT: btw, imagine a mage using and abusing of thousands of TSs. Doing so would make him become older (or younger) than the rest of the world? How can we be shure about that?
Darken
08-25-05, 03:13 PM It's been mentioned before, but again, Time Stop does not stop time. The spell is a personal range; it speeds you up, so that relative to you, time seems to have stopped. When you cast it, you are actually doing nothing to the Time itself at all; you are just speeding yourself up. Think of it like Improved Improved Improved Haste.

So No, one mage casting Time Stop will not affect any other Mage's ability to cast Time Stop.
SureFoot
08-25-05, 03:36 PM Kazbadan:

TIME STOP DOES NOT STOP TIME. (just like Trap the Soul doesn't actually trap a soul, since it can be used on creatures without souls, like constructs). Allow me to reiterate: TIME STOP DOES NOT STOP TIME.

In the first edition, there was a 9th level spell called Time Stop which actually *did* stop time. Apparently it was considered one of the "sacred cows" of D&D so they kept the spell name while changing the spell's effect. From the SRD:

"This spell seems to make time cease to flow for everyone but you. In fact, you speed up so greatly that all other creatures seem frozen, though they are actually still moving at their normal speeds. "

That's SEEMS to make time cease to flow. A lot of confusion would have been eliminated if they made the spell's duration read what it really is: instantaneous. There's no such thing as "apparent time" anywhere in the rules--this is errata, IMHO, that should be addressed.

Your last question was, how do we know that multiple Time Stops overlap and don't stack? The best answer I can find from the SRD is this:

"Spells that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and other attributes usually do not stack with themselves. More generally, two bonuses of the same type don’t stack even if they come from different spells (or from effects other than spells; see Bonus Types, above)."

You could consider the speed the caster gains from Time Stop a bonus to speed (and thus won't stack with itself), but I suppose that migh be a stretch. (I don't think it's a stretch, but I'm not sure a strict interpretation of the rules supports me.)
Kazbadan
08-25-05, 06:14 PM Ok, now i have all the answers i need. thanks.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kazbadan 08-24-05, 07:15 PM	1- I dont understand very well Time Stop. First, it says that you can affect objects that are not being held. Thats ok, what i dont get if you make a time stop while something is falling into the floor, such object is suspended in the air or not. Like: you are fighting near an house when a jar falls down from a high window on that house. You use the time stop (not for the jar! but because you need it on the fight). What happens to the jar (suppose that its in the area of effect of the spell)? Does it get "caught" and it stops in the middle of the air? Or does it still ge falling down? What about spells that were already launched and have an area of effect? Do they still work? What about people out of the area of effect? How do they see the scene? Do they see everything stopped except one guy (the mage) doing everything at normal speed? Can they enter the area? YOu get the kind of problems that i have. If you can answer to that...thanks :) 2- My second problem with that spell its not exactly a problem but more of ideas for rpg. Magic in the world can have many used, not only for fights. So, what i ask its what kind of uses would you give to such a spell if you could have it. Uses in real life, uses in medieval life, uses if you were a king, a builder, a peasant, a blacksmith, etc. Such ideas wil help me improve my game, because i can "see" better what kind of things great spellcasters would do if they had Time Stop (i will open - maybe - a similar thread but for no specific spells..everyone speaks of alternate uses of other spells, anyone they want).
Coffee 08-24-05, 08:22 PM	1- I don’t understand Time Stop very well. First, it says that you can affect objects that are not being held. That’s ok, however I don’t understand if time is stopped while something is falling into the floor, such object suspended in midair. An example: you are fighting near a house when a jar falls from a high window. You quickly cast Time Stop. What happens to the jar (suppose that it’s in the area of effect of the spell)? Does it get "caught" and stops in midair, or does it still fall? What about spells that were already cast and are still active? Do they still work? What about people out of the area of effect? How do they see the scene? Do they see everything stopped except one guy (the mage) doing everything at normal speed? Can they enter the area? Time Stop is a misnomer; you are actually traveling at an incredibly fast speed. As a mage casts Time Stop, then takes the 1d4+1 rounds to act as he/she sees fit, to the observers, they see the mage vanish then reappear--or not at all depending how quickly you or a DM rules the actual spell effect takes place. In the case of your falling object example; by the time the object starts to fall from the window, the mage would not have enough time to cast Time Stop. In an ideal situation, when by chance the mage cast Time Stop as someone pushed the object from the window, the object would appear frozen in time to the eyes of the caster. Keep in mind that Time Stop is not stopping time, merely making the caster move exceptionally fast. 2- My second problem with that spell, it’s not exactly a problem but more of ideas for rpg, magic in the world can have many uses, not only for fights. What I am asking is what kind of uses would you give to such a spell if you could have it? Uses in real life, uses in medieval life, uses if you were a king, a builder, a peasant, a blacksmith, etc. Such ideas would help me improve my game, because I can "see" better kinds of things great spellcasters would do if they had Time Stop. Time Stop is typically used if a mage is caught off guard and needs a few rounds to cast “buffing” or summoning spells. In the worse case scenario, it can be used to allow the mage to escape a certain precarious situation and still do something to prepare for a possible chase.
Kazbadan 08-24-05, 08:35 PM	1- So if the mage its caught in the middle of the sea with high waves surrounding, i suppose that when casting the time stop the waves would freeze?! is that so? about how people view the situation: A) Inside the area of effect: - People around the mage will see him vanish or moving fast as Blade/Neo - Mage will see people moving slowly like turtles B) People out of the area of effect: well i have no idea (for some reason i made the question :) ) but know i am thinking: these guys are not affected, so they will see the mage moving at normal speed i suppose. That means that the mage will not have the 1d4+1 rounds? Btw, can someone enter the area of effect of the spell? Or act out of it? in the last case it slike i said no? i mean, the mage will not have the 1d4+1 rounds and the other people wil seem frozen, but if they are frozen out of the area that means that the spell its good for the guys out of the area because they can attack too the frozen guys inside of that area? Jesus!! so much confusion, lol! 2- Thanks for the example, but i was asking for more trivia things. More construtive uses for the time stop.
Immoral Sniper 08-24-05, 08:44 PM	1- So if the mage its caught in the middle of the sea with high waves surrounding, i suppose that when casting the time stop the waves would freeze?! is that so? They would not freeze, simply stop moving in the perspective of the caster. It is still water. B) People out of the area of effect: well i have no idea (for some reason i made the question ) but know i am thinking: these guys are not affected, so they will see the mage moving at normal speed i suppose. That means that the mage will not have the 1d4+1 rounds? Btw, can someone enter the area of effect of the spell? Or act out of it? in the last case it slike i said no? i mean, the mage will not have the 1d4+1 rounds and the other people wil seem frozen, but if they are frozen out of the area that means that the spell its good for the guys out of the area because they can attack too the frozen guys inside of that area? Jesus!! so much confusion, lol! Time Stop has no area of the effect. No matter where you are it is the exact same, as the spell only affects the speed of the caster. 2- Thanks for the example, but i was asking for more trivia things. More construtive uses for the time stop. The three main uses of time stop: escape, buff, summon. Generally not too useful other than that.
Kazbadan 08-24-05, 08:59 PM	What means buff? ( in my dictionary speaks something skin? can you explain that word? thanks) Now i see, in fact when i read the spell there is no limitations on the area of effect. Thats good because things get easy to understand! So, with time stop you are a Neo able to dodge bullets. It looks like that time stop should be more a kind of Epic Spell than a normal on, even 9th level. I dont understand why we cannot move people or touch or harm them. I know that its for the sake (balancing) of the game, but thats the "metareason". Now i want a "physical"/magical/logical, etc reason for the fact that you cannot harm people. 2- Some uses: if you are able to cast TS (time stop) while falling down from a high place you can use it to open gates or teleport (using such spells of course). TS can be useful if you need to cross a street without being noticed (specially if you can cast haste in yourself). TS could be useful to avoid accidents: imagine a car/boat/rock etc coming in your direction. What to do? TS TS could be useful to accelerate normal tasks during the day, like cooking, lol. btw can i cast another TS while TS? Whats the effect? waiting for more ideas
colyn kell 08-24-05, 09:09 PM	Buffing youre character means casting any spell that has a possitive effect on ability scores, or saves or "to hit" modifiers.
colyn kell 08-24-05, 09:11 PM	Other ideas for Time stop are any of the "cloud" spells. But the really good one is Delayed Blast Fireball.
Kazbadan 08-24-05, 09:22 PM	thanks ;) what about the underlined questions (in my last post before this one)? Specially the last one: can i cast one time stop inside of another stop and so on? For example, cast 4 time stops in a row and win 4d4 +4 rounds (less 3 rounds fro the last 3 time stops that were casted while in the effect of the first time stop)? Is that possible or the effects dont stack? In this last case it woul mean that when cast my second TS (time stop) the first one will no longer take effect and the second one will start imeddiatly. Which one of these 2 options its the most correct? thanks again :)
Callista 08-24-05, 09:27 PM	A "physical reason" for Time Stop? I assume you mean some explanation that will work in-game, other than the "balance" reason that works for metagame. Well, let's look at it in the way that magic seems to work. Creatures are always harder to affect than objects. They get saves; an object doesn't. Attended objects are protected by the creature holding them. I would say there's something about being a creature rather than an object--life-force, perhaps--that makes it harder to affect such things with magic. That includes Time Stop. Stopping time (or at least speeding up so drastically that time seems to stop) is a very powerful effect as it is; time is fundamental to the plane you're on. There just isn't any energy left, after time has been stopped, to extend the spell and allow you to affect living creatures beyond just stopping their motion.
sineous blackspell 08-24-05, 09:34 PM	casting multiple timestops while under the effect already would be a waste after your out of timestop recast it as your hasted action! :D or if for some wierd reason your arent hasted(which you should do while in timestop if you werent)you can ready your action to recast it when the current one ends!
Kazbadan 08-24-05, 09:35 PM	Thanks, thats a good reason. I was thinking more or less in something similar. Now i must get sleep (2:30 am here in Portugal). Hey guys, dont forget to answer that question about using a time stop and then casting another while in the effect of the first one (read my last post). bye ;)
was_fired 08-24-05, 10:12 PM	Basicly time stop slips you slightly outside of the time stream. In D&D creatures are special when it comes to physics so you can't pull them with you, but you can effect objects which arn't being effected by other creatures. Multiple time stops do not stack, but instead overlap. So if you cast it once and got 4 rounds and then cast it again on your first time stopped round and end up with 2 rounds you will only have 3 rounds left. Since your first stop has 3 rounds left and your second round has 2 rounds total you take the higher number in this case 3 rounds.
Immoral Sniper 08-25-05, 07:58 AM	casting multiple timestops while under the effect already would be a waste after your out of timestop recast it as your hasted action! or if for some wierd reason your arent hasted(which you should do while in timestop if you werent) It would be important to note that since 3.5, Haste no longer gives you an extra standard action. Now shapechanging into a Choker, yes... Haste, no.
Kazbadan 08-25-05, 11:03 AM	how do you know that it will overlap instead of stack? where can i get such info? So, when someone uses TS (time stop) time will stop for him and that will stop other people to do other TSs at the same time. This is a little stupid: imagine different mages in different fights (they are not related in any way). If we have 6 mages in different parts of the planet trying to make TS, only one of them will be able to do it and the others must wait ("Hey, why cant i do the TS?"). EDIT: btw, imagine a mage using and abusing of thousands of TSs. Doing so would make him become older (or younger) than the rest of the world? How can we be shure about that?
Darken 08-25-05, 03:13 PM	It's been mentioned before, but again, Time Stop does not stop time. The spell is a personal range; it speeds you up, so that relative to you, time seems to have stopped. When you cast it, you are actually doing nothing to the Time itself at all; you are just speeding yourself up. Think of it like Improved Improved Improved Haste. So No, one mage casting Time Stop will not affect any other Mage's ability to cast Time Stop.
SureFoot 08-25-05, 03:36 PM	Kazbadan: TIME STOP DOES NOT STOP TIME. (just like Trap the Soul doesn't actually trap a soul, since it can be used on creatures without souls, like constructs). Allow me to reiterate: TIME STOP DOES NOT STOP TIME. In the first edition, there was a 9th level spell called Time Stop which actually did stop time. Apparently it was considered one of the "sacred cows" of D&D so they kept the spell name while changing the spell's effect. From the SRD: "This spell seems to make time cease to flow for everyone but you. In fact, you speed up so greatly that all other creatures seem frozen, though they are actually still moving at their normal speeds. " That's SEEMS to make time cease to flow. A lot of confusion would have been eliminated if they made the spell's duration read what it really is: instantaneous. There's no such thing as "apparent time" anywhere in the rules--this is errata, IMHO, that should be addressed. Your last question was, how do we know that multiple Time Stops overlap and don't stack? The best answer I can find from the SRD is this: "Spells that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and other attributes usually do not stack with themselves. More generally, two bonuses of the same type don’t stack even if they come from different spells (or from effects other than spells; see Bonus Types, above)." You could consider the speed the caster gains from Time Stop a bonus to speed (and thus won't stack with itself), but I suppose that migh be a stretch. (I don't think it's a stretch, but I'm not sure a strict interpretation of the rules supports me.)
Kazbadan 08-25-05, 06:14 PM	Ok, now i have all the answers i need. thanks.