Partially Used: Time Stop

Given all the discussion that's been going on with the ever so controversial change to Time Stop, I figured maybe we could consolidate the ideas and discussion to one thread? (Pretty please ?)

Anyhows, here's my take on it.

The real issue with Time Stop, as originally implemented, is twofold. 1) It stops the entire server. This has been addressed and now affects only the caster's area. All fine and dandy. 2) The caster is an untouchable cannon of death for those 9 seconds. Hasted, a caster can simply cast Time Stop every 3 spells and have little to no opposition from ANY enemy. This is the major broken factor and the one that should be directly addressed.

Addressing that issue can be done in a number of ways, one of which, as we've seen, makes the spell near useless : Add a saving throw.

My suggestion is to allow the spell to work without a saving throw, keep it limited to the caster's area and simply add a 1 turn cooldown timer (I.E. 1 minute real time). It allows for the spells purpose, an emergnecy "oh crap" button to give the caster a few moments, but prevents the spell from being spammed as an invincible barrier of death.

If you're really determined to keep the saving throw, make all affected creatures make 3 saving throws, one of each kind, to avoid the effects. Still, I'm by far not in favor of this change, but it would make most enemies hard-pressed to actually resist it, though that goes for allies as well.

I'm sure there are other options that I'm forgetting here, but I personally prefer the cooldown timer, as it maintains the spell in it's best state and nerfs it enough to prevent overpowering.

Having timestop do all three saves would actually make the spell far easier to resist, especially at epic levels where the creatures have good saves. Not only does it remove the tactic of targeting a creature's weak save, it gives them 2 more chances to resist. They might roll 1's on two of their saves, but if just one succeeds... that's a save made. If even roll a 20 on 1 save, the other two rolls still don't matter even if they failed the save...

I wouldn't mind a "cool down", but if that happens, I would DEFINITELY want some sort of VFX on the caster or some other method of knowing how long is left on the cool down.... it would really suck big time to blow a 9th level slot because you miscounted that 1 minute cool down by a second or two in the heat of battle.

No no, the three saves was meant that you have to succeed ALL THREE to resist, not the other way around. I apologize if that was misleading.

I am not really a fan of the cooldown idea. The save does definitely need to go, though.

Its a 9th level spell, it is supposed to be very powerful. And Timestop is a purely defensive spell, with a very short duration. Even a 40th level caster is only getting a couple rounds out of it, no matter what.

A cooldown creates the issue of failed castings as Manny mentioned, and 60 seconds (ie. ten rounds) is practically an eternity to be locked out of an emergency button in a dangerous fight. Imagine if there were a 10 round cooldown on Asis full healing potions? How useful would they be in epic-level boss fights (such as the Balor Nemesis)? Not very.

The caster is only a cannon of death during a Timestop, if they would also be a cannon of death without using Timestop, anyways. Timestop itself doesnt make them more deadly. It makes them harder/impossible to smear into a fine red paste for a short time per cast.

Even if a caster wants to "spam" it, how many times will most casters they be able to based on spell slots? And if they use all of their 9th level slots for Timestop, that would also mean they arent able to use any other 9th level spells. Thats a major trade off.

I think it just needs the save removed, and to affect all targets in the area. That will make it balanced.

I second dave on this one.

Showing my ignorance: wasn't there some kind of non-aggression restriction on the real PnP timestop? Would it be unbalanced to allow the panic button to be defensive? So the Mage can't launch a barrage of queued up missile storms with an interspersed ts to become the untouchable cannon; rather the ts allows for setting up defenses/escape and/or a few force walls or barriers, etc.

I don't use it myself, so my suggestions are all needing a grain of salt, but it may make for a balance of sorts. No saves, no cooldown, but no direct enemy damage, either.

From the text off the dndwiki.com (which has 3.5 rules listed I think)

"
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. You are free to act for 1d4+1 rounds of apparent time. Normal and magical fire, cold, gas, and the like can still harm you. While the time stop is in effect, other creatures are invulnerable to your attacks and spells; you cannot target such creatures with any attack or spell. A spell that affects an area and has a duration longer than the remaining duration of the time stop have their normal effects on other creatures once the time stop ends. Most spellcasters use the additional time to improve their defenses, summon allies, or flee from combat.

You cannot move or harm items held, carried, or worn by a creature stuck in normal time, but you can affect any item that is not in another creature’s possession.

You are undetectable while time stop lasts. You cannot enter an area protected by an antimagic field while under the effect of time stop. "

A_Vagabond wrote:Showing my ignorance: wasn't there some kind of non-aggression restriction on the real PnP timestop? Would it be unbalanced to allow the panic button to be defensive? So the Mage can't launch a barrage of queued up missile storms with an interspersed ts to become the untouchable cannon; rather the ts allows for setting up defenses/escape and/or a few force walls or barriers, etc.

I don't use it myself, so my suggestions are all needing a grain of salt, but it may make for a balance of sorts. No saves, no cooldown, but no direct enemy damage, either.

They did that in 3.5 edition D&D. Killed the spell. Basically makes Timestop an escape spell. Going ethereal achieves the same goal, with a longer duration, with a lower level spell slot. Timestop was never intended to be solely for escape. It is a 9th level defensive spell designed for use in deadly combats, and was a way for the caster to erect a powerful (if short-lived) defense that did not fade as soon as they performed a hostile act (though it fades soon after).

Make it solely an escape spell, and you may as well not have the spell at all, because it just becomes a 9th level Greater Sanctuary with a crap duration.

In Aenea, uses D&D 3.0 rules in most cases, and Timestop allowed for offensive acts, they just don't take effect until the Timestop ended. So you could cast a few offensive spells, and they would all take effect the instant time resumed... but while the timestop was active, you couldn't actually kill anything.

Yeah as Manny's post shows.... 3.5E Timestop was a waste of a 9th level spell slot.

Here is the 3.0E description:

"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. You are free to act for 1d4+1 rounds of apparent time. Normal and magical fire, cold, gas, and the like can still harm you. While the Timestop is in effect, other creatures are invulnerable to your attacks and spells; however you can create spell effects and leave them to take effect when the Timestop spell ends. (The spell's durations do not begin until the Timestop is over.)

You cannot move or harm items held, carried, or worn by a creature stuck in normal time, but you can affect any item that is not in another creature's possession.

You are undetectable while Timestop lasts. You cannot enter an area protected with an Antimagic Field, or by Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law, or by a Magic Circle spell, while under the effects of Timestop."

Whelp, how about making it so that you can't cast another Time Stop while one is active? Maybe the magic just can't be stacked like that? It accomplishes the cool down without needing the timing issues, they can be chained, but with a momentary return to realtime, which means the caster can be *mostly* untouchable, but not wholly if the timing of the opponent is perfect and lucky. Allow any spell or action to take place, to counteract the non-stacking, and this allows the spell to retain its utility at 9th level without being the end-all.

Maybe?

Maybe I am reading the intent wrong, but it seems like the idea of a cooldown, or the idea of not allowing offensive spells, or not allowing chained/stacked Timestops is to basically make the spellcaster in question vulnerable despite their usage of a 9th level purely defensive spell with an extremely short duration.

That more or less defeats the purpose of the spell. Its supposed to make the caster pretty much untouchable so they can safely cast a few spells.

If the caster uses multiple 9th level slots to extend that timestop, why should they be forced to be vulnerable if they spend the slots and complete the castings?

What is worse- a hasted caster who is in greater sanctuary who fires off back to back Wail of the Banshee spells and insta-kills 20 or more enemies before they can even react, or a caster who casts Timestop, Haste, Greater Missile Storm, Timestop, Greater Missile Storm, Greater Missile Storm, Timestop, Greater Missile Storm, and then another Greater Missile storm to kill those same enemies?

If you ask me, the first one is more powerful. Its 20+ kills with one 3rd, one 8th, and two 9th level spells(one of which was probably not needed) in the span of maybe 5 seconds. The second one is 20+ kills with one 3rd, five 5th, and three 9th level spells over the course of almost 30 seconds. Timestop is much less efficient both in spell slot usage, and in length of combat.... but the trade-off is that it makes the caster near untouchable.

I don't think it can fairly be called the end-all, simply because it doesnt kill or even harm the enemies for the caster.... the caster still has to make that happen all by themselves... timestop just makes them safe while they try to do it.

Timestop isnt a spell that would be cast (or at least make any difference)in a trivial fight, its just not needed. If the caster can overwhelm the enemy in a timestop, they can do so without it. Timestop is a spell that is designed for fights where not being able to have 2 or 3 spells cast in safety is the difference between life and death. Sometimes, in really tough fights, even 2-3 spells might not get the job done, and if a 9th level slot is being burnt each time that caster wants a few seconds of safety, they should get it.

If the caster can overwhelm the enemy in a timestop, they can do so without it. Timestop is a spell that is designed for fights where not being able to have 2 or 3 spells cast in safety is the difference between life and death.

This is where I disagree. Take the wail caster as you described. The fact of the matter is that if that same caster used Time Stop then 2 wails, then Time Stop again, then finish off whatever stragglers lived by some odd chance, it becomes a much different story than the missile storms.

Now let's take this to the extreme. The 'last' area of the Dark Realm - the big bad biatch that lives down there that can tear through all but the thickest of defenses and is a real pain in the arse to even hurt, let alone kill. That's a fight that no instant kill can solve, and damage is hard to come by. - Now, let's put a level 40 Sorcerer with maxed CHA and all that, and assume that he has, say, 15 level 9 Spell slots (He's put a few on custom gear after all)

That comes up to 30 free cast, perfectly safe, spells for him to down that biatch with. In those 30 casts, I can, using my standard, 'Spam Tempest's Rolling Thunder and watch the sonic damage pile up' tactic, nearly kill the entire group, and severly damage the boss. Since the AoE, DoT applies while inside the Time Stop effect, the creatures have to sit there and take it. Effectively, using Time Stop, I've taken what would be a probably lethal group of enemies and made something along the lines of kittens out of them (Yes, that's an immense exaggeration, but I think you see my point)

All that being said, Yes, you lose your level 9 spell slots, but I hardly use them in the first place. There's almost no useful spell for damaging a lot of the creatures that it would be worth while to Time Stop for in the first place with any 9th level spell. A Stilled/Silent Horrids would be the only thing I could possibly use it for, and even that's a stretch.

Yes, this entire circumstance is under what I view as 'optimal' conditions. And yes, others would view some other set of spells to kill this group with as what they feel is 'optimal'. But regardless of what your pick of spells is, the principle is largely the same. 9th Level spells, bar Instant Death, are still largely lackluster in comparison to many lower level spells.

Ice Storm has no save and no real cap to damage (going to something along the lines of 15d6 damage with no save) and that's a 4th level spell. Tempest's Rolling Thunder does a huge amount of damage over it's duration, and that's a less resistable damage type by and large. Once again, 4th level spell. What is in 9th level? Meteor Swarm? Ok, 25d6 damage, but that's a relatively easy to resist damage type and has a Reflex save to boot. Beyond that you have Grappling Hand, ok, not that useful in this situation, Mords, again, practically useless here, and what else? Gate? Now there's a laugh - and the odds of BBoD killing anything are slim to none. And Energy drain is just as useless here with many of these creature's insane saves on top of probably immunity to level drain. Shapechange, just about as much of a joke as Gate. Dominate Monster is useless against these things, and Power Word: Kill is almost as useless with it's terrible HP range.

Overall, yes, the odds are that the caster can just as easily obliterate the creatures without Time Stop, but casters, by and large (though less now with the Epic Magic, but that's beside the point) are squishy. Plain and simple, they are fragile if they've entirely focused they're abilities towards casting.

I'm not saying that your argument is without merit, because it is (IMHO) just as much a factor into what is finally done with Time Stop as I feel my point is. What I'm saying is that I feel there needs to be some sort of balanace to prevent the spamming of Time Stop in such a situation.

How is mord's useless?

It dispels buffs, and lowers SR. Some casters *need* mords to be able to affect high SR creatures like the nemesis, and even with mords the nemesis can resist the spell.

I could also point out how many of the other spells you stated as useless are far from such, but that's really a discussion about other spells, not timestop. Not everyone is ascended, or has custom gear loaded out to maximize their builds, and even those characters WITH ascension and custom gear loadout can (and do) get a lot of use out of those spells. Custom gear loadouts and specific character builds really should not involved in discussions on spell balance either.

As for timestop itself...

No, DoT spells do not actually apply during a timestop. The spell description as listed above for both 3.0 and 3.5 versions is very explicit on that fact.

As for if it's balanced... let's use the timestop+wail X2 example. Substitute darkness for timestop, and for this argument, no ultravision or true seeing on the enemies. 17th level caster. 2nd level spell that lasts a little over a minute and a half vs a 9th level spell that lasts 9 seconds. How about barrier of force? A 5th(?) level spell that lasts 17 minutes vs a 9th level spell that lasts 9 seconds. They both accomplish the exact same objective.

Hell, if you ask me, baring TS/Ultravision enemies, darkness trumps every other spell out there for the purpose of keeping the caster safe.

Timestop does one basic thing, it keeps the enemies from attacking the caster. It doesn't damage, it doesn't debuff. There's a load of other spells that do this exact same thing, plus they damage, they debuff, they impose other various penalties, they have much much longer durations.

Granted there's ways to avoid/resist them, but then again, they are also lower level spells, and are doing FAR more than just a 9 second breather.

Let me just state that those spell's usefulness was strictly limited to the situation given in Dark Realm. I thought I had been rather clear with that, and if not I apologize. In fact, almost all of that was given that situation and was meant to bring out the most drastic of circumstances to show it's capabilities. Furthermore, I realize entirely that all spells usefulness is situational - in the right spot a spell can be the best thing in the world, in the wrong spot, entirely useless. It's a matter of finding what you like

The DoT's applying in Time Stop was referring to the NwN engine which has no choice but to apply the effects regardless of whether or not Time Stop is in effect. After all, we are playing NwN with rules Based On 3.0, thus certain things can't be applied quite the same way. THis is one that would either be impossible or a scripting nightmare (and resource comsuming devil) to achieve.

Kitten, aside from your example making some rather extreme assumptions (assuming a spell should be balanced for characters with maxed out casting stats and fifteen 9th level spell slots would be a rather large mistake) go ahead and use the same scenario and substitute Greater Sanctuary for Timestop, and you have nearly the exact same situation, with a 2-3 second window of vulnerability between each damage spell and the following Greater Sanctuary cast (and a lot more time to do things in between damage spells like buff, summon creatures, heal, run away etc.)

Or, a few well-placed Barriers of Force can provide essentially the same benefit without allowing that couple second gap of vulnerability.

The difference with Timestop would be the much shorter duration (a couple rounds as opposed to more than 17 minutes) and the elimination of the few second gap.

Thats not a very large benefit (the shorter duration nearly makes it a penalty) for using a 9th level as opposed to an 8th level spell, or a few 4th level spells. Timestop needs to provide that benefit, or Greater Sanctuary/Barriers of Force are the better defensive spells overall, and Timestop becomes a waste in comparison.

And also, your assessment of Bigby's Crushing Hand is a ways off the mark. That spell is gold in any boss fight. Ancient Dragons, Gron, Elder Beholder, Nemesis, Horazona, Vampire Elders, Dracoliches, you name it. One of the very best all around 9th level spells, hands down (pun intended). 17 to 40 rounds of immobility for the baddie, possibly with damage added in, and no saving throw.

Also, this made me Lol:

This is where I disagree. Take the wail caster as you described. The
fact of the matter is that if that same caster used Time Stop then 2
wails, then Time Stop again, then finish off whatever stragglers lived
by some odd chance, it becomes a much different story than the missile
storms.

The difference being that caster wasted a couple extra 9th level slots on enemies that were already dead? The missile storm example would have been around maybe 250 damage which is not enough damage to kill some tougher baddies who would be much more likely to fall to a single Wail, much less back to back Wails. Lets say two wails doesnt kill them all, and rather than timestop, lets have the caster use Greater Sanctuary in between the Wail combos. Look at that.... same outcome.... but Timestop would be too powerful, eh?

I dont think so.

Don't forget, I have lived without Timestop in Aenea since Day One. There is not a single player of an Arcane Caster on the server who has logged more time before it was added back than I have.

I have been through every challenging encounter there is without it. Even before I had crazy stats and custom gear, I was able to dominate those fights. And the fights that still presented a danger would only present slightly less of one if I had been able to chain/stack 7 Timestops (and eat up all but 1 or 2 of my 9th level slots)

I wouldn't be advocating for Timestop to be at full power if I didn't have personal experience and a good amount of time spent pondering and testing to back it up.

Timestop is supposed to be the most powerful, effective, and reliable defense spell a high level arcane caster has. It should be, because it sits on the highest level of spells, has the shortest duration per cast of any defensive spell in the game, and has no additional benefit other than protecting the caster from being attacked.

Simply put, if we don't have the spell at full power, we might as well not have it at all. There are several spells and/or combos of spells of lower level and/or longer duration that will allow the caster to get more done with less.

To the comment that 9th level spell slots cannot be used for decent attack spells in the boss encounters in the Dark Realm:

Telemus Arcanum IX (around 120 dmg, no save)
Silent Horrid Wilting (average 90 damage in a colossal area, no evasion)
Quickened Greater Missile Storm (average 50 damage in a colossal area, no save)
Maximized Otiluke's Freezing Ray (120 dmg, no save)
Silent Glacius' Hypothermia (average 90 dmg in colossal area, no evasion)
Empowered Disintegrate (for killing minions like Balor Shaman, Barbed Demons, etc)
Empowered Finger of Death (for killing minions like Balor Shaman, Barbed Demons, etc)
Maximized Dissonance (for killing minions like Balor Shaman, Barbed Demons, etc)

If you want to spam Timestop, you give up all of these offensive options for those 9th level slots.

Edit: In response to the "But what if a caster doesnt have those metamagic feats?" argument, I submit that this would be an issue of their build limiting their options, not an issue of, or relevant to, the Timestop spell.

evilkittenofdoom wrote:Let me just state that those spell's usefulness was strictly limited to the situation given in Dark Realm. I thought I had been rather clear with that, and if not I apologize. In fact, almost all of that was given that situation and was meant to bring out the most drastic of circumstances to show it's capabilities. Furthermore, I realize entirely that all spells usefulness is situational - in the right spot a spell can be the best thing in the world, in the wrong spot, entirely useless. It's a matter of finding what you like

The DoT's applying in Time Stop was referring to the NwN engine which has no choice but to apply the effects regardless of whether or not Time Stop is in effect. After all, we are playing NwN with rules Based On 3.0, thus certain things can't be applied quite the same way. THis is one that would either be impossible or a scripting nightmare (and resource comsuming devil) to achieve.

No problem.

BUt the problem is, still, you based that specific single situation with what you would choose. I would, and have, used grasping hand on the nemesis. I've even used BBoD when I was out of bigbies and needed a breather... point being, the situation isn't quite as you painted it to be.

And as for using that specific situation or any highly specific situation that represents less than 1% of the possible fight scenarios a PC will come across... Use a wall spell in place of timestop.

You got the same problem.... lets the caster throw spells at the nemesis with 100% impunity. NOt only that, but it's a lower level spell, longer duration spell. Should that indicate that barrier spells should be tweaked down?

And as for the DoT, I double checked last night... loaded up a HoTU save right before that big demon battle... laid out every single DoT AoE I had, plus some non damaging but status effecting AoEs, and then put up a chain of timestops. There wasn't a single point of damage taken while timestop was in effect by anyone, nor were there any saving throws or such for the non-damaging AoE's. Simply... the engine seemed to handle it quite fine.

The time stop spell/effect in NWN will stop time for everything except the caster normally. It works great in a single-player module. The difficulty in multiplayer is that the default script stops everything in the module...definitely not good for any other players that might be on the other side of the game world and may wonder why their game suddenly froze (server crash? serious lag? NWN crash? loss of connection? oh...time stop...durn wizards...).

The current version of the script works only on the caster's area by freezing all the creatures in the area rather than applying a "time stop" effect (since the effect can't be set to only affect anything but the entire module).

I'll be improving on it when I get to the spell in my script recoding.

I've decided to redo the scripting for time stop tonight.

Here's what I'm looking at for the actual effects:

When cast, it freezes all creatures in the caster's area (except the caster!) for the duration, with no save, no spell resistance (to simulate the spell speeding up the caster, rather than actually stopping time). Affected creatures will be unable to act, but will be granted immunity to damage types associated with weapons for the duration (bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing)...making them basically immune to being smacked with a weapon, but not immune to spells the caster may unleash during the duration.

The duration will be set at 1 round per 10 caster levels (min. 2 rounds)...so 2 rounds at caster levels 17-29, 3 rounds at levels 30-39, and 4 rounds for pure level 40 sorcerers/wizards.

The spell will be unaffected by metamagic (you can't extend it, and it doesn't do any damage or allow a save, and its already 9th level, so there's no reason).

Since it is supposed to be speeding up the caster for the duration, I'm thinking of having it not work if caster is under the effect of a haste spell (although quickened spells would still work normally) (or perhaps having it remove the haste effect right when cast, so that a 3rd level spell isn't preventing the casting of a 9th level spell). A bit of balancing, so that a caster can't get off 4-8 uncontested spells during the duration without investing in Quicken Spell.

Edit: Oh, and since this makes limited use of a variable on the "frozen" creatures (for tracking if a creature has been affected or not), you might want to wait on casting a 2nd time stop until the first expires, or else you may find that the stopped creatures end up being able to act for a round or so in the middle.

I see you want quicken spell to be more attractive. It really strikes me that this isn't the way to accomplish that. No spell should be "balanced" with a particular feat choice or character build in mind. Basically it will penalize casters who do not have quicken spell, by wasting half of the Timestop duration and dispelling their existing Haste.

That really seems a poor way to work it. What kind of powerful 9th level buff actually dispels another buff?

As you stated, there is no problem with the caster getting 4-8 spells off... they just have to have made a particular build choice? I think leaving Haste alone and just limiting the duration to 3 rounds is perfectly fine.

And then there is the "have to wait for it to end, so you can be vulnerable before you can use it again" part. So... why wouldn't somebody just use Greater Sanctuary instead, if they are going to risk getting smacked either way? What benefit does that 9th level slot offer over the 8th level slot?

Regarding the limit on casting again: neverrmind...I had thought there was a small chance of an overlap causing an issue, but writing it out I figured it won't actually happen. It wasn't something I wanted to have happen, and it appears it won't anyway.

As far as breaking an existing haste spell, I figured that the way the spell supposedly works is "speeding up" the caster a lot, which overlaps with haste. I don't have a huge problem with leaving haste alone...by the time casters are casting multiple time stops and long-duration hastes, "simple" combat balance is pretty much an impossible mess.

I had intended it to balance concerns I thought I was seeing from various players in this thread. I guess that's what I get for skimming (honestly, I don't actually read the entire posts when you guys get into long debates about game mechanics, the differences between spells in different PnP editions, differences between PnP and NWN, the mechanics of spells in default NWN, and the five dozen different scenerios where the same spells are useless/overpowered/balanced/etc.).

Well joyous news on the overlap then

One way I can see to "reward" players with Quicken Spell would be to grant their Timestops an extra round of duration.

So the base duration at 17th level is 2 rounds, pure 40th level casters get an extra round, and casters with the Quicken Spell feat get an extra round, because they are trained at getting more of their casting done in less time and can make the speed increase last a bit longer (they use the chunk of 'free time' from the spell more efficiently). So the maximum would still be 4 rounds, but folks who dont have quicken spell wouldnt be losing their haste (and half of the spellcasting opportunities as a result).

I do agree high-level magical combat tends toward dizzying numbers of permutations. That's actually part of the charm for me

Nothing really on Time-Stop here, but perhaps grant Quicken +2 or some such for each invested feat as a Init bonus, or some like effect. It has always bothered me that Haste was always better than these feats.