Not so New Level 9 Arcane Spell: Timestop

[Surrealistik]

One of the most iconic level 9 DnD spells is missing! While I understand that this is surely due to balance and workability concerns, Timestop can be modified into a viable, and reasonably powered spell. I thus present the following:

Timestop

Spell Information
Spell level: Innate level: 9, Sorcerer/Wizard: 9, Other: Cleric with Time domain 9
School: Transmutation
Components: Verbal, Material and Somatic
Range: Personal
Target/Area: 5 feet/caster level radius centred on caster
Duration: 0.6 seconds/caster level
Applicable Metamagic: Extend Spell, Quicken Spell
Cast Time: 6 seconds
Cooldown: 60 seconds (120 seconds if Extended)
Save: None
Spell resistance: No

Freezes all enemies, objects (includes traps, doors, boxes, etc...) in a stasis field in a large area of effect around the caster (5 feet per caster level) for the duration of the spell. Frozen enemies and objects cannot act or trigger, and cannot hear, see or otherwise sense anything for the duration of the spell, as they are trapped in stasis, nor can they be harmed or debuffed in any way, having been made completely invulnerable and indestructible while suspended in time. Enemy projectiles and spells entering the stasis field are frozen in time, but will resume moving according to their normal trajectories upon its dissipation. Players do not take damage from swimming or moving through environmental hazards, such as acid or lava while in the area of effect.

Notes: Visual effect is akin to that encompassing the rust monster in The Ruined Halls House Kundarak quest. The animations of all enemies and objects frozen by this spell are also stopped and frozen, their models surrounded by a glowing, blue aura. Players affected by this spell in PvP cannot see, hear or sense anything while affected by the spell. As this spell features no save or spell resistance, it should probably have a long cooldown to help preclude chaining abuse. While players are in the area of effect, everything has a light, bluish tinge similar to the colouration of the stasis field's surface.

Application: Great for making a momentary pause in the action when required, such as when needing to apply a quantity of heals or buffs, or lay down persisting area of effect spells.

[ddoer]

it's cool. why not allow us to auto-crit the frozen mobs? is it the rule from PnP? what about stats damage?

0.6 per caster level, i.e. 12s at level 20. it's not very long.

without save, it's quite um... o... um.. vvverry powerful.

[Surrealistik]

it's cool. why not allow us to auto-crit the frozen mobs? is it the rule from PnP? what about stats damage?

It's an important balancing rule carried over from PnP. Besides, it makes perfect sense; the mobs are locked in stasis, are basically outside of time, completely static and unchanging, and thus cannot be affected by anything at all.

0.6 per caster level, i.e. 12s at level 20. it's not very long.

There's a reason for that...

without save, it's quite um... o... um.. vvverry powerful.

Hence the long cast times, cooldown, mob invulnerability, and relatively short duration

[DaggomaticDwarf]

I would like to see the spell last a bit longer. I mean I can say brb bio "casts Timestop" .... relief, AAaaaaaa "Ok I'm back"

[Surrealistik]

Keep in mind the lack of SR/Saves, huge AoE, and the fact that it *can* be Extended if you need an especially long breather.

[sirgog]

I fear that this version wouldn't be useable, as it's too powerful an effect to allow it to work on red/purple nameds.

The pen and paper version of Timestop always felt to me as having a flavour of 'oh hell, I'm in trouble, better burn *all* my spells now so I can survive this encounter'. This version keeps the feel of burning all your resources at once to win a fight, but prevents situations where three or more party/raid members chain the spell over and over to prevent a foe doing anything.


Timestop
Sor/Wiz 9
50 SP; cannot use any metamagics (not even Extend)
Duration: 10 seconds
Cooldown: 10 minutes

For the duration of this spell, all of your spells with standard cooldowns (standard length for their level) do not trigger a cooldown when cast, and any threat generated by these spells does not take effect until Timestop expires.

This spell lets a Wizard spam Polar Ray so fast a Sorc gets envious. You can cast one spell per 0.7 seconds (per 0.35 if quickened), and you can chain spells over and over. Just like in pen and paper, you are sacrificing all of your resources to try for a quick victory.

[Surrealistik]

Honestly, the original effect is fine, and can be balanced via tweaking of cooldowns (either increase its duration, and/or partial/full cooldowns on the spell could apply to other friendly sorcs and wizards in the area of effect). Further, if we were to adopt your version, for the sake of fairness, the casting time reduction should scale appropriately so Sorcs don't get shafted.

Timestop in PnP was more along the lines of a high level arcanist's *standard* opening by which he would simply entrap his opponent in some degenerate, inescapable combo of deadly persisting AoE effects that would hit hard the moment it wore off. You didn't need to sac all of your resources, or any more than what you would otherwise expend to win, nor did you expend the same amount faster, you just did it in such a way that you could not be interrupted, nor could your opponent respond. In fact, it could be argued that you'd expend *less* net resources than normal, since there was little urgency when your enemy was imprisoned in a force cage supplemented by a dimensional anchor, cloudkills, solid fogs, etc... You could then afford to just sit back, relax, and let the persisting AoEs take care of the problem for you. It works better in DDO because A: it can't be chained anywhere near as easily, and B: things like Forcecage and Dimensional Anchor don't exist in DDO.

[Missing_Minds]

Actually I'd make the casting time (due to the nature of this being an MMO) a
6 second cast.
5-10 minute cool down.
duration of 5 seconds + .5 s per caster level.
Mobs can not be crit hit.
The effect should stop mobs, traps, doors, gates, etc. from moving at all so PCs do not take damage.
Debatable if swimming in acid/lava should hurt. (probably should for game balance)
Should require a material component that is expensive such that Eschew Materials can not replace it. (Honestly, I'd love to see gems being able to be traded in for the components.)

[Surrealistik]

Actually I'd make the casting time (due to the nature of this being an MMO) a
6 second cast.

Don't mind.

5-10 minute cool down.

Might be a little long. I think cooldowns shared between partied casters inhabiting Timestop AoEs, or in the same instance could work better.

duration of 5 seconds + .5 s per caster level.

Dislike the base. I really think it should be completely caster level dependent; would prefer that if the duration is increased, the base be eliminated, and the time added per caster level increased.

Mobs can not be crit hit.

Is that to imply they can be damaged while the AoE is in effect?

The effect should stop mobs, traps, doors, gates, etc. from moving at all so PCs do not take damage.

I like, forgot to include this detail. Adding to the OP.

Debatable if swimming in acid/lava should hurt. (probably should for game balance)

Eh, so situational, I don't see the problem should damage not apply. Once you leave the AoE, doing so should most definitely deal damage.

Should require a material component that is expensive such that Eschew Materials can not replace it. (Honestly, I'd love to see gems being able to be traded in for the components.)

If it features a material component, I don't see why Eschew Materials shouldn't apply. It's a pretty worthless feat at the moment.

[Missing_Minds]

Might be a little long. I think cooldowns shared between partied casters inhabiting Timestop AoEs, or in the same instance could work better.

It is pretty darn powerful, stopping everything? It is going to have a long cooldown. Heck, have you ever looked at the timer for dominate undead? Freaking unbelievable how long that one is. Also It is better to start with a long timer, than to have a timer to short and people screaming about nerfs.


Dislike the base. I really think it should be completely caster level dependent; would prefer that if the duration is increased, the base be eliminated, and the time added per caster level increased.

Think about it. Lvl 9 spell, which means it is going to take an 18 wizard or 19 sorc. By that point they will have 14/14.5 seconds. This is still less than the... 36 seconds that ONLY the caster is allowed. This is enough time for 3 mass heals just about. They either stop everything in the quest or they stop nothing. To try to have an AoE for every single dungeon is going to be too darn hard to code. (unless you are willing to wait what... 2+ years? We are still waiting on Leadership PvP boards afterall. That was supposed to be out in Mod 3.)

Is that to imply they can be damaged while the AoE is in effect?

Emm... time stop follow by wall of fire or reverse that... emm... If they dont take damage from lava they shouldn't take damage from a wall of fire. But if they do take, Wall of fire should do damage as well.

If it features a material component, I don't see why Eschew Materials shouldn't apply. It's a pretty worthless feat at the moment.

You could say the same of stoneskin then. No, this spell SHOULD have a material component. As for pretty worthless. I used to agree, then I looked up how much lvl 8 and 9 spell components cost. That adds up. (granted if you are like me, you could plunt downt he plat for 1000 lvl 9 components and not care, but still.)

edit: duration of spell. I'm not going back to edit this further. Essentially when I double checked your OP I thought your duration was going to be 60 seconds, and I was going "oh heck no!". So a good portion I tossed but some of it is still too strongly worded in my opinion (what I typed) so please don't think on it overly much. That is my mess up.

[Surrealistik]

You could say the same of stoneskin then. No, this spell SHOULD have a material component. As for pretty worthless. I used to agree, then I looked up how much lvl 8 and 9 spell components cost. That adds up. (granted if you are like me, you could plunt downt he plat for 1000 lvl 9 components and not care, but still.)

Again, I don't mind the material component, but seriously, let Eschew Materials work with it. It is not, at present, a useful feat for *precisely* the reasons you've mentioned; the monetary costs involved with components are ultimately negligible. Anything that makes EM more useful is desirable.

It is pretty darn powerful, stopping everything? It is going to have a long cooldown. Heck, have you ever looked at the timer for dominate undead? Freaking unbelievable how long that one is. Also It is better to start with a long timer, than to have a timer to short and people screaming about nerfs.

10 minutes is definitely excessive. 5 minutes is pushing it given the duration of the effect. Again, shared cooldowns could work to prevent it from becoming degenerate in groups without grossly punishing soloers. Remember that as per the original concept, you cannot actually harm or damage anything in the AoE.

Think about it. Lvl 9 spell, which means it is going to take an 18 wizard or 19 sorc. By that point they will have 14/14.5 seconds. This is still less than the... 36 seconds that ONLY the caster is allowed. This is enough time for 3 mass heals just about. They either stop everything in the quest or they stop nothing. To try to have an AoE for every single dungeon is going to be too darn hard to code. (unless you are willing to wait what... 2+ years? We are still waiting on Leadership PvP boards afterall. That was supposed to be out in Mod 3.)

What? Why would AoEs be difficult to code? It is not as if you have to customize every dungeon to interact properly with this spell; basically, you apply a timestop variable to objects. If that variable is active, it is frozen, if it is not active, it works as normal. Simple. Under my system, the duration of the spell is comparable, but further punishes the multiclasser as it should. Granted the differences aren't that great, but there should be a meaningful difference between the pure and multiclasser in terms of duration; more is better.

Emm... time stop follow by wall of fire or reverse that... emm... If they dont take damage from lava they shouldn't take damage from a wall of fire. But if they do take, Wall of fire should do damage as well.

My reasoning is that anything affected by the spell is trapped in stasis, and removed from the flow of time, and thus cannot be truly interacted with, hurt, or damaged. Not only does it make sense, but it's necessary for the sake of balance.

[Missing_Minds]

What? Why would AoEs be difficult to code? It is not as if you have to customize every dungeon to interact properly with this spell; basically, you apply a timestop variable to objects. If that variable is active, it is frozen, if it is not active, it works as normal. Simple. Under my system, the duration of the spell is comparable, but further punishes the multiclasser as it should. Granted the differences aren't that great, but there should be a meaningful difference between the pure and multiclasser in terms of duration; more is better..

You haven't worked on a HUGE project that effects thousands of people that is in a code bases (not database) have you? I don't mean for that to sound like I'm talking down, and I do appologize for how it sounds. But honestly, what you are proposing is going to cost... pretty much the entire "new spell" budget with what you described right there due to verifying that NOTHING got broke. You can't make logical assumptions, you have to prove it.

That is why an AOE just isn't feasble. Well.. I take that back by 50%. If they have some solid, built in, automatic unit testing that can be done... Ok. Sure. But given what we've seen so far, I doubt they have it as such.

*think* ugh... I have a feeling even if they got the spell working, they'd STILL have issues with re spawning mephits and chances are the ones that spawn in won't be "time stuck" as it were.

[Surrealistik]

You haven't worked on a HUGE project that effects thousands of people that is in a code bases (not database) have you? I don't mean for that to sound like I'm talking down, and I do appologize for how it sounds. But honestly, what you are proposing is going to cost... pretty much the entire "new spell" budget with what you described right there due to verifying that NOTHING got broke. You can't make logical assumptions, you have to prove it.

That is why an AOE just isn't feasble. Well.. I take that back by 50%. If they have some solid, built in, automatic unit testing that can be done... Ok. Sure. But given what we've seen so far, I doubt they have it as such.

*think* ugh... I have a feeling even if they got the spell working, they'd STILL have issues with re spawning mephits and chances are the ones that spawn in won't be "time stuck" as it were.

Most interactive entities in this game are alike and simplistic with binary states (on/off, activated/deactivated), which means if it works on one instance of an object such as a door or trap, it will surely work on all mechanically identical instances. Much of the code for these effects can also be lifted elsewhere (AoE mechanics from existing persisting AoE effects like Obscuring Mist, debuffs on creatures from existing debuffs, etc...), and then modified and collated into this new spell. The only new thing that actually has to be coded from scratch and thoroughly tested is the freeze effect itself. Consequently, you do the obligatory preliminary testing which shouldn't be quite *that* exhaustive in reality, and throw the output into the beta where it will be thoroughly scoured by the player base there. While I've never worked on an MMO before, I have worked with C++ on a similar spell effect.