Time Stop: Live in the Moment
Spell Level: 9
School: Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Duration: Instantaneous
Components: V
You briefly stop the flow of time for everyone but yourself. No time passes for other creatures, while you take 1d4 + 1 turns in a row, during which you can use actions and move as normal.
This spell ends if one of the actions you use during this period, or any effects that you create during this period, affects a creature other than you or an object being worn or carried by someone other than you. In addition, the spell ends if you move to a place more than 1,000 feet from the location where you cast it.
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Top end play in 5e tends to be a hot mess. Turns can go on for what feels like hours as dozens of d20s are rolled for a series of saving throws, each of which can end with a whole host of results that need to be tracked and recorded. When you then factor in Time Stop, you’re looking at hours of in-game time dedicated to one person figuring out what they can and can’t do that fits within the bounds of this absolutely busted spell.
Outside of the groaning I hear from others when somebody else goes to Time Stop, the spell brings an enormous advantage with the right supporting suite of spells. Extra turns in combat, especially sequential extra turns, can single handedly end a huge array of encounters.
The tricky element to work around is the clause ending the spell early if you do something that affects somebody else within the Time Stop. My first recommendation would be making sure Delayed Blast Fireball is at the ready for your Concentration; getting potentially four rounds of set up instantly within a Time Stop adds a major damaging element to it. Other setup, then, typically involve powerful magic items and supportive spells that don’t break concentration.
An important element to establish with your DM is how they rule the effects function. Jeremy Crawford on twitter mentioned how doing something like cutting a rope bridge won’t end the Time Stop, as the bridge remains standing for the stopped time. My question, then, would be how missiles and magical projectiles are affected. Can you cast a Scorching Ray, and the moment the rays leave your fingertips they’re suspended in the stopped time? Personally, I’d rule yes, but your mileage may vary DM to DM, so I’d recommend establishing ahead of time how the world and your magic works within the spell.
Sometimes you just need a few rounds to set up a Rube-Goldberg machine of healing potions and explosives, or you want to get all of your prep spells down instantaneously. The spell’s power is tied to DM rulings majorly, but even its worse use cases can still be game warping. Having an extra twelve seconds may not seem like much, but this spell at minimum can look like Teleport and Haste had a baby, and empowers every single spell that only affects you by making it take fractions of functional actions to use. This then loops back around to the beginning concerns; without being prepared, Time Stop can grind games to a halt. If you’re looking to bust out this busted spell, do your homework, figure out what you can and can’t be doing without ending it, and establish some sort of plan to save your friends the time at the table you’d need to figure it all out on the fly.
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