Chronurgy Magic

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount introduced Chronurgy Magic to the game as the wizard tradition dedicated to understanding and harnessing time. Mechanically figuring out how to implement temporal magic is a behemoth task, and while it isn’t perfect. Chonurgy Magic takes a stab at the fantasy, and while a lot of the translation in game I find a bit bland, there is enough here to make a chronomancer come to life.

This is the list of expanded spells specifically designed to work with this subclass Chronurgy Magic wizards add to their class spell list they can add to their spellbook. Other wizards add to their class spell list with DM permission.

Graviturgy Expanded Spells

Spell Level	Spells
Cantrip	Sapping Sting
1st	Gift of Alacrity
2nd	Fortune’s Favor, Wristpocket
3rd	Pulse Wave
4th	-
5th	Temporal Shunt
6th	Gravity Fissure
7th	Tether Essence
8th	Reality Break
9th	Time Ravage

2nd Level: Chronal Shift and Temporal Awareness

Chronal Shift is a really flexible tool to have access to that hits a wide array of rolls in a favorable fashion. Important rolls made with advantage still fail occasionally; with Chronal Shift, you can let that roll happen again. Where features like Silvery Barbs and Portent can feel like they take over the game in how they adjust rolls, a fixed twice per long rest number of uses of Chronal Shift isn’t going to feel nearly as oppressive to deal with, all while giving your team a similar bump up in successes.
Temporal Awareness is the other first-level feature you get, and it's about as boring as a feature can be. I don’t rate initiative bonuses highly as far as power goes, and this usually will eventually equal Alert in a +5. Alongside a reasonable feature, though, it's a fine upgrade that can sometimes position you to take out a creature before it gets a chance to act, which is a big deal.

6th Level: Momentary Stasis

Momentary Stasis feels to me like the first major time-related ability that sticks the landing as far as flavor goes while also being a house of a feature. A pool or save or be incapacitated for a full round. You can chain these together, too, meaning if you really need to keep a single entity locked down while your party deals with the stuff around it, you have that option.
Knowing when it’s supposed to act in initiative can mitigate the downside of it breaking free on damage, as if its turns already passed, it doesn’t really gain any benefits from no longer being incapacitated. Coordinated teams can sequence attacks in such a way that you can lock down and smack around whatever target you want with this.
An action is fairly pricey, and as you get into the upper tiers the trade-off of using this versus casting a higher-level spell is usually not going to be worth it. Still, in the mid-tiers, Momentary Stasis is pretty sweet for people who don’t mind risking their turn to remove an enemy’s turn.

10th Level: Arcane Abeyance

Arcane Abeyance kind of facilitates interesting “double casting” turns, which I think is sweet. You basically give an ally one of your spell slots in the form of the bead, allowing turns where you’re getting the benefits of casting two spells at once when you and they cast stuff. Alternatively, it can just act as a way to give your “Self” range spells to allies, which is really cool.

You can functionally use this to get two concentration spells up at once from your allies that don’t usually concentrate on anything anyway. Having a fighter or rogue come with a 4th-level Summon Shadowspawn is gross, especially when you also can have out a 4th-level or higher Shadowspawn.

There is a ton of potential for this simple little feature; the short rest reset makes it readily available. You can get two of these at once with Catnap, so if you want to expand what this can do, picking it up can really make this feature shine.

14th Level: Convergent Future

Convergent Future takes a big leap in trying to make a “balanced” version of the auto-success kind of effect. I don’t hate this iteration, and of all the mechanics that interact with the current Exhaustion system, I think this one balances the costs best.
Disadvantage on ability checks doesn’t tend to be a major issue for most characters, making Convergent Future feel like a fine to use once per long rest feature. If you want to push yourself, two halves your speed, which many people can manage with fine enough. Three levels of exhaustion is where you really start to feel the downsides, namely in disadvantage on saving throws, and if you hit four, you’re in for a bad time.
Because these are only reduced by 1 per long rest, you can push yourself to level 2 or 3 in one critical fight, get a long rest, and deal with the consequences in a lower-stakes environment for the next adventure. During that time, though, you basically lose access to your 14th-level feature, which doesn’t feel great.
When you make the boss auto-fail their save against the save or die that leads your group to massacre them, though, you’ll feel like a legend. You can functionally ensure success, which is insanely powerful. Whether or not this mechanic is fun is a whole different conversation.

All Together

Chronurgy Magic Isn’t the most air-tight option out there, especially with the printed version of Convergent Future. Dice manipulation features are polarizing, and I don’t think Convergent Future’s auto success/failure mechanic is going to play well at most tables. The best abilities to fulfill the fantasy of messing with time are Momentary Stasis and Arcane Abeyance, both of which have you freezing spells and creatures in time in a cinematic way. Chronal Shift, Temporal Awareness, and Convergent Future all provide improvements to dice and manipulations to the game system, which doesn’t scratch that time mage itch for me. All together this option is quite strong, and I’d recommend it to people who want a character with the Time Stop end fantasy in mind.

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Wizard 5e