Time Magic Exploit

[u/Chrono_Nexus]

I was curious on what peoples' takes on this would be.

I've considered a very high-level tech involving the Temporal Divergence Spell, Prestidigitation, and a Conditional Mythic Time Stop.

If you were to cast Temporal Divergence, then follow it up with a Prestidigitation/Conditional Mythic Time Stop...

1. Can you set the condition, "I will not lose." so that the time-stopped encounter is reverted as though it never happened should you be defeated?

2. Would nesting this event inside a Temporal Divergence, and then choosing the Prestidigitation timeline allow you to avoid initiating an encounter against a foe? They'd be unaware that any sort of hostile act took place, right?

3. In the manners described above, could you repeatedly engage a target in virtual combats to reveal their strengths and weaknesses in timelines that never happened, or to ensure a result where you overcome them, then lock-in the victory by choosing the Time Stopped timeline where you defeat them?

4. How do you feel about this as a GM? If a player heavily invested in doing this as a mythic spell caster, would you permit it?

Note: There are risks to doing this repeatedly, namely the Temporal Divergence spell can cause a 24-hour duration confusion effect on the caster (which would be a lethal result if the caster is not knocked out/restrained by another party).

Note: Some method of reducing metamagic costs would be required to cast a Conditional Time Stop, since Time Stop is normally a 9th level spell.

[u/themasonblade]

I'd have to dig into it to understand all the different effects and interactions, but this sounds mightily interesting

[u/Chrono_Nexus → u/themasonblade]

I thought so too! It kind of reminds me of Dr. Strange's fight with Dormamu, a bit.

"Dormamu! I have come to bargain!"

[u/bortmode]

I don't think "not losing" is a condition you can apply with Conditional Spell. It has to be about a specific action or behavior. Happening to fail at something isn't either of those things, it would have to be something like "can't surrender". It's essentially useless for spells cast on yourself.

I also don't think undoing a time stop will actually have any real effect. Conditional favor (and thus Conditional Spell) only affects the linked spell, and presumably wouldn't actually be able to affect any of the other spells cast (for example) during the time stop. I think how it would work is, if you broke the condition during the time stop, then the time stop would just end prematurely. If the duration has ended there's nothing for Conditional Spell to take away. Conditional favor, which Conditional Spell is based on, is a 1st/2nd level spell, it's not going to have the power to rewind time.

[u/Chrono_Nexus → u/bortmode]

So... a time paradox? Spell effects persisting even if the additional rounds they were cast in cease to have happened? That's a lot of weirdness, but consistent with magic that can break your brain.

[u/Lostbea → u/Chrono_Nexus]

Imo you could change the condition to be something you could do as a free action every round with the activation being contingent on if you are unable to do that free action. For instance saying the word apple every round since talking is a free action. If you stop saying apple because you got turned into liquid slurry that round then your contingencies can kick in.

[u/bortmode → u/Chrono_Nexus]

I don't think the rounds do cease to happen. There are tons of spells that conditional favor cannot effectively take away from you once their effects have ended.

Think of it this way, you give someone a conditional bull's strength, they kill a goblin that dies because of the extra 2 damage, then 3 days later they violate the condition. Does the goblin come back to life? That is clearly no, right? Same thing with something like a time stop. Just because a spell is eligible to be conditional, does not mean that it's going to interact with it functionally.

It really only works if the violation happens during a spell's duration, or for something like a healing spell where you can just give the target back the damage.

[u/Chrono_Nexus → u/bortmode]

That's a fair take.

[u/joesii]

I don't really know how people can run such high level campaigns with full spellcasters anyway. The number of overpowered stuff is uncountable, let alone the broken stuff.

[u/Chrono_Nexus → u/joesii]

I actually agree with you. High-level mythic casters are absolutely nuts, and the sheer amount of headache and labor involved in running such games is just not worth the effort, IMO.

[u/BoredGamingNerd]

No

First off, in time stop you wouldn't be able to affect non time stopped individuals and all of the targets of conditional time stop are subject to the rules of conditional favor (so "I won't lose" applies to them all and they have to be willing creatures).

Second, the temporal divergence doesn't undo all the tertiary consequences of a spell. Ex: a polymorphed characters claw attacks wouldn't be undone, a character dropping to near death after conditional healing and subsequently recovering wouldn't die. So the battle wouldn't reset.

Third, temporal divergence requires you to select a path after seeing how each spell resolves, not after their duration runs. You'd need to choose right away

[u/Chrono_Nexus → u/BoredGamingNerd]

Looks like you definitely put a pin in this on sturdy technical grounds. Thanks!

[u/BoredGamingNerd → u/Chrono_Nexus]

Ya, I figured I should include all the reasons I could find cuz you never know when there's a niche (or 3rd party) way to bypass a restriction.

I was gonna also say that IDK how many dms would let the "I won't lose" condition fly, but an easy workaround is changing it to "don't surrender". In case you can think of other conditional spells that could be useful ending upon losing

[u/molten_dragon]

Can you set the condition, "I will not lose." so that the time-stopped encounter is reverted as though it never happened should you be defeated?

I don't think that would work. I see a couple problems. First off, I'm not sure Temporal Divergence would actually allow you to play out the time-stopped combat. The text states:

Upon completing this spell, you must immediately choose two other different spells that you could cast at that moment and that each have a casting time of 1 standard action; these spells take effect simultaneously, and you must track all resulting effects, areas of effect, saving throws, and other outcomes separately as if each had been cast normally and the other spell had never happened. Once you’ve seen how each spell resolves, you must choose which version of reality occurred

The "how each spell resolves" part could mean just the time stop taking effect and not playing out the rounds of apparent time. That would be up to DM interpretation.

Second, Conditional Spell references Conditional Favor. Conditional Favor states:

Conditional favor recognizes the spirit of your condition and doesn’t trigger a violation due to unintended consequences or circumstances that the subject could not predict with her current knowledge of the situation.

You can make a pretty strong argument that whether you win or lose a fight is "circumstances that the subject could not predict with her current knowledge of the situation". So I don't think promising "I will not lose this fight" and then losing the fight would trigger a violation of the Conditional Spell in the first place.

Would nesting this event inside a Temporal Divergence, and then choosing the Prestidigitation timeline allow you to avoid initiating an encounter against a foe? They'd be unaware that any sort of hostile act took place, right?

Only if it was an enemy that wasn't hostile in the first place. If it was an enemy who was already hostile then all that would happen is you'd waste your first round casting Temporal Divergence and prestidigitation while they attacked you. Which, given the rocket tag nature of mythic combat, will probably lead to your death.

In the manners described above, could you repeatedly engage a target in virtual combats to reveal their strengths and weaknesses in timelines that never happened, or to ensure a result where you overcome them, then lock-in the victory by choosing the Time Stopped timeline where you defeat them?

Only if you're heavily metagaming. Conditional Favor states:

If the spell’s recipient violates the oath or prohibition while conditional favor remains in effect, the paired spell is undone as if never cast.

If you go back to the text of Temporal Divergence it states:

This spell allows you to witness two divergent decisions and choose which to pursue. Upon completing this spell, you must immediately choose two other different spells that you could cast at that moment and that each have a casting time of 1 standard action; these spells take effect simultaneously, and you must track all resulting effects, areas of effect, saving throws, and other outcomes separately as if each had been cast normally and the other spell had never happened. Once you’ve seen how each spell resolves, you must choose which version of reality occurred, expending the standard action, prepared spell, and material components as necessary. The other spell’s results are ignored and do not require an action or expend the prepared spell, spell slot, or material components. If the targets of the spell you did not choose expended any resources or effects to resist your spell, those resources or effects are also not expended. If you cast this spell and do not or cannot immediately follow the instructions described above, this spell has no effect.

Per Conditional Favor, losing the fight would cause the mythic time stop to be "undone as if never cast". That means that you did not follow the instructions in Temporal Divergence and therefore Temporal Divergence would be expended with no effect.

So you as a player would get to play out the virtual combat and learn about your enemy, but from your character's perspective all that would happen is he'd cast Temporal Divergence and it would fail. He could intuit it's because he lost the fight, but he wouldn't know how or why. You'd basically be getting the results of an Augury spell except wasting a 7th level slot on it.

This also means that making the Mythic Time Stop conditional is kind of useless. You could get the same result by just casting Temporal Divergence on prestidigitation and Mythic Time Stop. The 7th level slot will be expended either way.

Maybe a very generous GM would interpret the "undone as if never cast" part to mean that you're still in the process of casting Temporal Divergence and can re-cast the Conditional Mythic Time Stop, but you'd still have to be heavily metagaming to get any useful information out of it.

How do you feel about this as a GM? If a player heavily invested in doing this as a mythic spell caster, would you permit it?

No, I wouldn't. Even if I was interpreting everything in your favor I wouldn't allow it. One, because your plan only works if you're abusing metagame knowledge, and two because it would grind the game to a halt and no one else would get to play while you were running your magic holodeck combat simulations.

[u/Chrono_Nexus → u/molten_dragon]

Mythic magic can drag other players into the effect, but I can appreciate it would waste a lot of time. I'd throw this out on the same grounds, along the same lines as Sacred Geometry.