The Genius Guide to the Time Warden (PFRPG)

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Time is something we all understand on an instinctive level, at least to a degree, but few of us have ever tried to define. Time has been called the 4th dimension, nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen all at once, and a philosophical construct to allow for the comparison of durations. Philosophers grant time the power to heal all wounds, but also warn it is the death of all things from mountains, to kings, to peasants. We do not need to understand time to make use of it, but no matter how much we deny its power, we remain beholden to it.

Time is one of the great forces of the universe. But what if time doesn't just happen? What if time is fragile, or at least mutable, and must be guarded?

The time warden is a master of chronothurgy, the magic of manipulating time, and a self-appointed guardian of the timeline—the sequence of events from the beginning up to the present, and stretching out to the end. With the ability to manipulate time comes the ability to abuse it, and, if damaged, time can become dangerous. Time wardens are aware that if time is stretched too far, ignored too much, or called upon too recklessly, the result can be an injury to time. The measure of how likely a given use of time is to cause damage is known as chronal dissonance, and time wardens seek such dissonance and do their best to reduce it.

Of course, time wardens do far more than place a stitch in time. They are spellcasters, calling on temporal spells as sorcerers call on the arcane and clerics on the divine. Through manipulation of chronothurgy, a time warden can divine the future, heal his allies, undo many harmful effects, and eventually carry friends through time. Much like the bard or monk, the role of the time warden is less well defined than classes that stick closer to the cleric/fighter/rogue/wizard mold, but by the same token is less likely to overlap with existing characters filling those traditional roles. Certainly a time warden can be of great benefit to a band of adventurers, granting time-based benefits and hampering foes, if not through direct damage.

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4.00/5 (based on 4 ratings)

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Great Concept, Disappointing Follow-Through

3/5

I'm a big fan of the Genius Guide products. So I've developed a reletively high expectation of their products and this one has fallen short in a way that sincerely impacts my opinion of the company.

The Good-

It's a great concept for a class. It adds temporal magic into the setting in a way that is understandable and fun. Introduces Time Motes and Aveunum class abilities to give a nice tiered effect for the character to use.

The abilities are NOT over-powered, but imaginative and slightly odd. A great challenge to a bored role-player to play something other than another vanilla damage-dealer.

The Bad-

The spell list is fairly limited and mechanically speaking will be a massive challenge for the character at higher levels to be able to provide an even secondary offensive/defensive role to the party. A number of the spells mimic non-Time Magic spells (variations on Shield, Mage Armor and Magic Missile for example) that have only negative's when compared to the original spell (The shield variation offers a shield bonus of +4 but it isn't a force-effect) but no postives that I can determine.

The Ugly-

Here is where my disappointement really is. There are editing problems with the book. The spells per day table is incorrect, the level at which Aeveunum is available is contradicted between the class table and the class ability write-up. Neither of these are really a big deal, but they were brought to the attention of the writer very early after release, they were acknowledged and still no errata has been made.

Maybe I'm just being picky, but this is a pdf and correcting it isn't on the same level as having to correct physically printed materials. I purchased this nearly two years after the editing problems were pointed out and they are still there.


Scarab Sages

Voted on by our fans, promised by the end of March and, like many time travelers, late to arrive, it's the Genius Guide to the Time Warden.

Designed to stand entirely on its own (but also able to work with the extremely popular Genius Guide to the Time Thief), this 13-page PDF (+1 page of introduction and 1 page of credits) presents a 20-level spellcasting class able to travel through time. Moreover, the time warden's very existence helps stabilize time itself, as they gather leftover motes of time and free-floating aevum left over from the less-careful manipulations of other classes.


Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

Voted on by our fans, promised by the end of March and, like many time travelers, late to arrive, it's the Genius Guide to the Time Warden.

Designed to stand entirely on its own (but also able to work with the extremely popular Genius Guide to the Time Thief), this 13-page PDF (+1 page of introduction and 1 page of credits) presents a 20-level spellcasting class able to travel through time. Moreover, the time warden's very existence helps stabilize time itself, as they gather leftover motes of time and free-floating aevum left over from the less-careful manipulations of other classes.

Uh-oh, I'd better warn Jenny the fuzz is after her.

Scarab Sages

Lyingbastard wrote:
Uh-oh, I'd better warn Jenny the fuzz is after her.

Obviously, it's already too late!


Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:
Lyingbastard wrote:
Uh-oh, I'd better warn Jenny the fuzz is after her.
Obviously, it's already too late!

Only if you believe in stable, closed time loops.

Scarab Sages

Lyingbastard wrote:
Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:
Lyingbastard wrote:
Uh-oh, I'd better warn Jenny the fuzz is after her.
Obviously, it's already too late!
Only if you believe in stable, closed time loops.

Obviously there's some discussion of that in Time Warden. :)


Looks gorgeous, too! (biased? me?) So I have new reading material for this evening...

Scarab Sages

Doc_Outlands wrote:
Looks gorgeous, too! (biased? me?) So I have new reading material for this evening...

I am very pleased with how good the art in this one looks. My wife, as is happens, is even happier about it than I am.


Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:
My wife, as is happens, is even happier about it than I am.

I hear fan-club applications are available... X-D

Dark Archive

I was looking at this and noticed something going on with the spells per day and spells known. Apparently, a warden learns first and second level spells at first level, but can't cast the second level spells until fourth level. The three level difference is ocurring for the second to sixth level spells. Is this intentional or a mistake?

Dark Archive

I also noticed that the spells section of the class mentions 0-level spells and the two tables don't make any mention of them.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I really dig these classes. SGG does a great job of pushing the rules envelope with these. Any chance you guys are going to publish a bundle of them? Perhaps with an option to print on demand?


Chris Ballard wrote:
I was looking at this and noticed something going on with the spells per day and spells known. Apparently, a warden learns first and second level spells at first level, but can't cast the second level spells until fourth level. The three level difference is ocurring for the second to sixth level spells. Is this intentional or a mistake?

I believe it was a mistake they might want to look at the table and see if they can fix it.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Reviewed... finally.


So....looking at the time jaunt ability....what exactly can you do with it. The way it is worded makes it almost completely un-useable. Why are there so many limmitations on it?


And again, nice review.

Scarab Sages

Dark_Mistress wrote:
Reviewed... finally.

Thanks for the review!


Chris Ballard wrote:
I was looking at this and noticed something going on with the spells per day and spells known. Apparently, a warden learns first and second level spells at first level, but can't cast the second level spells until fourth level. The three level difference is ocurring for the second to sixth level spells. Is this intentional or a mistake?

It looks like 0-level spells were left off Table 2: Time Warden Spells Known, and the spells levels shifted to the left, causing the 6th-level column to be lost. (The 3rd-level spells start at the 4th class level, which is when the Time Warden gets access to 2nd-level spells, etc.) Most likely if we change the headings to reflect this and add a column for 6th level of "2-3-4-4-4", that'll fix it. (At least that's my assumption, since they haven't responded on here or to the e-mail I sent them directly. :-\)

But other than that, so far I'm looking forward to trying it out. :-D

Scarab Sages

Russ Luzetski wrote:
It looks like 0-level spells were left off Table 2: Time Warden Spells Known, and the spells levels shifted to the left, causing the 6th-level column to be lost. (The 3rd-level spells start at the 4th class level, which is when the Time Warden gets access to 2nd-level spells, etc.) Most likely if we change the headings to reflect this and add a column for 6th level of "2-3-4-4-4", that'll fix it.

That's correct -- that is both the problem and the fix.

Russ Luzetski wrote:
(At least that's my assumption, since they haven't responded on here or to the e-mail I sent them directly. :-\)

I'm very sorry! I don't seem to have an email from you. Did you send it to ostephens (at) aol (dot) com, or owen (at) supergeniusgames (dot) com, or something else entirely?

And, was there anything else in that email you;d like me to address?

Scarab Sages

daken201 wrote:
So....looking at the time jaunt ability....what exactly can you do with it. The way it is worded makes it almost completely un-useable. Why are there so many limmitations on it?

It's so limited because it represents real time travel, and thus can make a GM's life hellish and steal play time from all other players if it's not severely restricted.

It's most useful if you can set up a secure location to travel through time, which helps prevent players from walking to a villain's lair, traveling forward in time until its a ruin, walking to the villain's bedroom, then traveling back in time to a moment when the villain is asleep. Instead, they can only travel back until the last living thing was in that room, which helps ensure they can;t avoid an entire adventure.

In playtest people came up with all kinds of uses. That's what players do. They take something with limitations, and think of ways to use it to aid them anyway.


Reviewed here and sent to GMS magazine. :)

Scarab Sages

Endzeitgeist wrote:
Reviewed here and sent to GMS magazine. :)

Thanks for the review!

Silver Crusade

Oh this is so tempting to buy and play as.

I mean come on, you could totally make a PC based on The Doctor.
*grins and giggles*


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Nice array of reviews KTFish7!


From you End, I will take that as high praise indeed..


You know, Owen...I never did get a clarification answer to my question I posed in my review..."When using other spells to duplicate the effect of a chronothurgy or chronothurgy spells (such as limited wish, wish, or miracle), or when using spells to price magic items based on chronothurgy or chronothurgy, treat the spell level as if it was 50% higher (minimum +1 level)."....I'm still not entirely sure what to do with this line. Any clarification, from anyone, would help. why the double chronothurgy? Was there the intention of another word in place of the second chronothurgy? A word after it that would make this make sense perhaps?

I have this sinking feeling that this one's going to be something insanely obvious, and I'm just misreading it, but none of my players could make heads or tails of it either.

Liberty's Edge

I have to assume I missed that in proofreading. My bad.

It should read:

"Additionally, because of their alien nature compared to most magic, chronothurgy spells are more difficult to duplicate or turn into magic
items. When using other spells (such as limited wish, wish, or miracle) to duplicate the effect of a chronothurgy spell, or when using spells to price magic items based on chronothurgy, treat the spell level as if it was 50% higher (minimum +1 level)."

I'll ping the Geniuses to see about when we might be able to incorporate an update to the pdf.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Would it be possible to get an errataed version of this sometime soon? The spell contradiction spell progression/spells known confuses, and the avernum progression outlined in the text seems to contradict it in the class chart.

Scarab Sages

Dreaming Psion wrote:
Would it be possible to get an errataed version of this sometime soon? The spell contradiction spell progression/spells known confuses, and the avernum progression outlined in the text seems to contradict it in the class chart.

Yes, it's on its way.

I got swamped at the end of last year, and the errata-included version of this book got buried. It's may fault, and I apologize. The "second printing" of this PDF should be out soon.


Curiosity - how many people have played this class? I have a player who is dying to play this in our next campaign (which is admittedly still a ways off).

To me, it seems like the class doesn't have many combat abilities and could use a power boost. To be an effective combatant, how would you build it?

I'm comparing it in my head to the Bard, who has similar spellcasting capabilities. The bard, conversely, has other features that lend itself well to melee or ranged combat.


Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Has the errata-included version come out yet?

Liberty's Edge

Im about to start playing one of these in an upcoming Legacy of Fire game. Has anyone done a work up for HeroLabs?


J-Bone wrote:

Im about to start playing one of these in an upcoming Legacy of Fire game. Has anyone done a work up for HeroLabs?

Not yet. To paraphrase from another thread a statement by John Halpin of SGG on another SGG product, "There is a team working on generating Herolab files for the SGG material, but there is a lot of material to cover."

I'll see if I can find the thread and link. See link below.

Advanced Options: Extra Evolutions.

Liberty's Edge

That'll be great. One of the reasons why SGG is always on my watch list for new products.

Grand Lodge

Hey Owen, any update on that errata?

Scarab Sages Contributor; Developer, Super Genius Games

Andrew Betts wrote:
Hey Owen, any update on that errata?

No, which our latest reviewer correctly takes us to task on.

Scarab Sages Contributor; Developer, Super Genius Games

As always, thanks to Craig Bonham 141 for the review!

Scarab Sages Contributor; Developer, Super Genius Games

So here's the issue on the errata:

First, we should have gotten to it by now. No excuses.

The reason we haven't is that I never have time to do too many errata passes on the same product, and thus I wait until I have all updates and changes ready before I do errata.

I'm still working on the last of my planned time books (The Genius Guide to Time Magic), and there's a decent chance it'll inspire yet more changes to the time warden, which I want to enter all in one fell swoop.

Of course THAT project is now delayed... and thus the errata is delayed.

But it is on my list of Things To Do.


Hmmm has the errata been updated?


No.

Both the time classes and the godling classes have big revisions due, and everyone who bought the existing versions will get the revisions.

Weirdly, I suddenly got VERY busy...


Is a Genius Guide to Time Magic still in the works? That would be very cool and on my must buy list! Now a disclosure - Neither I or my players have played a Time Warden so my comments are not from first hand playing experience (i do own and have read the Time Warden class). In terms of the Time Warden, I agree with reviewer Craig Bonham 141 that the spell list could benefit from some additions. I'm having trouble seeing what kind of role the Time Warden would play in my gaming group. I think as written, the class would struggle to keep up with other Pathfinder classes as levels progress. Maybe this could also be addressed through the very cool mote and Aveunum class abilities. I love your products and am keeping my fingers crossed for a Genius Guide to Time Magic!


A Genius Guide to Time Magic is still very much in the works... as soon as I find the time!

Both time thief and time warden do benefit from some expansions mote and aevum abilities in Genius Options; Masters of Time.


Hi!

First, I really like the product, so much that I needed to build a time warden NPC for my campaign... and here's the problem:
The aevum ability says it is available at level 5, but it appears at level 4 in the table. Also, it says that it gains new aevum powers and aevum points at levels 9, 13 and 17, but the table says "Aevum" at levels 7, 10, 13, 16 and 19. Which one is correct?


I built a Time Warden NPC that's been a helpful friend to the players until he showed his true colors. I just use the aevum advancement on the table.


Well, Time Travel also works for Space Travel.

One of the reasons I'm anticipating Starfinder this next year so I can use time travel as a way to achieve Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel. So, I'm looking forward to this. Slightly.

That is, buying a copy sooner than later.

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