Timeless Demiplanes: Oh, The Shenanigans!


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

Scarab Sages

4 people marked this as a favorite.

One of the options for the 9th spell level version of Create Demiplane is Time. When you choose time, "Timeless" is one of your options.

Quote:


Timeless

On planes with this trait, time still passes, but the effects of time are diminished. How the timeless trait affects certain activities or conditions such as hunger, thirst, aging, the effects of poison, and healing varies from plane to plane. The danger of a timeless plane is that once an individual leaves such a plane for one where time flows normally, conditions such as hunger and aging occur retroactively. If a plane is timeless with respect to magic, any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.

It appears that when you pick Timeless you also get a few other parameters to fiddle with. Let's keep things simple and just pick the magic option, leaving every other aspect of time in the demiplane as per normal for the Prime Material Plane. Spells with any duration except instantaneous duration are now permanent instead. As for the other options, instantly starving to death when you leave your plane doesn't sound very appealing.

Anyway, this gives us LOTS of things to play with. :)


  • Decorate your plane with illusions in addition to the usual things you can choose. Want the starry night sky in your dining hall just like Hogwarts? Done! A swarm of dragons flying around your castle? Done! Your imagination is the only limit.
  • Temporary Resurrection - Well not so permanent if they leave. Heh, heh.
  • Gate(travel version) - Why spend 500gp and six hours when you can just create a permanent gate as a standard action? Remember "concentration" is not "instantaneous" and so it becomes "permanent."
  • Planar Binding - Create a permanent trap and permanently bind an outsider. From there simply keep attempting to dominate it until you're successful. Don't bother with bargaining.
  • Dominate/Charm - Bring people here while under these effects and they'll be your friends or dominated servants forever so long as you don't do something to break the spell. They can then craft for you, cast spells on you, et cetera.
  • Summon Monster - Over time you can gain access to an indefinite number of minions. Build up a huge army to unleash all at once in an emergency. Sure, once they leave the DM will probably rule the duration resumes, but the retroactive effects are limited to things like thirst and hunger per RAW (and we chose to avoid that anyway). Spell duration is like neither of those things.
  • Irresistible Dance - This one is just hilarious. Save this for your worst enemies. Gate them in and make them dance until they die (or forever if you chose to remove the need to eat and drink).
  • Time Stop+Keep Watch - Need a quick refresher in battle? Planeshift to your demiplane, cast Time Stop and Keep Watch. Stand around for 8 hours. Prepare your spells and buff the crap out of yourself. Gate back and allow Time Stop to resume its duration. I hope your enemies like wizards that never run out of spells!
  • Infernal Healing - 1st level spell plus a few minutes equals fully healed! Works with the Time Stop trick above too.
  • Gate(calling) - Anything not on your plane is considered extraplanar. Just gate in your enemies into a special soup of horrible spells you have waiting for them and enjoy the show!
  • Lingering Spell(Metamagic) - This gives a LOT of instantaneous spells a duration of 1 round. Or in the case of your demiplane, PERMANENT! You could do things like have some evocation effects layered over a gate or portal, let each one effect you once before healing up and casting another. They can only effect you once, but anyone trying to infiltrate would need to survive all at once.
  • Creation - Anything you create with this spell is permanent so long as it remains in your demiplane!
  • Rapid Repair + Unbreakable Construct - Permanently give construct guardians of your realm powerful buffs
  • Shrink Item - Not sure what you might use this for, but it works on all sorts of stuff. Could be useful.

There's tons more of course, and depending on your DM you might be able to get away with some really creative stuff. This spell is yet another reason high level arcane casters are basically demigods.


1. Polymorph Any Object to literally turn dust into new sentient life forms and having it persist forever.
2. Use stat boosting spells like Bear's Endurance, Owl's Wisdom, or maybe even Bestow Curse to make their stats whatever you want.
3. Play a game of "The Sims."
4. ???
5. Profit!... at least until you get bored being an a~~#%!& god and just let the duration on the plane expire.


chaoseffect wrote:

1. Polymorph Any Object to literally turn dust into new sentient life forms and having it persist forever.

2. Use stat boosting spells like Bear's Endurance, Owl's Wisdom, or maybe even Bestow Curse to make their stats whatever you want.
3. Play a game of "The Sims."
4. ???
5. Profit!... at least until you get bored being an a%*#!@# god and just let the duration on the plane expire.

That didn't even take seven days!


So you have the right idea, but a few of the details are very very wrong.

First, for gate. "Deities and unique beings are under no compulsion to come through the gate". Since "unique beings" has no proper definition, this is entirely GM fiat territory. I would include most of your enemies under this, as they are specific, named individuals with no duplicates of them anywhere in the world.

Second, for spell durations after leaving the plane. It says "conditions such as hunger and aging occur retroactively." This implies that this is a nonexhaustive list of the conditions that should apply. This means other conditions can be included, such as spell durations. Especially since aging being included strongly implies that time is applied retroactively when you leave.

Third, concentration. "You may hold the gate open only for a brief time (no more than 1 round per caster level), and you must concentrate on doing so, or else the interplanar connection is severed.". This is a more specific rule that automatically ends the spell if you stop concentrating. The general magic rules agree, a duration of concentration is defined with "The spell lasts as long as you concentrate on it". For spells that have a duration of concentration+x rounds it will work, for things with a duration of just concentration it will not.

Fourth, lingering spell.

Lingering Spell wrote:
Benefit: You may cause an instantaneous spell that affects an area to persist until the beginning of your next turn. Those already in the area suffer no additional harm, but other creatures or objects entering the area are subject to its effects. A lingering spell with a visual manifestation obscures vision, providing concealment (20% miss chance) beyond 5 feet and total concealment (50% miss chance) beyond 20 feet.

I see nothing in the language saying it's no longer an instantaneous spell, just that it persists for one more round.


Fun stuff!


Become a Lich/take the Immortal discovery upon reaching level 20. Kidnap random people and train them to 20th level, forcing them to also take Immortal (And giving them a Ring of Sustenance.)

Boom, 20th level wizard in the blink of an eye. If you dominate them early on, they won't be able to escape even with their shiny new high will save.


Time stop should be an instant spell with an effect of 1d4+1 rounds of apparent time.

With this combo use extended time stop just before you leave the plane. you have 2d4 rounds of actions plus 2 swift actions to do anything you want anywhere you want. Just save and action to plane shift back. Reload spells and repeat.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Sinistrad wrote:
As for the other options, instantly starving to death when you leave your plane doesn't sound very appealing.

Just be sure that you are wearing an active Ring of Sustensnce when you travel to your plane, and don't take it off until you leave. Alternatively use a clear spindle Ioun Stone the entire time you are there.

Scarab Sages

Bob Bob Bob wrote:
So you have the right idea, but a few of the details are very very wrong.

Gate specifically says you can call a creature by name.

Quote:
By naming a particular being or kind of being as you cast the spell...

So it makes more sense that "unique beings" is referring to god-like beings that are unique in their properties (some unique demon lords, etc), or things like the tarrasque. Humanoid races, while individual members of that race might like to think themselves "unique" they are not. You are calling a specific individual not a unique being. So gate does not prevent you from calling a specific NPC, unless that NPC were super-powerful and had good reason to qualify as a "unique being." So while it might not work on the campaign's primary antagonist, it might work for some of your other enemies.

Further, Timeless Magic replaces the duration of anything that is "noninstantaneous" which is pretty broad wording. It could be argued that "concentration" is not instantaneous and therefore concentration is not required to maintain the effect. If the spell is cast in a Timeless Magic area, the duration property of the spell is literally replaced by "permanent." You ignore the text in that spot and replace it with "permanent" unless it specifically says "instantaneous." I do agree that it's not 100% clear as it would be for spells that are concentration plus rounds. But I think in the most literal interpretation of RAW anything that is not instantaneous has its duration changed to permanent, meaning you do not need to concentrate on any effect while in a Timeless Magic area.

I agree with you about Lingering Spell. I just misunderstood that. It does not actually change the duration. The duration remains instantaneous but the effects persist which is an important distinction I missed.

In regards to the spell durations on summoned minions, the text specifically refers to "conditions," as in things which affect the metabolism and body like hunger, thirst, aging, poison, and disease. If this clause were intended to cover literally everything including spell durations, they would have just said that the effects of time spent on the plane is retroactively applied to anything as it leaves. It seems pretty clear they were specifically referring to anything which might be the result of bodily metabolism and aging, and gave hunger and thirst as an example to clarify the types of things that "catch up" when one leaves the demiplane.

There's also the issue I avoided in my original post:

Quote:
If a plane is timeless with respect to magic, any spell cast with a noninstantaneous duration is permanent until dispelled.

RAW, any spells you have on your person, or spell effects that leave the demiplane, are still permanent spells even when you leave if you cast them originally in the demiplane. It doesn't say "until dispelled or until you leave the plane." And if all time is applied retroactively, it doesn't matter how much retroactive time is applied to a permanent spell. But, I didn't bring it up originally because I assumed no sane DM would allow this. It also begs the question, if you cast the demiplane spell in your demiplane to expand it, would those new additions have a permanent duration as well? It seems so. So you'd only have to pay to make the original casting permanent. After that, its just a matter of time and spell components.


Extradimensonal retirement homes.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gisher wrote:
Sinistrad wrote:
As for the other options, instantly starving to death when you leave your plane doesn't sound very appealing.
Just be sure that you are wearing an active Ring of Sustensnce when you travel to your plane, and don't take it off until you leave. Alternatively use a clear spindle Ioun Stone the entire time you are there.

Just never leave in the first place, by the time you're done building the demiplane the way you want it (takes a lotta castings and a lotta time to cast) you'll probably be old age anyway. Timeless demiplane is where you trap yourself until you either screw up and die or find some brand of immortality.

Lingering Spell is interesting, especially if you're still traveling in and out. Doesn't synergize with other problems though.

Summon Monster: Perpetual slave mod is awesome but impractical. The summons have to stay in range, and even at your level that's kind of close. You can have your perfect bodyguard/servant group all summoned and boosted, but anything beyond that is going to clutter up the place.

Gate: You an also just cast Create Greater Demiplane again, get yourself a gate that goes anywhere and is permanent by virtue of being permanent. Takes longer to cast, but doesn't raise any "concentration" questions.

There is also a question of how timeless interacts with time stop. You personally speed up your own timeline to the point everything else seems frozen. The "duration" isn't actually 1d4+1 rounds, it is an instant in which you can take 1d4+1 rounds worth of actions.

I wonder what would happen if you cast Heat Metal. It doesn't get hot until round 2, and it is supposed to only last 7 rounds.

Adhesive spittle is "rounds/level or until discharged." What could that mean?

You can put Crafter's fortune on your army of charmed slaves.

Abundant Ammunition makes auto-firing crossbow turrets one step closer to possible.

Defending your plane from unwanted visitors becomes easier when you abjuration magic is permanent.

Acid Arrow is generally fatal.

Then you accidentally cast Stone Call and your entire demiplane is buried in rocks.

Dark Archive

make it so that you do not age and dont have to eat or drink than get bulders to bulid a town or magic and invite rich peopel to live in your town for ever but buld a bulding nere buy for people cheking out who dont want to come back and kill the them than raise a perment army of undead slaves who can be use to defend or keep people inside as syou keep inviting more people in.

Scarab Sages

2 people marked this as a favorite.
boring7 wrote:
Gisher wrote:
Sinistrad wrote:
As for the other options, instantly starving to death when you leave your plane doesn't sound very appealing.
Just be sure that you are wearing an active Ring of Sustensnce when you travel to your plane, and don't take it off until you leave. Alternatively use a clear spindle Ioun Stone the entire time you are there.

Summon Monster: Perpetual slave mod is awesome but impractical. The summons have to stay in range, and even at your level that's kind of close. You can have your perfect bodyguard/servant group all summoned and boosted, but anything beyond that is going to clutter up the place.

The range for Summon Monster is the limit within which the summoned creature can appear when first summoned. After that it can act within its capabilities as you direct it.

Spells that do not allow their effect to travel outside the listed range, such as flaming sphere, specifically call out that the sphere vanishes if you move outside its range. Summon Monster has no such clause.

Spells like incendiary cloud and acid fog continue even if you teleport away after casting them. It does not matter if you travel outside the range listed in the spell after casting it in most circumstances.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Thought summon monster was one of 'em. Problem remains that they can't actually LEAVE the demiplane. But exploiters gotta exploit so I thought of this:
With a horde of ranged attackers, like lantern archons, critters with breath weapons, or even just regular archers you set a permanent portal somewhere, have them line up near the entrance, and fire ranged attacks through a ring gate just the other side of the portal. The shots, blasts of fire, or whatnot would be directed by someone with the other ring gate, who would point it at enemies and watch the ranged damage fly.

And suddenly I am reminded of the spell Mechanus Cannon.

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Gate operates as Plane Shift for the purposes of determining how creatures are sent to their destination, except that the arrival point is 100% accurate.

I see no reason why you cannot Plane Shift a summoned creature. The creature cannot use its own teleport/plane shift abilities per the rules for Conjuration(summoning), but it is not immune to those effects being applied to them from an outside source.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Sinistrad wrote:

Gate operates as Plane Shift for the purposes of determining how creatures are sent to their destination, except that the arrival point is 100% accurate.

I see no reason why you cannot Plane Shift a summoned creature. The creature cannot use its own teleport/plane shift abilities per the rules for Conjuration(summoning), but it is not immune to those effects being applied to them from an outside source.

Retroactive loss. Once they leave the timeless zone all the rounds they spent hanging out "catch up" and the spell duration ends. Just as a human who spent 100 years there will suddenly go from healthy and young to old and dead like that dude in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The wording is fairly clear, time catches up when you leave.

That said, I suppose you don't even need the ring gates if you just drop a 20 foot gate in front of you and have a palisade of archers standing ready to fire. Come to think of it, Lantern archons are awesome and not because their attack cuts through all DR but only does a d6 of damage. Have a hundred of 'em standing ready to move to the gate and fire once, and have a hundred archers at the ready to shoot (and thus dismiss) each one after it fires so there's room in front of the door for the next lantern archon to move up.

There is a mathematical limit to the above based on how fast they can move, but you can stack on speed boosters with timeless, so it goes pretty far.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

*Furiously takes notes.*

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.

As discussed in previous replies the retroactive time thing doesn't appear to apply to spell durations. In addition, it can be argued that--strictly RAW--the "permanent" nature of the any spell cast in the demiplane is not removed when that spell leaves the demiplane. Since outsiders do not age, and do not need to eat or drink, they'd not have to worry about that, either.

Even should there be a ruling somewhere that nixes the duration shenanigans, you could still open a gate over the battlefield and continuously summon creatures while standing in your demiplane and sending them through.

Additionally, if your DM is insisting on nixing the duration shenanigans, you could have any number of called and dominated outsiders using Planar Binding prepped ahead of time and have each one of them use their summon ability simultaneously before ordering their companions through the gate to attack your enemies.

So really, either way, you can use your demiplane as a staging point for an army of outsiders.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Your interpretation is unreasonable. The rules are quite clear, duration only extends inside the timeless plane and everything catches up the moment the person, summon, or spell effect leaves the plane.

Summoning over a battlefield and sending them out doesn't really change anything from just being there casting summons. You'd get more out of double-speed plane, since you could cast faster.

Planar Binding is a more interesting question, with more complications. Planar Binding doesn't HAVE a duration, per se, and once the first part of the spell (making a deal) is complete you get a "service". Once the service is complete the outsider is free. The "open-ended task" has a duration, but it's not necessarily a "duration."

More to the point, "be my eternal slave in my demiplane prison" falls under, "Impossible demands or unreasonable commands are never agreed to." You can keep tyring, but not only will you never succeed, you will eventually roll a 1 and the outsider will be free.

Ranged attacks and internal guardians though, they're just fine.

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I am not concerning myself with what is reasonable. I am concerning myself with RAW. And I even admit most DMs would not allow RAW without making changes. That's totally fine and one of the reason games like this have DMs.

In respect to called creatures, nothing stops you from skipping the bargaining and dominating them. If they fail their Will save they are drawn in to the trap and cannot leave (if the trap is set correctly). From there, you can attempt to dominate them until they fail that too. Once dominated, asking them to use their summon ally ability is not "against their nature" and so would not grant a save. And the summoned creatures are summoned, and so under the control of their summoner who is dominated by you. All dominated minions can have a readied action to summon their allies when the gate appears and order them through the gate.

Is there a lot of prep time for this? Yes. Is it impossible? No.

Also, gate acts as a Plane Shift on the things passing through it, so I do not know if ranged attacks, especially rays, can pass through. That part is a bit fuzzy to me and I not aware of any rules that would clear it up. It creates a sort of window that lets you see the destination, but it is not a seamless connection. It has a surface of effect that, when you cross it, plane shifts you. Physical ranged attacks, maybe. Rays? Probably not.


RAW problems remain. The way the trap works is the way Magic circle works is the way Protection from Evil works, which is that once you attack the subject (toss a dominate spell across the line) they're free.

You can still build up a stable by beating down or sending away the ones who make their save and get loose, I suppose.

Ring gates are pretty clear that you can attack through them, so there is that.

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Nothing about Protection From Evil, or Magic Circle Against Evil (trap version), says that attempting to dominate the trapped creature would break the trap. Disturbing the circle of powdered silver would break the trap. A Dominate spell is not going to do that. And, the creature in the trap is not protected by it. Only if you're foolish enough to call something huge or larger does the trap collapse and provide the benefits of Protection From Evil to the called creature. Under normal circumstances the trap only prevents the creature's spells, abilities, and attacks from crossing, not the creator of the trap. The creator of the trap can do anything to the creature that does not disturb the circle of powdered silver and the diagram.

I am of course assuming that you take all precautions and create the diagram and use Dimensional Anchor et cetera.


Eoxyn wrote:

Become a Lich/take the Immortal discovery upon reaching level 20. Kidnap random people and train them to 20th level, forcing them to also take Immortal (And giving them a Ring of Sustenance.)

Boom, 20th level wizard in the blink of an eye. If you dominate them early on, they won't be able to escape even with their shiny new high will save.

Time passes on the prime normally. The effects of time on your plane are negated. That is all.


Sinistrad wrote:

I am not concerning myself with what is reasonable. I am concerning myself with RAW. And I even admit most DMs would not allow RAW without making changes. That's totally fine and one of the reason games like this have DMs.

In respect to called creatures, nothing stops you from skipping the bargaining and dominating them. If they fail their Will save they are drawn in to the trap and cannot leave (if the trap is set correctly). From there, you can attempt to dominate them until they fail that too. Once dominated, asking them to use their summon ally ability is not "against their nature" and so would not grant a save. And the summoned creatures are summoned, and so under the control of their summoner who is dominated by you. All dominated minions can have a readied action to summon their allies when the gate appears and order them through the gate.

Is there a lot of prep time for this? Yes. Is it impossible? No.

Also, gate acts as a Plane Shift on the things passing through it, so I do not know if ranged attacks, especially rays, can pass through. That part is a bit fuzzy to me and I not aware of any rules that would clear it up. It creates a sort of window that lets you see the destination, but it is not a seamless connection. It has a surface of effect that, when you cross it, plane shifts you. Physical ranged attacks, maybe. Rays? Probably not.

To my knowledge, there are no current rulings on this. As a DM, I would use the rules listed for portals in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting which states that unattended objects and effects cannot pass through a portal, and instead bounce off.


A very evil trap uses this spell, as well as some rules dating back as far as 3.0. I have created an evil magic user, who has built a stronghold in her own demiplane. She is a tiefling with a homebrew template that makes her an outsider (thus not ageing) She also has 2 other smaller demiplane, each are dead magic, with a portal to her keep (blocked from the keep side, unless she wants to let them in) and another to the nine hells (blocked from this side by a door with spring loaded hinges so it auto closes.) The main way in to these planes is through the same variable portal that grants access to her keep. Those with the portal key (Asmodius' holy symbol) pass through safely. For those without, it acts as a creature only portal based on gender. Males go to One and females to the other. Their gear goes to a storage room in the keep. So they wind up naked, and unable to use any type of magic and are left with a choice, to enter the nine hells like that, or wait until she is ready to use them as a research subject in her experiments in crossbreeding.


I'm not sure that people from 3 years ago care. It polite on these forums to not comment on old threads.


I support necromancy, but nothing has changed, so see previous posts.


Chess Pwn wrote:
I'm not sure that people from 3 years ago care. It polite on these forums to not comment on old threads.

Sorry. Didn't know. Just found it myself. The post, though, is as much for those who find it in the future, as it was for the people who have posted in the past. Again, sorry for my lack of etiquette.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Timeless Demiplanes: Oh, The Shenanigans! All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.