i was inspired by a facebook post to think about it again, but not rehash decades of debate.
would the 1 official time travel spell (or the 1 Dragonlance one or 1 Call of Cthulhu) work on preventing Pun Pun's ascension?
Teleport Through Time [Perilous Gateways: Portals in Time]
Transmutation [Teleportation]
Level: Anagakok 9, Beholder Mage 9, Deathwalker 9, Fleshcrafter 9, Sha’ir 9, Sorcerer/Wizard 9, Soul Reaper 9, Sublime Chord 9
Components: V, S, M, XP
Casting Time: 1 round
Range: Personal and touch
Target: The character and touched objects or other touched willing creatures weighing up to 50 lb./level
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None and Will negates (object)
Spell Resistance: No and Yes (object)
A far more powerful version of the teleport spell, this spell instantly transports the character to the same location, but to a different time. Interplanar travel is not possible, and the spell fails on any plane where time is meaningless. The character can bring along objects and willing creatures totaling up to 50 pounds per caster level. Unwilling creatures cannot be affected by this spell. Only objects held or in use (attended) by another person receive saving throws and spell resistance.
To cast this spell, the character must be able to state the arrival time accurately, down to the minute. The spell never transports the caster and companions to the precise minute desired, but it cannot function at all without a specific minute in time to target. This "drift" effect of not arriving at the precise time desired grows with the "distance" through time (measured in years, months, and weeks) traveled. Thus, a caster teleporting to last month arrives closer to her goal than one traveling 250 years. The minimum temporal distance traveled is 1 day, so this spell is not useful for going back to the beginning of a melee that is still progressing.
This spell requires some knowledge of the destination time, so it cannot transport anyone into the future since the future is entirely unknown to the caster. Even spells that give knowledge of the future cannot give definite enough knowledge to allow this spell to work. It is possible to use this spell to travel forward in time, but only to the point in the caster's life when the caster first went back in time.
Since the caster may not know exactly what is transpiring at the destination time, prudent time-travelers prepare for the worst.
The errors in arrival for this spell occur in time rather than in location, since the character does not change locations at all. To see how closely the character arrives to the planned arrival time, consult this table.
Temporal Temporal Chance
Distance Drift* of Mishap
1 day to 1 month +/- d8 minutes 5%
1 month to 1 yr. +/- d8 hours 7%
1 yr. to 10 yrs. +/- d20 hours 10%
10 yrs. to 100 yrs. +/- d8 days 15%
100 yrs. to 1,000 yrs. +/- d20 days 20%
1,000 yrs. + +/- d20 months 25%
* There is a 50% chance that the number is a negative number.
Add or subtract the temporal drift to the destination time to determine the exact time of arrival. Mishaps result in the spell failing and the character taking 1 point of Intelligence damage for every 10 years of expected time travel due to the mental bombardment that time travel brings with it. Thus, a character trying to transport through 100 years would take 10 points of Intelligence damage. Intelligence can be reduced to 0 through this damage (but not lower).
In the case that a traveler meets himself, the two travelers instantly lose control and attack each other with every ability and item at their disposal. However, should a traveler die while traveling in the past, the traveler's body immediately vanishes from the point of time it traveled to and returns to the point where the spell was cast at the time that the spell was cast. In other words, if a traveler perishes in a fire, the instant that the traveler died in that fire is the instant in which the traveler is no longer in that time period, and the body is never found within that location since it returns to the moment of time in which the traveler finished the spell and began time traveling.
Special Note: The introduction of time travel into any campaign can be fraught with peril, so tread carefully. Players will wonder how much they can mess with the timeline, and you may run into instances of the grandfather paradox. Further, changes made very far back in time cannot really be worked out completely because of the chaotic aspect of events. Thus, it is simplest to use the rule that changes in time are minor and somehow time smooths them out. This argues for a determinism and predestination in the ways of your world, but you can say that once events have transpired, small perturbations are possible (this person lives rather than dies, but does not contribute to events in a meaningful way), but the large-scale events themselves somehow happen anyway. If the cause is changed, another cause comes along. In the case of someone killing their own grandfather, the PC might find that he is the same but has a different family when returning to the present. As long as you keep the knowledge of how to travel in time restricted, your campaign will not fall apart.
Material Components: The material components of this spell are a pinch of dead skin, a drop of oil of timelessness, and a flower grown in soil untouched by any intelligent creature since the desired destination time. The flower must be picked during the casting of the spell. Untouched soil is defined as soil that no creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher has walked on, touched, or disturbed in any way, and it is usually found in remote locations (putting soil in a portable container disturbs it). The caster does not know whether the soil has been disturbed too recently for the time travel attempt, and many wizards simply use trial and error to find suitable locations. In short, you must find a pristine area to cast this spell, then you travel back in time to the exact same location at which you cast the spell. Because important events in a character's life are highly unlikely to take place in pristine locales, it's unlikely you'll have the ability to use this spell to make two of yourself to appear in the same place at the same time. Once you cast the spell in a particular location, it is no longer pristine, making it even more difficult to arrange for three or more of your future selves to assemble together.
XP Cost: 1,000 XP.
Timereaver [Dragonlance: Legends of the Twins 27; Dragonlance: Tower of High Sorcery 50]
Transmutation
Level: Anagakok 9, Beholder Mage 9, Deathwalker 9, Fleshcrafter 9, Sha’ir 9, Sorcerer/Wizard 9, Soul Reaper 9, Sublime Chord 9
Components: V, S, M, F, XP
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: Close (25 ft + 5 ft / 2 levels)
Effect: One way portal through time and space
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Known only to a few—officially only the Masters of the Towers of High Sorcery know this spell—timereaver is one of the most potentially powerful and dangerous spells known on Ansalon. This spell creates a portal through time and space and allows up to 1 individual per 4 caster levels to travel through the portal to another period of time.
Originally intended to allow wizards to research the past or the future, the spell allows individuals to travel backward or forward along the River of Time. The travelers can travel up to 20 years per level of the caster backward in time, or 1 year per level of the caster forward (as the future is far more difficult to navigate. The spell pierces the barriers between both time and space. It requires incredible concentration from the spellcaster in order to ensure that the travelers end up at both the right time and in the right place (requiring a Spellcraft check at DC 15 +1 for every decade traveled backward and a Spellcraft check at DC 15 +1 for every year traveled forward). If the Spellcraft check is failed: 1) the travelers end up either in the right time but wrong place—25 miles away per point the Spellcraft check failed, in a random direction (50% chance), or 2) in the right place but the wrong time—up to 5 years per point the Spellcraft check failed, either forward or back (50% chance). Either failure may place the travelers in a precarious position, particularly as the spell is a one-way trip (unless the travelers are provided with a means of returning, such as the device of time journeying or another rare and powerful artifact).
At the beginning of time, the High God dictated that alterations to the River of Time were forbidden, thus those using the timereaver spell cannot affect either the past or the future, no matter how hard they try (as a pebble dropped in the river cannot alter the river’s path). However, if one of the Chaos races (any race altered by the effects of the Graygem, such as kender, dwarves, minotaurs, or sea elves) travels through time, the touch of Chaos within them allows for the possibility of time alteration—a potentially disastrous consequence. This spell was primarily used by Masters of the Tower to send individuals through time to research aspects of the past or the future, secure in the knowledge the travelers could do nothing to affect the River of Time. Such expeditions were rarely undertaken, however, as artifacts like the device of time journeying (which originally allowed only a single individual to return through time) are exceedingly rare and difficult to produce.
Material Component: A magical circle, created by a mixture of rare ingredients worth at least 10,000 stl + 1000 stl per decade traveled backward in time, or per year forward in time.
Arcane Focus: A major artifact, which is temporarily inert for 1 hour per decade traveled backward in time, or per year traveled forward in time.
XP Cost: 1000 XP + 500 XP per decade traveled backward in time, or per year forward in time.
Create Gate [Call of Cthulhu 136]
Transmutation
Level: Anagakok 8, Beholder Mage 8, Deathwalker 8, Fleshcrafter 8, Sha’ir 8, Sorcerer/Wizard 8, Soul Reaper 8, Sublime Chord 8
Components: V, M
Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: 0 feet
Effect: Circle up to 5ft-radius that transports those who activate it
Duration: Permanent
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
You create a doorway that transports anyone activating it to another lace. Most commonly, this takes the Form of a circle or pattern on a floor or another horizontal surface. The gate teleports any willing creature who stands on it to a designated spot. Once you designate the destination for the gate, you can't change it. The spell fails if you attempt to set the circle to teleport creatures into a solid object, or if you choose a place you are not familiar with or have no clear description of.
Some tomes may include a specific version of this spell keyed to one particular plane, such as a create gate to Celaeno; each one of these is a separate spell. This type of create gate spell can be cast if you have read a detailed description of the destination in the tome that includes it.
Damage Distance
or Drain
1 Str 100 years
2 Str 1,000 years
3 Str 10,000 years
4 Str 100,000 years
5 Str 1,000,000 years
6 Str 10,000,000 years
7 Str 100,000,000 years
8 Str 1,000,000,000 years
9 Str 10,000,000,000 years
10 Str 100,000,000,000 years
11 Str 1,000,000,000,000 years
12 Str 0.5 light-years
13 Str 5 light-years
14 Str 50 light-years
15 Str 500 light-years
16 Str 5,000 light-years
17 Str 50,000 light-years
18 Str 500,000 light-years
19 Str 5,000,000 light-years
20 Str 50,000,000 light-years
Creating a gate requires permanent Strength point drain based on the distance it crosses (see table). Activating the gate costs 1 point of sanity and temporary Strength damage in the amount equal to half () of the Strength drain it cost to create the gate. The gate alters those passing through it physically so that they might survive it whatever environment they encounter on the other side.
Material Component: Different versions of this spell specify different materials components for the circle or diagram. One book might mention a simple chalk sketch; another may require a diagram painted in the blood of a particular animal. A gate to a particular place may require expensive materials or even a Craft check to create.
XP Cost: 3,000 XP.