Ok, I was trying to think of a class that had a feel of its own and a somewhat unique role in cf, and I came up with a mage who messes with time.

I then decided to brainstorm for some skills they'd have, and have come up with quite a lot, though not, I feel, quite enough for a new class.

I'll start with the generic skills I'd give them:

weapons: staff, hand to hand, spear

(Staff simply because I like the idea of a wizard with a staff, h2h as everyone has it, spear because it is probably the most similar weapon to a staff and I'm tired of all mages using daggers. A wizard can lean on a spear like a staff, for starters.)

defenses: parry, shield block (note the reduced usefulness of shield block for this class since it doesn't compliment the weapon skills).

other skills: lore at 100% - because he deals with time, and history could easily be linked with time
appraise maybe? since he's a specialist with artifacts
wands, staves, scrolls (all three)

OK, now to the skills that define the class a bit more. I've not really come up with good names for the skills, so they all sound too similar now, but the actual use of them should be clear enough:

Spell - Step to Past: this allows the chronomancer to go from an area in the present to its corresponding area in the past, with the actual location in the past_area a random thing. eg From Galadon market square you can go to a random room in the settlement.

At first, the chronomancer can only transport himself like this (and I'd give this spell as an early one), but as he advances beyond level 10, he gains a 2% chance each level past 10 to take his groupmates with him. ie at level 51 he has a 82% chance to take his group with him.

Spell - Return to Present: basically the opposite to Step to Past.

Spell - Slow Locality's time: basically this means that things only happen every other round in that area of the mud. Everything takes twice as long. Ranking would be slower, because each round of combat would take twice as long (ie you only get every other round doing anything). People would take twice as long to walk across an area, etc. This could be useful if someone is plagued, poisoned, bleeding etc and you want to maximise the time that you can survive. You could, for example, send someone to buy a cure this way. You could also use this to drive groups ranking in one area to find somewhere different, as their learning, while no more dangerous for them, becomes slower in real time. You could also use it to slow the approach of a group of raiders coming at your cabal, or maybe the action within a cabal if you want to run attackers outside and heal them up faster than the people inside can heal.

I'd propose that this effect lasts for 10 hours, and can be called every 50 hours.

Spell - speed locality's time: opposite of above. Makes ranking in an area more efficient in real time. Also resting, plus raiding can me accomplished faster, possibly before defenders get back, because two rounds happen in the space of each one.

I would make it so that the tell, reply, gt & cb commands will not work when in one of these areas, but other communications like say and yell will. (This is to prevent communication between the time affected area and people in other areas, who are moving on a different timeline now.)

Spell - Freeze time: similar to above. No one in the area can communicate of hear. Chronomancer can move around the area and use not attacking objects etc but everyone else is frozen until the end of the tick or until the Chronomancer leaves the area. No one sees what the chronomancer does in this period, as it is outside real time for any other people in the area. This would be a high level spell.

Skill: See past -- similar to the ranger track skill but limited to those people the chronomancer can see. eg If an assassin is currently hiding, the chronomancer cannot use this skill to track him. (I am aware of the inconsistency here. I'd like to have said "if the assassin was hiding when he crossed the room in question" but I suspect that is beyond the coding.) This skill can be used in any terrain, unlike the ranger skill.

Skill: See future -- give the chrono the chance to see what is about to happen and avoid some kinds of trap, as he gets a flash of a possible future with him being caught in it. I'd make this a 20% +1% chance per level. The kind of trap I am talking about includes deathtrap rooms, quicksand, pits, gel, vortex, iceslick, snare, thief traps etc.

Spell: Blur time -- people in the area will not get messages that their affects have fallen etc, and the time command and prompt will no longer work in the area. Echoes of things that happen on the tick will have a 50% chance of showing the round after (eg wiping dirt from eyes may only be seen the round after it has been wiped), and people may only notice their health increasing on a tick the round after, etc.

Spell -- Stasis hold: similar to neuro disruption in that the target is lagged. However, the target is also immune to whatever is happening around him while held in stasis. This means that it can be used to keep an enemy out of a fight until his allies are dead, and he can be dealt with more easily, but it can also be used to keep a hurt companion out of a fight if he cannot flee, until the threat is removed. Like neuro though, the length of statis is variable.

Spell: warp time -- time moves differently around the target of this spell, but only in a small region around him (talking inches or feet here). Opponents attacking this person get big penalties to hitroll as their weapon moves faster in time within the affected area than their arm does outside it, which plays havoc with what their eyes see.

Spell: preserve -- crumbling or evaporating items have their lifetimes tripled. The backlash of this magic makes them rot_death though.

Spell: erode -- reverse of preserve. When cast on any non-crumbling item it will give it a finite lifetime. ie the Udgaard man-at-arms halberd will crumble in 500 game hours or something. A potion will evaporate very quickly etc.

Spell: sense moment -- Can be used to detect when a specific mob repops. Works similar to summon as follows. Mage casts spell with argument of mob's name. Mage does not know whether spell succeeds or not. If it succeeds, he'll get an echo saying "The gods have restored MobA". If it fails he simply won't get an echo at all.

Skill: Stasis trap: goes off when someone walks into the room (which the chronomancer must remain in if the trap is to stay active). Lags person who walks in one round. Lags any non-chronomancer 2 rounds. Doesn't lag chronomancer at all. (Yes, there is a point to this skill, but I'll leave it to people to work out their own potential uses.)

Spell: Hide in time -- chrono remomves himself from Thera for a random 2 to 5 ticks. He won't show on where or who lists of any sort. He is in the equivalent of realm of the dead, but can't do anything except wait until he pops back into the room where he was.

Spell: Stasis shield -- works only on mobs. Those around the caster may be non-aggro if caught in the statis as the caster walks in (or if they walk in on the caster). Caster's chance of passing is only 20% (and his group can pass with him) and if he passes that mob again the check must be made again. Useful for getting past aggro gatekeeper mobs so that anyone following hahs to fight them.

Spell: delay -- when opponent enters a command, his action has a 50% chance of happening the round after it normally would. This is an offensive spell, and non-stackable. Each time the spell is cast it can only affect the next command, and no commands after that whether it succeeds or fails.

Spell: summon prehistorics -- calls random mobs from Thera's prehistory. These may be friendly to caster and join his grou like a merc, or they may be hostile to all including the caster. However, the hostile ones will not track or remember who they attacked last. They'll just attack whoever is in the room with them. They remain for 10 hours or until dead and then return to their own time.

Spell: mature -- can use seeds (to be sold in Ivy's or the Greengrocer etc) that weigh nothing, and, with this spellm mature them instantly into food if in fertile terrain.

Spell: age -- hostile spell. can increase victim's age, like wither sometime's does, but without any other ill effects.

Spell: grant youth -- can add 5 years of life to target at the expense of 1 con point. That con might be the target's (90%) but could be the caster's (10%).

Skill: view history -- can look at an object and see who held it last.

Skill: view container history -- can see what a container (eg chest, drawer) normally holds, even when it is empty.

Spell: devolve -- target becomes a less evolved version of their race (where Theran history permits). This is a very powerful spell.

On a drow, it might reduce dex by one point, increase str, con & chr by one point, but remove their autosneak. (This spell has a 5 hour duration, say.)

On a duergar may lose dex & str & det hidden but gain con, int and wis.

An arial may lose dex, flight, but gain str and con

A storm giant may lose res lightning, str & con but gain wis, in and dex.

Similar for fire giants but lose res fire and lose vuln cold.

Similar for cloud but lose flight and all vulns.

Felar lose dex and con and gain int and wis.

etc.

Spell: evolve -- similar to devolve but opposite in nature. eg drow become still more agile and clever, but less healthy and weaker. Their stealth increases so they can now hide, but their weaker health leaves them vuln plague, poison etc.

Spell: affecthold other -- can slow deterioriation of a duration affect, including spells, communes, skill affects etc.

eg plague is cast on someone, then this spell slapped on top of it. Each tick the plague has only a 50% chance of losing an hour of its duration. Similarly this could be used to enhance someone's flight spell. The spellhold can only be used to affect one spell on any one target at a time.

spell: affectdrain other: opposite of affecthold other, in that each tick there is a 50% chance of the affect losing 2 hours of duration. This is stackable.

spell: affecthold self: makes it so that on the next tick none of your affects lose an hour of duration. Cost 100 mana so that it is very difficult (but possible) to use this to maintain affects. You could, for example, use this to keep that sanc commune and other nice affects on you, but at the cost of 100 mana per tick (and also the time it takes to cast the spell each tick).

Am interested in thoughts and possible additions.