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Time Stop |
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9th-level transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action You briefly stop the flow of time for everyone but yourself. No time passes for other creatures, while you take 1d4 + 1 turns in a row, during which you can use actions and move as normal. This spell ends if one of the actions you use during this period, or any effects that you create during this period, affects a creature other than you or an object being worn or carried by someone other than you. In addition, the spell ends if you move to a place more than 1,000 feet from the location where you cast it. |
Quicklinks:
Overview and Mechanics
General Tips
Wizard Archetype Advantages
Sorcerer Archetypes and Metamagics
Multiclassing Advantages
Spell Synergy
Cool Ideas
Useful Spells
Conclusion
Overview
Ninth level spells are meant to be the apex of spell casting, so their effects must be game changing to be worth it. Several spells like Meteor Swarm and Wish are obviously powerful, so it’s a heavy burden to research Time Stop to find ways that it can be on par with other epic spells in fifth edition. I’ll do my best to defend Time Stop because it’s too cool to brush aside.
Time Stop was historically more powerful as the caster could cast offensive spells during the duration. It was frustrating to fight against a lich in the Baldur’s Gate PC games because a lich would cast Time Stop and kill half of my party before I could even do anything. The current version of Time Stop will cause the spell to end if action is taken against another creature. For this reason, you must get creative to use this ninth-level spell effectively in fifth edition D&D.
Sage Advice: Jeremy Crawford answered a question about Time Stop when a player cuts a rope bridge. Initially, Jeremy said this action would end the spell since creatures on the bridge would fall; however, Jeremy later replied to the same question that he would rule that the bridge doesn’t fall until Time Stop ends. This means Time Stop has many more options that can be done without ending the spell. I’ll brainstorm and outline a few ideas later in this article. While we’re talking about Sage Advice answers from Jeremy Crawford, the only other Q&A I found involving Time Stop was about Legendary Actions, where are not compatible with Time Stop since they occur at the end of another creature’s turn. However, I believe the easiest way to interpret the spell is to notice that it only stops time for creatures. This means that interacting with the environment will seem normal. This is pointed out by several RPG Stackexchange users in response to questions about this spell. Oh, and I’ll leave it up to you whether a living tree counts as a creature or object, heh heh.
The next part of the spell to navigate is what actions qualify to end the spell per its description, “This spell ends if one of the actions you use during this period, or any effects that you create during this period, affects a creature other than you or an object being worn or carried by someone other than you.” For comparison, the Twinned Spell Metamagic of a Sorcerer says that in order to cast a duplicate effect of a spell, “A spell must be incapable of targeting more than one creature at the spell’s current level. For example, magic missile and scorching ray aren’t eligible, but ray of frost and chromatic orb are.” While these wordings are not the same, they are similar. Twinned Spell doesn’t work for AOE spells because they immediately affect multiple creatures, but an interesting caveat is that even spells with delayed AOE effects like Dragon’s Breath (Xanathar’s Guide to Everything) will also be disqualified from Twinned Spell (might surprise you). But Time Stop is different in its effect, and it is unique in that it involves time manipulation. I can’t find an official ruling, but I would rule that delayed AOE effects like Delayed Blast Fireball can be used during Time Stop as long as the spell doesn’t affect other creatures during Time Stop. Once Time Stop ends, let the Delayed Blast Fireball rip! Cloudkill is a spell that will only “affect” creatures on their turn, so can you cast Cloudkill without ending Time Stop since the effect isn’t harming creatures yet? I don’t know. Again, this is my interpretation as it makes logical sense to me.
It’s also interesting to me that some spells like Darkness affect vision external to a creature’s senses, so does that count as affecting the creature? What about just making noise so other creatures hear it? It seems to me that what you do to end Time Stop must actively affect creatures, as opposed to affecting their environment and senses. I would rule that you can use Shatter to collapse a cave entrance even though the spell makes a thunderous noise (not to mention the cave in noise). I’m also interested to know if a creature frozen in time would even hear what happens during the duration of Time Stop since the sounds are not delayed.
Another important consideration is whether spell durations continue to expire during Time Stop. Most spells that harm a person will do so on their turn, but their turns are delayed while you take extra turns in a row. This is the part of the spell that seems to imply the the environment should be frozen in time as well, but again, the spell just says creatures are frozen in time. It’s also weird to consider what happens during Time Stop to effects you caused prior to casting Time Stop. Definitely talk to your DM about this spell before you consider using it, lol.
That sums up how Time Stop works mechanically in a typical game of D&D. Now I’ll provide my analysis of how to use Time Stop effectively.
Generic Tips
Verbal Only: Time Stop’s only spell component is verbal, so you can be completely bound or have your hands full and still cast it as long as you can speak. Let’s also keep in mind that ninth level spells don’t get used very often in my experience and in each statistical summary of the game that I’ve heard reference to (the ones that say most campaigns end by level ten or something). Time Stop is on the spell list for Sorcerers and Wizards, so I will consider their class archetypes to discover which of them particularly benefit from Time Stop.
Ready Action Time Stop: If you expect an enemy to do something catastrophic, you can Ready action cast Time Stop with the trigger being the moment before the catastrophic action is completed. This could potentially cause the catastrophic action to fail if you can make yourself scarce or out of sight moments before it takes effect. Remember that you can’t stop an incoming arrow or javelin with Time Stop because it only freezes time for creatures. Keep in mind that readying a spell requires concentration no matter what spell it is, so you can lose the spell if someone harms you before you release the spell.
Ready Action Another Spell: In the last round of Time Stop, you can ready a spell and choose a trigger that may happen immediately when Time Stop ends. This would allow you to save the last spell of the Time Stop for the opportune moment if you must wait for an ally to get into position before you cast Haste or something. I don’t know of a concrete example of when I would do this, but it is a technical choice a spellcaster can make. Keep in mind that readying a spell requires concentration no matter what spell it is, so you’ll sacrifice concentration on another spell you may have used during Time Stop.
Wizard Archetypes
Transmutation: Wizards of Transmutation get slightly more utility out of Time Stop since it’s a transmutation spell. The Transmuter can cast Time Stop and, in addition to the spell’s effects, change the chosen effect of his Transmuter’s Stone to fit the situation.
Abjuration: Since this spell is ideal for casting buff spells, many of which are of the school of abjuration, and abjurer can use the extra turns gained from Time Stop to cast abjuration spells to concurrently charge an Arcane Ward with hitpoints.
Necromancy: I’m not sure a caster can raise undead minions during Time Stop, but it would be a quick way to gain some fodder for protection.
Illusion: This may be the least synergistic school of magic on this list, but a good illusion at the right time can end an encounter without casualties. During Time Stop, you can create illusions out of the line of sight of an enemy. When Time Stop ends, the illusion can speak to the enemy or visually do something that may cause them to stand down. The important part is that Illusionist Wizards gain the Illusory Reality ability at level fourteen, allowing the Illusions to become real for a limited time.
Sorcerer Archetypes and Metamagics
Subtle Spell: Since I mentioned earlier that Time Stop only requires a verbal casting component, the Subtle Spell Metamagic would make the spell imperceptible to anyone but yourself. If you cast the spell normally, a keen enemy might recognize your words as you cast Time Stop, but with Subtle Spell you essentially will time to stop.
Extended Spell: You may be tempted to try and increase the duration of Time Stop with this Metamagic, but even though the full duration of Time Stop’s effect is 1d4+1 turns, the technical duration is instantaneous. For this reason, Extended Spell does not affect Time Stop.
Quickened Spell: If you cast Time Stop as a bonus action, you’ll still have your action available to you when Time Stop’s effect ends. Just remember you won’t be able to cast a spell above a cantrip with that action because it will technically be part of the same turn that you used your bonus action to cast Time Stop. Note: You can multiclass two levels of Fighter to gain Action Surge so you can cast spells or use other actions after Time Stop ends.
Divine Soul: The healing abilities of this subclass can be useful during Time Stop to avoid losing turns in combat to heal yourself.
Multiclass Utility
When talking about multiclassing, we must keep in mind that at least seventeen levels must be taken in sorcerer or wizard in order to cast Time Stop. Without seventeen levels, Time Stop won’t be available from the spell list. For this reason, we’ll narrow our analysis to multiclass benefits from exclusively early class features.
Cleric Trickster Domain: Channel Divinity Invoke Duplicity (Player’s Handbook) can be fun with Time Stop. You can create an illusion of yourself, and move it to your current location while you move away, making it appear that you never moved. Your illusion will be able to cast spells for you while you wait in the corner with an invisibility spell, or from another room while you use Arcane Eye to watch the fight and cast spells that require sight. You might perceptively criticize this idea because the spell Mislead can do something similar without multiclassing, but it’s worth noting that Invoke Duplicity isn’t a spell and it does not require concentration.
Rogue: In addition to actions on your Time Stop turns, you can use bonus actions! Rogues are the kings and queens of bonus actions thanks to the Cunning Action class feature. If you multiclass as a rogue, you can run around the battlefield with your bonus action while using your actions to cast spells. In addition, you can use your final Time Stop turn to Hide as a bonus action so enemies don’t know where you are when time resumes. Plus you’ll probably have Expertise in Stealth so you can hide extra well.
Sorcerer/Wizard: I mentioned earlier that Time Stop appears on the spell list of Sorcerers and Wizards, but you can invest one-to-three levels in the other if you are already a Wizard or Sorcerer. Sorcerers will gain Metamagic at level three, and Wizards will receive bonuses from their archetypes by level two. I mentioned worthy archetype choices earlier in this article.
Healing: If your sorcerous origin is Divine Soul, you have formidable healing abilities from your class. Since a Sorcerer won’t know any healing spells, you could multiclass one or two levels in Cleric or Bard to gain basic healing spells that you can upcast in a pinch. Your level eighteen class feature, Unearthly Recovery, is also an excellent way to hear yourself if you’re grievously wounded. Time Stop grants you plenty of time to use these recoveries, but you could just as easily use potions instead of spells to heal during this borrowed time.
Spell Synergy
Contingency: Though you can’t choose Time Stop to be a Contingency stored spell (limited to spells of fifth level or lower), you can set up Contingency to trigger when you cast Time Stop. This means you can choose a spell that automatically cast when you cast Time Stop, saving you a round of casting for that spell.
Telekinesis: If you time it just right, you can trigger an avalanche, a boulder roll, or some other environmental effect with your telekinetic power that will reach your foes just as natural time resumes for them. This tactic is very dependent on your DM agreeing with Jeremy Crawford’s second look at the spell’s mechanics that I mentioned earlier.
Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere stockpile: During Time Stop’s effect, you can cast multiple instances of Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere to be used as sling bullets, throwing stones, or ticking ice bombs. I only recommend this if you’re fighting a dire foe because you’ll spend your high level spell slots in order to unleash many icy explosions. It’s worth it if you have a fighter who can launch all the spheres quickly after you create them, but you might want to give her cold resistance first because she’ll probably be in the blast radius. You can read more about the Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere spell in our deep-dive article that highlights it.
Summoned Creatures: I’ve been wondering how Time Stop should interact with summoning spells and abilities like Conjure Animals. I think summoning a creature will cause Time Stop to cease, but I tweeted the question to Jeremy Crawford to see what he thinks.
Wall Spells: In addition to casting spells to buff and mobilize yourself, it would be especially advantageous to invest your concentration in some harmless battlefield control with something like Wall of Stone. When time resumes, your party will have the advantage of positioning and mobility to take the fight.
Anti-Magic Field: I bet some would interpret this differently, but it seems to me like the spell AMF would make any creature inside its area immune to Time Stop. This might mean that your party could also gain extra turns from Time Stop if another member of the party casts AMF, or perhaps if you already have AMF active. I wonder what would happen if you did cast AMF during one of your extra turns from Time Stop while your party members are in the area of AMF. It would probably end Time Stop because AMF is technically affecting other creatures, which Time Stop will not abide. This mechanic is a massive gray area to me, and I don’t see any official answer about it on the internet.
Force Cage: Spells that don’t require concentration are premium to a Time Stop user. You can cast a spell like Cloudkill that won’t affect creatures until their turn begins, but then you won’t be able to see them to cast Force Cage. However, Cloudkill’s description says it slowly travels away from you, so you can create Cloudkill adjacent to a foe, then move to gain vision and cast Force Cage at the end of Time Stop (cage version). This means Cloudkill will move into the cage and begin snuffing the life out of your victim while they can’t escape. The Dungeon Dudes Youtube channel gave me this idea, but you can find it documented here on the Dungeon Vault.
Simulacrum: You could potentially dish out double the spells if you and your Simulacrum double cast Time Stop on your respective turns. Any combinations you wish to use can be achieved by you alone if you have a Simulacrum double. Your double can concentrate on its own spells as well, allowing you to overcome the one-concentration-spell-at-a-time dilemma. The double could also function as something of a suicide bomber for some of my other suggestions in this article, such as the Portal Bomb idea coming up.
Scroll down in this article to see a list of spells that I believe can be used advantageously with Time Stop.
Cool Ideas
Portal Bomb: Place a Portable Hole amidst your enemies. Place a Bag of Holding just above the Portable Hole. When time’s flow resumes as normal, the Bag of Holding will fall inside the Portable Hole, creating what is essentially a temporary black hole to destroy your enemies. If this is news to you, I recommend reading the description of the Bag of Holding in the Dungeon Master’s Guide since it specifically describes this interaction: “Placing a bag of holding inside an extradimensional space created by a Handy Haversack, Portable Hole, or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The gate originates where the one item was placed inside the other. Any creature within 10 feet of the gate is sucked through it to a random location on the Astral Plane. The gate then closes. The gate is one-way only and can’t be reopened.” To summarize, you’ll send all enemies within ten feet of the Portable Hole to the Shadow Realm, just like in Yugi-Oh, without a saving throw!
Outside of Combat: The first instinct is probably to use this spell in combat, but you can use it before combat begins to get into an advantageous position and surprise your enemies. If you’re navigating a dungeon, you get several rounds to move quickly to where you need to be.
Stealing: If your enemies harbor an artifact that you require, you can cast Time Stop, run in to steal the artifact, and be gone with the wind without commotion or incident.
Useful Spells
Buffs (preferably with no concentration):
- Fire Shield
- Mirror Image
- Nondetection
- Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere (Concentration)
- Freedom of Movement
- Globe of Invulnerability (Concentration)
- Tenser’s Transformation -particularly for Bladesingers (Concentration)
- True Seeing
- False Life
- Jump
- Longstrider
- Mage Armor
- Blur (Concentration)
- Darkvision
- See Invisibility
- Spider Climb (Concentration)
- Remove Curse
- Water Breathing
- Water Walk
- Stone Skin (Concentration)
- Anti-Magic Field (Concentration)
- Mind Blank
Escapes (up to 1,000 feet away before Time Stop ends):
- Dimension Door
- Dispel Magic
- Disintegrate
- Invisibility / Greater Invisibility / Mislead
- Nondetection
- Wall spells
- Reverse Gravity (maybe)
- Arcane Lock
- Stone Shape
- Blink
- Fly (Concentration)
- Passwall
- Arcane Gate (Concentration)
- Disintegrate
- Programmed Illusion
- Plane Shift
- Force Cage
- Teleport
Other
- Grease
- Darkness
- Dispel Magic (target effects to not end Time Stop)
- Locate Creature (Concentration)
- Leomund’s Secret Chest
- Wind spells to disperse gas
- Telekinesis / Transmute Rock – Assuming we can loom a boulder over an enemy’s head without breaking the spell. This depends on DM interpretation of Time Stop.
- Move Earth (Concentration)
- Sequester
- Demiplane (have them step into it by interrupting movement with Time Stop)
- Crown of Stars
- Delayed Blast Fireball
Conclusion
In conclusion, the ability to stop time is powerful, but it’s not ubiquitously useful unless you plan for its utilization. Time Stop may not be as unanimously powerful as it once was, but a spell caster with creativity and planning can change the game with it.
If you enjoyed this article, check out some of our other spell analyses!
Unseen Servant might have a synergy with Time Stop using the view that the spell only affects creatures. Since US isn’t a creature, you could give it an order and have it unaffected by the TS spell while you take your own actions. This would be situationally useful, but ordering it to trigger traps prior to casting Time Stop would allow you to get around some of the stipulations of the spell as you are not creating the effect, the servant was cast prior to the time stop, and you are not using your own actions during the stopped time to do so.
That is an interesting loophole, Jeremy! Unseen Servant is not specified to be a creature, but rather a shapeless force. I could see a lot of DM’s treating the Unseen Servant as a creature for the sake of resolving the effects of Time Stop, but some might rule that the servant can move and act during Time Stop. I’d allow it!
Not sure the Portal Bomb would actually work: since the Time Stop spell affects creatures, placing the Bag of Holding on top of the Hole would cause it to fall down immediately.
Hi Mario!
While I agree with you, I described in this article that there are alternative interpretations of this spell. Some allow the spell to literally freeze time, not just people. Jeremy Crawford’s tweets were an example of that. Whenever you’re going to use this spell, I recommend asking your DM first. It’s a spell that seems simple, but it gets complicated quickly.
If your DM rules that only people are frozen in time, not objects, you could position the Bag of Holding over the Portable Hole using a wooden plank or something. It could still be done with proper planning.
I would think that for most encounters all you would need would be to cast Sickening Radiance on a target and then forcecage. (Solid, not bars, and make sure that the center of the radiance is inside the forcecage.) Creatures won’t take damage until the start of their turn so when time restarts they are trapped in a forcecage and sickening radiance burns them down for ten minutes. After 6 failed saves most targets will just die of exhaustion (And after the first fail checks will be made with disadvantage)
Yep! That’s a great way to slay creatures.
One issue with Time Stop is that it states “You briefly stop the flow of time for everyone but yourself. No time passes for other creatures”. So, creatures on the other side of the planet automatically get stopped? There is no area limit on the spell.
Every DM has to adjudicate this in some way. Some limit the area, but environmental effects are still occurring (which means that other damaging spells cast previous to Time Stop are still damaging on every turn that the Time Stop caster gets). The better adjudication is that Time Stop only affects the caster, not other creatures or the environment. The caster is caught between two ticks of time.
Regardless of interpretation (both have pros and cons), any spell that (directly) affects creatures ends it. It doesn’t matter when the effect affects the creature, the fact that it does ends it. No Cloudkill. No Sickening Radiance.
Darkness does not end Time Stop because it doesn’t affect creatures. It affects light. Shouting does not affect creatures because they cannot hear the shout (a literalist might say it does). All illusions that do not affect a creature can be cast. Not sure why you limited them. An illusion in front of and talking to a creature is not affecting the creature because the creature cannot see it or hear it within the Time Stop “period of time”.
Undead could be raised because dead corpses are not creatures. Summoned creatures cannot be summoned.
Delayed Blast Fireball does not affect creatures when it is cast or at any time during Time Stop, so it’s ok. The effect is not on the creatures. Portal Bomb, totally ok. The Force Cage / Cloudkill only works if the caster casts it on his very last turn of Time Stop adjacent to the cage, but the target still has an entire turn to avoid it. If cast earlier than the caster’s last turn (unless sufficiently far away), the cloud moves and affects the creature and ends Time Stop.
Nothing in Time Stop indicates that the caster knows when it is going to end either, but many DMs might give that information to the player because it is a 9th level spell.
There are lots of issues with Time Stop as written, too many to list. But by adjudicating it that the caster is between two ticks of time, it solves most of them. He could cut a rope bridge. He could place a rock above a target’s head and it would hang in mid-air. Course, the problem of gravity for the caster is still an issue and has to be resolved that forces within his personal space still work (he still sees light). So if the caster jumps off a cliff, he still falls and could still die. But the rope on the rope bridge is not part of the caster’s area. He cuts it, the bridge does not fall until he comes back into time.
When spells expire cast within Time Stop are a little tricky unless you rule that they are working within the Time Stop period of time and lose 1D4+1 turns durations. Course, that could make spells cast by the caster on himself before the Time Stop a bit tricky unless you rule that they too are working with the Time Stop period of time as well. There is always something that people do not consider or think about.
It’s a tough spell to resolve, utilize, and interpret!