What does time stop really do?
Alonso
Member Posts: 806
The effects of the spell Time stop are significantly different than what the description says. The description says "The caster can move and act freely, but all other creatures are frozen in their actions, for they are literally stopped between ticks of the clock". That's not the case, though. Most of the states of the other creatures keep evolving for the duration of the time stop:
So what does this spell really do? What does stop and what doesn't?
- The duration of temporary effects they had, like a globe of invulnerability, keeps decreasing.
- They keep taking damage from negative effects that affected them beforehand, like Creeping Doom; and from area of effect spells, like Storm of Vengeance.
- The aura cleansing state seems to freeze: characters that didn't have their auras cleansed when Time stop was cast still don't have their auras cleansed when time "resumes".
- The behaviour of HLAs seems quite random. The remaining duration of Greater Evasion, for instance, keeps decreasing, but the remaining duration of Magic Resistance doesn't.
So what does this spell really do? What does stop and what doesn't?
2
Comments
For all creatures:
- script triggers continue to function, including those from op232.
- animations attached to the creature are frozen in place on their current frame. They will not move with creatures, even if the creature is unaffected by Time Stop.
Only for creatures that are stopped:- frequency-based effects (poison/disease/regeneration/op272) do not trigger while timestop is active.
- the creature cannot move (including forced movement such as wing buffet), and some animation sequence changes are prevented (flinching is, the fall/laydown animation is, but sleep is not).
- lose all color.
- are effectively a mix of stunned & helpless (though without actually having any relevant states set - its undetectable). This suspends selection, spellcasting, and round timers (modals, aura, attack cycle), as well as limits which script actions they may execute.
For any area:Most effect durations remain unchanged as they expire at a specific gametime, which continues to tick away at its normal pace. Effects can expire during timestop as normal, including the triggering of delayed effects.
There are a few effects that run in (un-paused) realtime rather than terminating at a gametime (Timestop itself is one such effect). The other notable ones are graphical effects (fade in, fade out, glow in/out). While timestop will prevent them from altering your appearance until it ends, it won't affect their overall duration.
I think it might affect the duration of Mold Touch in IWDEE, due to how it operates differently in that game engine compared to BGEE/BG2EE. It's a disease that counts down it's triggers, terminating at zero.
In IWDEE, the count is based on a specified amount, while in BGEE/BG2EE, the count is based entirely on the duration.
I'm sure there's still more...
In Jack Vance’s Rhialto the Marvellous, an inspiration for much of D&D’s magic system, Timestop is known as The Spell of Temporal Stasis, or of time-stopping. Many magicians carry monitors to warn them of when such a ‘hiatus’ has occurred.
What does this mean in practice?
What are frequency-based effects? I see that poison doesn't trigger, but the acid from Melf's arrow does.
So which script actions can they execute?
What are area-effect projectiles?
op232 is contingencies, including fake ones like Fire Shield and Blade Barrier. Just those four I listed. op272 is primarily used for insect-spells and phasing damage (IWDEE). Melf's uses multiple delayed effects, same as Find Traps or True Sight. Storm of Vengeance also uses some delayed damage. They can attempt those in 'INSTANT.IDS'. If the action isn't actually instant, they still won't complete it until timestop ends. It's similar to pausing and giving someone an order through the console - an instant action can be performed while the game is still paused, while all others will require unpausing to complete. They fall into the "non-sleeping, but helpless" category I detailed here. Web, Entangle, Skull Trap, Snare, Storm of Vengeance, etc...
Projectiles like Fireball are as well, but it will always be stopped as in "mid-flight", as it has only a single trigger, undelayed and unconditional (not a trap).
I'm struggling to understand all this, there is a lot of programming jargon here. My goal with all this (apart from understanding what the spell does) is to create a spell description that I can include in my Corrected spell descriptions mod. Do you think you can express all this in a way that is more or less suitable for a spell description, i. e., that the average non-programmer player can understand? It doesn't need to be perfect, of course, I'll take care of softening the rough edges myself.
If you can't or don't want to do that it's fine, of course, I can ask specific questions and we can get to something usable little by little.
With your permission, I'd like to add your description to my mod and also to the first post of this thread (with full credits to you, of course). Before I do that, I'd like to ask you for a couple of minor clarifications, though:
Can you give an example of one of the innate abilities that work this way?
We are not supposed to understand why, it's magic after all!
Do you know what are the spells of this kind that don't function during Time Stop?
Beholders: A few of their abilities, though they have trouble with it. They use several abilities per round, and will choke up on the first non-instant ability they try to use during time stop, preventing them from using their instant ones.
Dragons: Fear
Efreets: Fireball
Some of these are actual spells that the creature just cheats with (rather than using an innate duplicate or proper casting). Also, all enemy sequencers and contingencies function this way, as opposed to using the mechanic allowed to players (which is slower, though both work during time stop). Any effect that is repeated by it's projectile: Agannazar's Scorcher, Web, Entangle, Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill, Incendiary Cloud, Grease, Ice Storm, Fire Storm, Meteor Shower - these all repeat because the projectile repeats itself. You have to remain in their area to receive repeated effects. These will not reapply themselves during timestop, but they also don't run down their (area) duration during a time stop. An entangles hold will expire during Time Stop, but it will still have just as many triggers remaining after the time stop ends.
This also includes all trap-like spells (Glyph of Warding, Skull Trap, Delayed Blast Fireball) and thief snares, even though they don't repeat, they trigger in a similar manner.
Storm of Vengeance is a mix - the projectile repeats 3 times, but each time it deals instant and 2x delayed damage (a total of 27d6 (split fire/cold/elec) damage if you stay in the area - the in-game description is not accurate). You would still take any delayed damage that had been applied before Time Stop but not yet expired(triggered).
Earthquake, Bigby's(both), Acid Arrow, True Sight/Seeing, Khelben's WW, Find Traps will all continue to function during Time Stop. Their repeating effects are achieved through a single application of multiple delayed effects.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/75332/useful-knowledge-about-the-games-that-other-way-could-be-lost-please-help-by-reporting-links
Thank you @Alonso & @kjeron
@kjeron: I have tried to put together a spell description that includes all the essential info you have provided while remaining (more or less) user friendly. Does it look good to you?
Creatures and objects are frozen in the spot. Projectiles and spells in flight to their targets are suspended mid-air. Anything that was in motion will continue it's momentum when the spell ends.
Specific effects on the caster:
- Foreign substances -like poisons, diseases, or insects- in or on his body are not affected.
- Missiles or spells that he fires are immediately frozen mid-air.
- His attacks against affected creatures hit automatically and are not subject to critical hits or misses, as if the target was helpless.
- He can breath in the area of effect of Cloudkill or similarly dangerous gases and not be affected by them.
Specific effects on other creatures:
- Creatures affected by Time Stop remain fully aware of what happens. They know if and how the caster attacked them.
- Their automatic defenses -like contingencies, Fireshield, or True Sight- continue to function during Time Stop; but similarly to what happens with the caster, any missile or spell those defenses fire are immediately frozen mid-air.
- Some creatures can use innate abilities during Time Stop if doing so is instantaneous and only requires that the creature is aware of its situation. Examples are dragons fear and efreetis fireball.
Some effects keep working during Time Stop, but others don’t:
- Some effects that keep working are Earthquake, Bigby's Clenched Fist, Bigby’s Crushing Hand, Acid Arrow, True Sight, True Seeing, Khelben's Warding Whip and Find Traps.
- Some effects that stop working are Agannazar's Scorcher, Web, Entangle, Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill, Incendiary Cloud, Grease, Ice Storm, Fire Storm and Meteor Shower.
- Storm of Vengeance is a mixed case: Some of its effects keep working while other don’t.
Some very powerful creatures are inherently immune to the effects of Time Stop. Should they also cast Time Stop during yours, your Time Stop will be terminated, and theirs will begin.
Even with all the relevant flags, area-effect projectiles are never really "instant".