Time shifting allows the psionicist to travel up to three rounds into the future and observe things until time catches up with him. He sees everything frozen around him just as it will be when that moment in the future actually arrives.
The psionicist enters a different reality when he uses this power. No one in the "still life" that surrounds him can see or detect him in any way. He can move freely through the environment, putting himself wherever he wants to be when he returns to normal time. But he cannot affect anything around him, nor can anything affect him. Even two time-shifted characters are completely invisible to each other. To the people in real time, the character simply vanishes and then reappears sometime later.
The character does not exist for any normal game purpose during the period when he is time shifted. If, for example, a fireball spell detonates in the room while the character is time shifted, the character is completely protected against its effects. In fact, unless the blast leaves visible effects (charred walls or corpses or sulfurous fumes), the character won't even know it happened.
He sees none of the intervening events.
This power cannot help a character escape contact, however. If someone has established contact or tangents (see Chapter 2) with the time shifter-and continues paying their maintenance cost-then the tangents or contact will still be in effect when the character returns to normal time.
Time shifting offers an obvious advantage in combat. A psionicist can leap one round into the future and maneuver into position for an attack. In that case, the shifter receives a +4 bonus to his attack roll. With enough time, he could even escape.
How long does a time shift last? If the psionicist travels one round forward, then he has one round in which to maneuver. If he travels two rounds forward, then it takes two rounds for reality to catch up. Three rounds is the limit. The farther (or longer) the trip, the more difficult it is to make, as shown in the table below.
| Time Shifted |
Psionic Strength Cost |
Power Score Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| 1 round | 3 | 0 |
| 2 rounds | 6 | -2 |
| 3 rounds | 12 | -6 |
Power Score - No other effect.
20 - The psionicist is disoriented, and suffers a -2 penalty on all die rolls for as many rounds as he intended to shift.
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