Making the Most of the Time Stop Spell in D&D 5e

Want to know what to do once you’ve stopped time? Read on for my advice.

How does time stop work?

The good news is that time stop didn’t change between D&D 2014 and 2024. Below is the version from the 2024 rules (also featured in the SRD 5.2), but they work exactly the same:

9th-level transmutation

Casting Time: action
Range: self
Components: V
Duration: Instantaneous

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 it, 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.

PHB 2024, p334

The important limitations to note are the random number of turns you get (1d4+1). This means you get 2-5 turns in a row.

The other thing to be aware of is that if anything you do affects another creature or objects they’re wearing, the spell ends. This means you can’t just blast several fireballs on your enemies during a time stop spell.

What to do during a time stop spell

Since you’re a wizard or a sorcerer, you’ll likely want to use your extra turns for spellcasting. But, you’ll have to avoid effects that do something to other creatures otherwise the spell ends. That is, except for the final turn of the spell, at which point it doesn’t matter if you end the spell early.

You’ll also need to be aware that many spells that might help over a period of time (which is likely what you’ll be casting) will require concentration, so make sure your list of time stop spells has just the one concentration spell on it.

Here are my suggestions for what you could do. I’ve stuck with sorcerer and wizard spells as if you’re reaching level 17 in one of these, grabbing spells from other classes will be challenging, though spell scrolls do exist:

Self buffs

The easiest thing you can do is set yourself up with some buffing spells as these will only affect you. This is a nice way to start a combat to ensure you’re as resilient and effective as possible for its duration.

Some of these types of spells include:

• Haste
• Mirror image
• Blur
• Mage armor
• Fire shield
• Greater invisibility
• Globe of invulnerability
• Polymorph
• True seeing
• See invisibility

Battlefield control

Alternatively, you can create barriers and obstacles around the battlefield that divide up enemies and allies in ways that will aid you. You won’t be able to cast these spells on a creature’s space (without ending time stop), but you can separate, trap or impede enemies, keeping them in the places you want them.

These spells include:

• Forcecage
• Wall of fire
• Wall of force
• Wall of ice
• Wall of stone
• Prismatic wall (just be careful of its 20ft range of effects)
• Web
• Grease

I quite like the idea of forcecage being a nearly completely nullifying spell that doesn’t technically affect anyone (until they try to leave). This allows you to completely trap a creature while time is stopped.

Summons

This is a tricky one. Time stop ends when you do something that affects another creature. Summoning a creature or conjuring spirits counts as doing something to a creature, so these spells are clearly off the table. You might argue that conjure spells conjure spirits that don’t have stat blocks, but spirits are still creatures by the rules of the game and a creature isn’t defined by whether it has a stat block (otherwise many NPCs wouldn’t be creatures either). However, there is a possible loophole here.

Animate objects is cast on objects, not creatures. The effects of your spell affected an object, and then those objects became creatures. As long as you don’t do anything else to these objects until time stop ends, you could argue that you haven’t affected a creature in any way. I would, however, check this logic with your DM. They may interpret this quite differently.

The other thing you can do is summon something that isn’t a creature at all, like Bigby’s hand. Just make sure you don’t hit anything with it until the spell ends. Mordenkainen’s sword would also work here (but isn’t as good).

Triggered spells

Some spells only produce their effects on a trigger so can be manipulated to not affect others until time stop has ended. This could include things like emanations that only cause an effect when someone is within its area, or a spell with a literal trigger like delayed blast fireball. In fact, a delayed fireball will become more potent the more turns you have making this a good way to enhance its power.

• Delayed blast fireball
• Yolande’s regal presence
• Sunbeam (just don’t point the beam at anyone until the spell ends)
• Otikuke’s freezing sphere (create spheres someone else can throw after time stop has completed while you cast other spells)

Illusions

It’s up for debate how effective illusions could be in the midst of combat; especially the kind that don’t directly affect other creatures. But, it is possible you could create some kind of distraction through an illusion and it might fool an enemy. I’m thinking spells like minor illusion, silent image and major image here.

Illusory dragon is probably your most potent option here, but you need to be careful. It affects creatures that can see it, so you’d need to cast it out of sight and then move it in sight when time stop ends. Technically it’s not a creature so you can move it while time is active, but you risk ending time stop if anyone sees it.

Antimagic field

So this isn’t a spell that you cast during time stop. Instead, you have an ally cast it, bunch up the rest of the party close to them and then they should be unaffected by your time stop spell.

Of course, the question is what you do while in that antimagic field and time has stopped. You can’t attack anyone or cast spells. You could move around, hide or find a good position. Maybe you can ready an action for when time stop ends, so it’s not completely worthless, but it isn’t as good as it might seem on paper.

There is a question over what would happen if you ended or moved out of the antimagic field while time stop was still active. My interpretation is that time is stopped for everyone outside of the antimagic field (except the caster) and the effects continue for the duration of the spell, so anyone no longer affected by the antimagic field would have their time stopped.

Simulacrum

One time stop isn’t enough for you!? You want another time stop spell!? Well you can. Just create a simulacrum of yourself from a pile of snow and they can cast time stop too. You know what they say, “Two time stops are better than one!” (Actually, no one says this, but if there were level 20 wizards around they would)!

Find a better position

You can continue to move and even teleport if you have the spells/features to do so. Get yourself into a better, less vulnerable position if you need to. You could even make a quick escape and no one would know where you disappeared to.

Steal something

If your mission is to steal something and you just need to grab it and run, time stop would be a great way to grab the item without anyone realising you’d been the one to grab it. You have at least 2 turns to grab the item and get as far away as possible, maybe even using something like dimension door or misty step to teleport away.

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That’s everything you need to know about using the time stop spell. Do you have any favourite interactions or uses for time stop? Let me know about them in the comments below.

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