Do you mean Save Scumming? 'Cause to the outsider observer (that is everyone else) the user would appear to merely be prescient. No fiddling with the time line at all. No causality, merely knowledge without source.
You must agree, my plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity! My TumblrDidn't that Nicolas Cage movie Next do something like that? He's constantly scanning his own future two minutes ahead and correcting for mistakes he makes. I imagine that'd be very similar to what you're thinking.
For example, there's one scene where he's trying to impress the female lead, as she's confronted by another man. He runs through about a half-dozen scenarios before finding the right one, essentially a movie form of Trial-and-Error Gameplay.
No one believes me when I say angels can turn their panties into guns.I've read a Disney comic where the Phantom Blot steals a device that allows him to do this, then uses it to commit crimes. Whenever he gets caught, he just reloads from his last "save" and now knows how to avoid the cops. They eventually beat him by tricking him into saving just before the cops show up, so even when he reloads he has no time to escape.
If the power only returns him to Spot X, not rewinding time, does this need his death to activate, or can be activated at will? Because if it can be activated at will it is essentially 'Farore's Wind' Spell, and it is not as much Save Scumming as it is mere Teleportation.
For a "true" Save Scumming, time rewind is probably a must. Preservation of an amount of knowledge may be as well (ie.: he returns not knowing all of the information that he acquired in the future). The problem is, if it requires conscient activation, it may cause "noise" to the past version, for example, if you activate it while you are shot, you return to a spot in te past knowing that you were shot, and you suddenly start crying and grabbing your balls for technically no reason, in your past time.
edited 14th Feb '11 6:20:45 AM by SilentReverence
Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?Why stop at save stating? Why not go for full, Braid style control?
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

How would such a power work best in the real world where violation of time could be disastrous?