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General Tabletop Discussion
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Need last-minute advice on tracking time in non-combat when characters are running against the clock...
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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 7098371" data-attributes="member: 19857"><p>Here's why I don't like it - the DC is already giving a chance of failure. If they fail to pop the lock then they should probably waste all of that time and not succeed. But the time of a success should be somewhat unpredictable - maybe they get lucky and pop the lock after a few seconds, or maybe it's more skill than luck and they succeed just by putting a lot of effort into it. If I were in that situation and wanted some narrative randomness, I'd probably make the time it takes related to the margin of success rather than to the difficulty. If you have like you say a 30 seconds per DC point rule then I'd knock 30 seconds off for each point in their margin of success. For example, if it's a DC 15 lock and they beat it with a 25, then they would knock 5 minutes off the attempt and have it unlocked in 2.5 minutes. </p><p></p><p>One big narrative benefit that this gives is that the players can't predict how long it will take them to do something. They can know the worst case (though you could randomize that a bit as well by using the margin of failure to add time to the base difficulty, making a roll of 1 a truly timewasting boondoggle), but they now have the option of trying to press their luck and hoping that it will take them less time. This might mitigate the potential problem that Quickleaf was thinking of where penalties for high DC actions make the players averse to taking those actions (though if that's not a problem for your group then it's not a problem).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jer, post: 7098371, member: 19857"] Here's why I don't like it - the DC is already giving a chance of failure. If they fail to pop the lock then they should probably waste all of that time and not succeed. But the time of a success should be somewhat unpredictable - maybe they get lucky and pop the lock after a few seconds, or maybe it's more skill than luck and they succeed just by putting a lot of effort into it. If I were in that situation and wanted some narrative randomness, I'd probably make the time it takes related to the margin of success rather than to the difficulty. If you have like you say a 30 seconds per DC point rule then I'd knock 30 seconds off for each point in their margin of success. For example, if it's a DC 15 lock and they beat it with a 25, then they would knock 5 minutes off the attempt and have it unlocked in 2.5 minutes. One big narrative benefit that this gives is that the players can't predict how long it will take them to do something. They can know the worst case (though you could randomize that a bit as well by using the margin of failure to add time to the base difficulty, making a roll of 1 a truly timewasting boondoggle), but they now have the option of trying to press their luck and hoping that it will take them less time. This might mitigate the potential problem that Quickleaf was thinking of where penalties for high DC actions make the players averse to taking those actions (though if that's not a problem for your group then it's not a problem). [/QUOTE]
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Need last-minute advice on tracking time in non-combat when characters are running against the clock...
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