D&D 5E Rounds During Exploration

[PoJo72]

My question is in regards to published adventures and comments such as the following.

Each round there is a 25% chance of X happening.

This is straight-forward enough during combat. After everyone has their turn, roll the percentage dice and see if the thing happens. No worries there.

What I am unsure about is how to manage this when the instruction is listed during an exploration phase. For example, let's say the party enters a dungeon chamber. Inside that chamber is a trap of some sort. The instructions say that each round there is a 25% chance of the trap triggering or something like that. How do I measure a round when the party is exploring? Do I set a timer and roll the dice after each minute of real-time? Do I just wait until it seems like everyone has had an opportunity to do something and call that a round?

I do not, unfortunately, have an actual example, but I am pretty certain I have come across this is more than one adventure.

Just looking for some tips.

Thanks

 

[PoJo72]

Some additional information for my question. I found an example from Storm King's Thunder. It is similar to what I am asking about.

In the Tomb of the Skodkong area of Deadstone Cleft, the notes indicate the following.

If the character drawn into the slab asks no questions, the Skodkong expels the character after 1 minute.

Is that a minute of real time? 1 minute of game time would normally be about 10 rounds, but since it is just exploration, a 'round' is not as clear.

 

[Nagol]

Since 3e, a round has been about 6 seconds long. 5e discusses different time scales and their uses (discusses is probably too strong -- more like mentions) in the PHB. There it is mentioned that exploration will typically take place using a minute span rather than a round.

In earlier versions, the basic span of time for exploration is the Turn which is about 10 minutes long compared to the combat round which is about a minute long.

If a 3e+ adventure says something has a chance of happening each round, I would guess combat time is expected since there are 10 such potential events every minute.
If the reference is older and per round that means its about once a minute and simply get actions from each character about where they are / what they are doing.
If the reference is older and per turn that means it happens about every 10 minutes (though 1e had pretty strict idea of what you can do in 10 minutes, like walk your base movement if you are being careful and mapping, casually examine a 20'x20' area, thoroughly check a 10'x10' section of wall for secrets, etc.)

 

[Nagol]

Some additional information for my question. I found an example from Storm King's Thunder. It is similar to what I am asking about.

In the Tomb of the Skodkong area of Deadstone Cleft, the notes indicate the following.

If the character drawn into the slab asks no questions, the Skodkong expels the character after 1 minute.

Is that a minute of real time? 1 minute of game time would normally be about 10 rounds, but since it is just exploration, a 'round' is not as clear.

'Round' isn't used in the example provided. Minute is. That is an in-game minute. What can a character do in a minute? About what a person can do in a minute. If not in combat time, I'll typically 'zoom out' and check where people are going to be and what they're doing. It is unlikely that a character will be engaged in activities where specific round counts are necessary unless the group is counting rounds like in combat.

5e PHB suggests exploration be handled in minute chunks or maybe multiple minute chunks.

Let's look at your example. If I understand correctly, there is a slab called Skodkong a character be disappear into. Assuming the disappearance is unexpected and other PCs wish to act as if combat is occurring, I'll start a round count and expel the PC on round 9 or 10. If the rest of the group simply decides to prepare and get ready if action is required, I'll narrate a minute passing after asking the affected PC for actions.

 

[PoJo72]

I think my memory was faulty in remembering the examples as 'rounds' rather than 'minutes'.

What you stated helps clarify it for me. I can keep tabs on what the characters are doing and translate those actions into minute blocks based on what they are doing.

Thank you

 

[Li Shenron]

My question is in regards to published adventures and comments such as the following.

Each round there is a 25% chance of X happening.

This is straight-forward enough during combat. After everyone has their turn, roll the percentage dice and see if the thing happens. No worries there.

What I am unsure about is how to manage this when the instruction is listed during an exploration phase. For example, let's say the party enters a dungeon chamber. Inside that chamber is a trap of some sort. The instructions say that each round there is a 25% chance of the trap triggering or something like that. How do I measure a round when the party is exploring? Do I set a timer and roll the dice after each minute of real-time? Do I just wait until it seems like everyone has had an opportunity to do something and call that a round?

I do not, unfortunately, have an actual example, but I am pretty certain I have come across this is more than one adventure.

Just looking for some tips.

Thanks

I may be wrong, but I don't think you'd find such case in a 5e adventure, where you'd rather see an indication in minutes or hours. However you might have seen it in an older edition adventure, for example IIRC a default "turn" in AD&D was 10 minutes or something like that. In 5e a "round" is 6 seconds, but it's not used as a time unit out of combat.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As the DM, you must always keep track of what all characters are doing at all times, whenever it might be relevant. If something might happen every six seconds, then you need to know where everyone is every six seconds, in case that happens.

Combat time is an illusion. The only difference between in-combat and out-of-combat is that we don't always care about modeling exact positions and times. If we care, for any reason whatsoever, then measuring rounds is the correct model.

 

[robus]

In your example the minute is in game time. In other words you decide when that minute is up and usually you can tell whether the character's time is up based on their declared action. They say they enter the chamber and wait for some sign...? "You wait for a minute and then are expelled". They say they enter the chamber and attempt some fiddly action that might disable the trap? Set a DC and have them roll. If they beat the DC they disable the trap before the minute is up else they're expelled (but probably with some intelligence concerning the mechanism?)

However tracking time (outside of combat) is not well explained in the DMG. A good rule of thumb is to assume that 10 minutes passes for a declared activity. So, for example, searching a room might take 10 minutes.

There are ways to track this on paper, but a fun alternative is to use dice (when you want there to be the threat of wandering monsters (or guards, or whatever). Every time 10 minutes has passed add a dice to a dice pool. When you have 6 dice you know an hour has passed. If you want to find out whether a wandering monster appears, roll the dice. If any of the dice comes up with "1" then an encounter occurs. What's great about this is the passage of time becomes visible to the players (they see the clock tick as a dice is added to the pool). The clever bit about this is you can easily manage the threat of a particular environment by choosing which size dice to add to the pool. Super dangerous? Add d4s. Quite safe? Add d12s. Moderate? Use d8s. Surprisingly combat is generally over so fast it does not add to the time pool (3 rounds is 18 seconds after all).

Note: This idea is a summary of a post on the AngryGM website called "It Cannot Be Seen, Cannot Be Smelt: Hacking Time in D&D".

 

[Sunseeker]

It depends on how fast you want your exploration to feel.

Out of combat, I use fixed turns, clockwise from the DM. Once everyone has gone, that is a "round". If I want things to move fast, I will limit what they do to a combat-turns-worth of stuff. If I want to stretch things out, it'll usually be an hour per round.

 

[Charlaquin]

Here’s a good article on the subject (you can skip down to the “exploration tasks” header)