Do you like spell and effect durations?

[pemerton]

Depends on the size of the room, but the default is a 20 x 20 room takes 1 turn to search. A 10x10 room should take half that, etc. It has nothing to do with a "scene" and everything to do with a believable game world.

Sure.

But you said:

I track it. Just look at their movement rates. Say they walk down a hundred foot corridor, explore a room and search a chest. In AD&D, that would be 10 minute for movement, assuming the party is mapping, 10 minutes for searching the room, and another two minutes to search the chest, assuming they check for traps. The spell has expired.

But obvioulsy it doesn't take the same time to search a cluttered 10x10 room as a bare one.

Nor to search a star-shaped room with funny corners, compared to a circular one.

At a certain point it's stipulation, not tracking. As [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] and other said upthread.

In 3e, it takes a standard action to search a 5' square (that's about 6 seconds). I can search 10 of those in a minute or I could take 20 and spend 2 minutes per square and search it to the absolute best of my ability.

Are you really saying that this is not a stipulation? That the time actually required to search a 25' square room won't vary depending on shape, furniture, clutter, lighting, etc?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Sure.

But you said:



But obvioulsy it doesn't take the same time to search a cluttered 10x10 room as a bare one.

Nor to search a star-shaped room with funny corners, compared to a circular one.

At a certain point it's stipulation, not tracking. As [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] and other said upthread.

Are you really saying that this is not a stipulation? That the time actually required to search a 25' square room won't vary depending on shape, furniture, clutter, lighting, etc?

It's an abstraction and sometimes a good estimation is close enough.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Note that the old D&D spell durations worked a lot better in the original, where if you played according to the rules, did have fairly rigorous time tracking outside of combat. That's part of the whole point of those 10 minute "turns"--and meant that a lot of things you could do six of with those 1 hour spells, assuming no combat interrupted. As soon as the game removed turns, the standard spell durations automatically became a somewhat poorer fit.

With the Next spells scaling by spell slot instead of caster level, I wouldn't mind seeing some more rapid scaling to fit that kind of power change, similar to the way the Hero time chart works. That is, instead of some spell being 1 round/caster level, you start it off at something 1 round, scale it to 1 fight (minute) in a higher level slot, and then eventually, if appropriate, allow it to scale into an all-day thing. A shield spell you keep up all day might be worth a 5th level slot or so. Though it would be a good idea if such spells also had other conditions that caused them to go away, ablate, etc.

But I think the thing that might really cut out a lot of the busy work is some kind of sliding "free spells" threshold coupled with a concentration/sustain mechanic. For example, however you measure spells that are supposed to last several rounds (1 fight), if you set the threshold at 2, then each caster can maintain 2 such spells without tracking time. They still are assumed to run out in about the time indicated, but if the fight lasts a few more rounds than strictly fit, the caster is assumed to have "pushed" the spell to last a bit longer.

The purpose to this is that you only then need to track more precise durations for spells cast over this threshold. So if you like tracking such details, you set the threshold at zero and track them. If you don't, set the threshold at 5 or even 10 and don't bother ever tracking. If you want to mainly ignore it, but put an upper limit for verisimilitude, game balance, or any other such reason, set the threshold where it works best for your group.

Think of this last idea as the equivalent of only checking encumbrance values for the big or important items and simply eyeballing the rest. As soon as you set up a dual system like that, important versus not important, you can move the cut off where you want.

 

[pemerton]

It's an abstraction and sometimes a good estimation is close enough.

Well yes. But what is the practical difference betweeen an abstraction in which good estimation is close enough, and a metagame-driven stipulation? At the moment I'm not really seeing it.

Note that the old D&D spell durations worked a lot better in the original, where if you played according to the rules, did have fairly rigorous time tracking outside of combat. That's part of the whole point of those 10 minute "turns"--and meant that a lot of things you could do six of with those 1 hour spells, assuming no combat interrupted.

Yes. But I don't think that the turn sequence is particularly driven by simulationist time-tracking considerations. It's a game-play device - and as simulationist priorities take over, it is dropped or downplayed.

Thinking about a module like the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, in which there is a race against time with the poison in the lower tier - I wonder how much pressure this has created at the table, in actual play, for the GM to concede that some things get done in less than a turn, because the players can mount a persuasive case based on realism, and the stakes aren't just wandering monster checks but PC survival?