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Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 5983387" data-attributes="member: 3400">You may view it as a metagame-driven stipulation, but it doesn't have to be. Suppose I've got a 10 minute buff going that improves my ability to search. 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. With my 10 minute buff, I can search wide areas, probably multiple rooms and maybe even have a combat in the meantime. Or I could search 5 squares extremely well - I'd probably focus on the desk, the bed, the trunk, and maybe the areas behind the tapestries on the left.Durations with some time are really useful for bringing out those choices. For another example - my wizard's polymorph self last for 140 minutes so he turns into a wren to sneak into the enemy king's council chambers to spy. He's now got a shade under 2 hours (assuming some transit and buffer time) to observe the king receiving reports and issuing orders. But he's seeing people all afternoon and into the evening and I've only got the spell prepped once. I have to choose when to use it and hope I've made a good choice. I may even have to avoid a couple of encounters with more aggressive other birds or a cat. I'm in that time frame in which I've more than one reasonable encounter but not all day and I have to think about time management.</blockquote>

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