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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5983585" data-attributes="member: 54877">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.</blockquote>

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