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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5945258" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>Yes - this is the 4e "extended rest", in effect, which I wish had been de-coupled "officially" from the diurnal cycle, because it doesn't always fit there very well (e.g. you can't have tense, week-long chases or searches where there is no time to fully recover resources - tinkering with the "extended rest" mechanics a bit can sort this out really easily).</p><p></p><p>But, I think this is just a case of "game world time" and "mechanical system time" being congruous; basically, there has been one "tick" of the game - call it an "episode", or something - that has completed, thus triggering the resource renewal. That this "tick" happens (notionally) to correspond with a set, game-world time interval is actually incidental, in my view.</p><p></p><p>And this is a classic case of just what I was trying to explain, above, too. A "combat round" is, in the <strong>system</strong>, "the quantity of game required for your character to perform a prescribed aliquot of actions". It's a bit like saying "a second corresponds to a set number of oscillations between specified states in caesium-133 atoms at zero degrees kelvin"; when the caesium has changed state that many times, you know a second has passed. When every creature has taken (or declined to take) its quota of actions, you know a combat round has passed.</p><p></p><p>I actually like (from a general verisimilitude point of view) the approach that HârnMaster and the De Bellis Antiquitatis wargame rules (among others, I'm sure, but these two I happen to know) take, here. They just say that a "game round/turn" is "approximately X amount of game time", while actually defining the turn as "however long it takes in the game world for the actions that happen in the round to happen". In HM, if you want to know roughly how much time a combat took, take the number of combat rounds and multiply by 10 seconds - but be aware that this does not mean that each actual round took exactly ten seconds! Some will take more, some less. Since nobody in the game world is even remotely likely to have a timepiece capable of measuring minutes accurately, let alone seconds, this is vanishingly unlikely to matter one jot.</p><p></p><p>Yeah, the problem - with most such "systems", actually, not just D&D - is that it defines only the time aliquot and a movement rate. Borderline OK if <strong><em>all</em></strong> the characters do is move, but totally useless otherwise. The "rules" then amount (at best) to the GM taking a wild-assed guess at how much time various actions take. I have been involved in learning exercises where we planned and executed "get over the canyon with these bits of wood and this rope" type stuff, so I know just how wildly inaccurate both my and other people's estimates of the time taken to do such stuff is. As a "system", frankly, just rolling 3d10 for the number of minutes taken to do <em><strong>anything</strong></em> would be an infinitely better bet.</p><p></p><p>Better still, for durations, I would use:</p><p></p><p>1) Instataneous. Easy.</p><p>2) Applies to next roll/check/attack (if this could be later - e.g. in another character's turn, give out a token of some sort that can be "spent" for the bonus, to make remembering/tracking trivial).</p><p>3) Applies until some condition or remedy is applied; could be simply ending your turn, successfully making a saving throw (always taken at the end of your turn), triggered by a specific action (by the character with the condition or another) or something more esoteric. Basic rule - no counting. Next time the trigger happens, the effect ends.</p><p>4) Appies until no longer sustained. This is almost like the previous one; there is a trigger that ends the effect unless a specific action is taken to sustain it past the trigger.</p><p>5) Applies until the end of the encounter (this is actually just a special case of 3, with "an encounter ends" or "a short rest is taken" as the condition).</p><p>6) Applies for ever.</p><p></p><p>4e <em>almost</em> got this right - but the clustercockup of "start of target's next turn"/"end of target's next turn"/"start of initiator's next turn"/"end of initiator's next turn" blows the whole gaff, sadly.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 5945258, member: 27160"] Yes - this is the 4e "extended rest", in effect, which I wish had been de-coupled "officially" from the diurnal cycle, because it doesn't always fit there very well (e.g. you can't have tense, week-long chases or searches where there is no time to fully recover resources - tinkering with the "extended rest" mechanics a bit can sort this out really easily). But, I think this is just a case of "game world time" and "mechanical system time" being congruous; basically, there has been one "tick" of the game - call it an "episode", or something - that has completed, thus triggering the resource renewal. That this "tick" happens (notionally) to correspond with a set, game-world time interval is actually incidental, in my view. And this is a classic case of just what I was trying to explain, above, too. A "combat round" is, in the [B]system[/B], "the quantity of game required for your character to perform a prescribed aliquot of actions". It's a bit like saying "a second corresponds to a set number of oscillations between specified states in caesium-133 atoms at zero degrees kelvin"; when the caesium has changed state that many times, you know a second has passed. When every creature has taken (or declined to take) its quota of actions, you know a combat round has passed. I actually like (from a general verisimilitude point of view) the approach that HârnMaster and the De Bellis Antiquitatis wargame rules (among others, I'm sure, but these two I happen to know) take, here. They just say that a "game round/turn" is "approximately X amount of game time", while actually defining the turn as "however long it takes in the game world for the actions that happen in the round to happen". In HM, if you want to know roughly how much time a combat took, take the number of combat rounds and multiply by 10 seconds - but be aware that this does not mean that each actual round took exactly ten seconds! Some will take more, some less. Since nobody in the game world is even remotely likely to have a timepiece capable of measuring minutes accurately, let alone seconds, this is vanishingly unlikely to matter one jot. Yeah, the problem - with most such "systems", actually, not just D&D - is that it defines only the time aliquot and a movement rate. Borderline OK if [B][I]all[/I][/B] the characters do is move, but totally useless otherwise. The "rules" then amount (at best) to the GM taking a wild-assed guess at how much time various actions take. I have been involved in learning exercises where we planned and executed "get over the canyon with these bits of wood and this rope" type stuff, so I know just how wildly inaccurate both my and other people's estimates of the time taken to do such stuff is. As a "system", frankly, just rolling 3d10 for the number of minutes taken to do [I][B]anything[/B][/I] would be an infinitely better bet. Better still, for durations, I would use: 1) Instataneous. Easy. 2) Applies to next roll/check/attack (if this could be later - e.g. in another character's turn, give out a token of some sort that can be "spent" for the bonus, to make remembering/tracking trivial). 3) Applies until some condition or remedy is applied; could be simply ending your turn, successfully making a saving throw (always taken at the end of your turn), triggered by a specific action (by the character with the condition or another) or something more esoteric. Basic rule - no counting. Next time the trigger happens, the effect ends. 4) Appies until no longer sustained. This is almost like the previous one; there is a trigger that ends the effect unless a specific action is taken to sustain it past the trigger. 5) Applies until the end of the encounter (this is actually just a special case of 3, with "an encounter ends" or "a short rest is taken" as the condition). 6) Applies for ever. 4e [I]almost[/I] got this right - but the clustercockup of "start of target's next turn"/"end of target's next turn"/"start of initiator's next turn"/"end of initiator's next turn" blows the whole gaff, sadly. [/QUOTE]
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