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Message: <blockquote data-quote="swrushing" data-source="post: 2062646" data-attributes="member: 14140"></blockquote>assume 30x30 room, 36 squares, 5 squares oer 2 minutes, thats about 15 minutes to search each room of this size.Do they also search hallaways, like ones which can contain secret compartments or secret doors leading to rooms. if not, thats one way to keep things from being found, and if they do, their progress is slowed a lot more.all this times let other people/things do things.its easy: time is relevent if other things are happening that the pcs wont like. have other things happening the pcs wont like.here i think is the big definition problem. if your adventure setting is basically full of "xp sitting in room waiting for pcs to come kill it" then that choice has made time irrelevent. that choice makes take-20 all the time the smart choice, not a tough choice.Switch the definition from "wandering monsters" to "local inhabitants". LHs don't wander  go to get water, go to take a wizz, go to grab, perhaps literally, some food, and maybe just go fown the hall to talk or mate with their fellows and LHsdon't just sit and wait or wander.The danger from LHs is if they walk in on the room you cleaned out a few minutes ago, they might not rush in to be killed, but instead might go get help. and while the pcs search, the adversaries in several roms ae gettng together and planning what to do.They might be waiting in ambush for the PCs a little further on. They might be releashing the chained up beastie they have kept hidden. they might be setting traps. heck, they might be skeedaddling out the secret exit with their most prized valuables if they have figured out the pcs are too tough.searching while the place in inhabited and after you have left a trail of bodies and ransacked rooms means you are increasing the odds of your surprise going away and the enemy now acting in concerted effort.or think of it this way... if you went downstairs at night for a snack and found your roomate dead on the kitchen table and the litchen ransacked, what would you do?i have the slow down increase the odds of their presence being fiscovered and this turning from a sneak raid into an assault vs alerted bad guys fighting in their home turf.now, you know what this will do?the PCs will go on assault mode first, killing/eliminating the threats and then once they have cleared the place of foes and secured the front door, then when its "safe" they slowly search the place, taking 20.[/QUOTE]

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