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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6576390" data-attributes="member: 6775031">As I was imagining it, the party learns that the head cultist is a minotaur, so they decide that a minotaur-slaying weapon would be good to have. Or they find out it's a dragon, so they want a shield that protects against breath weapons. I'm not all that familiar with 4E magic items, but I think you see where I'm going with this.That's the thing. The party doesn't necessarily know when the deadline is, or I guess even what the exact time currently is. They may or may not have time to set up their plan. Under any sort of fixed timeline, this would be a choice that the party makes - they can spend the hour, and gain the upper hand on the upcoming encounter, at the risk of missing the deadline and failing the quest. It's an interesting decision, but only if the timeline is otherwise independent of their actions.Or the party could find a copy of the ritual time-table, and learn exactly when the sacrifice will take place. At that point, the only risk is that something unexpected might happen at the last minute to throw them off schedule. Do they have enough time, accounting for traps and guards and other sorts of misdirection?That's an area where the DM should be able to figure things out based on his or her prior knowledge of the setting, and dice for randomness where the DM is uncertain. That's DM 101 stuff. And if lunch is taking too long, the players may decide they don't have time, and cut it short.Although maybe you're right. Maybe 4E chose to abstract the passage of time in such a manner that it's difficult to track what the exact time is at any give point. That's not easy for me to conceptualize.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 6576390, member: 6775031"] As I was imagining it, the party learns that the head cultist is a minotaur, so they decide that a minotaur-slaying weapon would be good to have. Or they find out it's a dragon, so they want a shield that protects against breath weapons. I'm not all that familiar with 4E magic items, but I think you see where I'm going with this. That's the thing. The party doesn't necessarily know when the deadline is, or I guess even what the exact time currently is. They may or may not have time to set up their plan. Under any sort of fixed timeline, this would be a choice that the party makes - they can spend the hour, and gain the upper hand on the upcoming encounter, at the risk of missing the deadline and failing the quest. It's an interesting decision, but [I]only[/I] if the timeline is otherwise independent of their actions. Or the party [I]could[/I] find a copy of the ritual time-table, and learn exactly when the sacrifice will take place. At that point, the only risk is that something unexpected might happen at the last minute to throw them off schedule. Do they have enough time, accounting for traps and guards and other sorts of misdirection? That's an area where the DM [I]should[/I] be able to figure things out based on his or her prior knowledge of the setting, and dice for randomness where the DM is uncertain. That's DM 101 stuff. And if lunch is taking too long, the players may decide they don't have time, and cut it short. Although maybe you're right. Maybe 4E chose to abstract the passage of time in such a manner that it's difficult to track what the exact time is at any give point. That's not easy for me to conceptualize. [/QUOTE]

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