So in my games I have used a houserule for a long time with the party rogue and traps. Instead of the Rogue going "I search for traps, I'm checking that for traps, is it trapped, etc etc", I just assume the rogue is always looking around for traps. When an actual trap is nearby, I give the Rogue an immediate check. If they succeed, they notice the trap. If they don't, they don't....and they don't get to try again.
In terms of the houserule itself, its worked wonderfully in many campaigns. However, for my next campaign, time is going to be a very big factor and I don't want to be as loose with the time spent doing searches as I have in the past.
So hence I've come here. What I'm trying to get are some default times for a party going through a room, with the assumption that the Rogue is taking the time to check things out. This is going to a middle ground between the rogue combing every little thing vs just taking a glance in the room and going. I do not expect this to be super accurate, obviously the amount of stuff in the room could have a huge variance....I'm just trying to come up with a number that is reasonable and easy to track, a number that if I quoted my players they may not fully agree with but wouldn't look at me like I'm crazy.
Generally I'm thinking of 3 standard sizes:
Small - This is like a 10 x 10 room or smaller, like a secret area or a closet or something.
Medium - A 30 x 30 room or the "standard dungeon room" for this purpose, maybe your standard long hallway that's 5-10 foot wide.
Large - A big room, maybe 60 x 60
And then of course I can just double numbers for really really big rooms. Again not trying to get super refined here, if I have a 40 x 40 I'll just call it a medium room and be done with it, etc. A small room packed with trinkets I may use the medium time for, etc etc. Just some standard times that I can mix and match easily as needed.
So now to the big questions: For these kinds of dungeon room sizes, what do you think is a reasonable amount of time to pass to represent the searching of the rooms for traps?
In terms of the houserule itself, its worked wonderfully in many campaigns. However, for my next campaign, time is going to be a very big factor and I don't want to be as loose with the time spent doing searches as I have in the past.
So hence I've come here. What I'm trying to get are some default times for a party going through a room, with the assumption that the Rogue is taking the time to check things out. This is going to a middle ground between the rogue combing every little thing vs just taking a glance in the room and going. I do not expect this to be super accurate, obviously the amount of stuff in the room could have a huge variance....I'm just trying to come up with a number that is reasonable and easy to track, a number that if I quoted my players they may not fully agree with but wouldn't look at me like I'm crazy.
Generally I'm thinking of 3 standard sizes:
Small - This is like a 10 x 10 room or smaller, like a secret area or a closet or something.
Medium - A 30 x 30 room or the "standard dungeon room" for this purpose, maybe your standard long hallway that's 5-10 foot wide.
Large - A big room, maybe 60 x 60
And then of course I can just double numbers for really really big rooms. Again not trying to get super refined here, if I have a 40 x 40 I'll just call it a medium room and be done with it, etc. A small room packed with trinkets I may use the medium time for, etc etc. Just some standard times that I can mix and match easily as needed.
So now to the big questions: For these kinds of dungeon room sizes, what do you think is a reasonable amount of time to pass to represent the searching of the rooms for traps?