I need tips on keeping track of time for random enconters


Iron Gods

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So uh, every four hours kept in torch is random encounter roll and every hour in black hill caves is random encounter roll... But I have always been bad in estimating amount of time players take to do anything..

So uh, are there tips or rules on how to check time? :'D

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

In a dungeon, I treat each encounter as 1 minute, and if the PCs are searching the room I treat that as 10 minutes and if they are taking 20 on a search then I treat that as about an hour (depending on the skill).

In a town, if there are encounters every 4 hours then that means in a day of 8 hours action, 8 hours rest and 8 hours play you're probably really rolling 4 times.

So that means players can take 4 significant actions in a day in town, after each one roll a random encounter. Significant actions can be but are not limited to: Visiting an NPC, shopping, gambling, purchasing spellcasting services, visiting the dungeon, crafting. No more than 4 times per day.

Sovereign Court

Time keeping as a GM is an important skill, but it's one you completely control! It's all about the three movement types.

Tactical movement is easy enough.

Exploring either dungeon, urban, or wilderness happens in Local movement which is measured in minutes. This is room to room, street to street, or over a decent sized area map in wilderness. You can speed things along, especially when doing things like shopping and selling loot by tracking by the hour. A nice guideline is using the time for a Gather information (diplomacy) check.

Overland movement is measured in hours or days and is as easy as thinking about the red line map transitions in the Indian Jones films.

Use a pad of graph paper and check off how long they spend doing things in each Movement type.

--School of Vrock

Sovereign Court

"When you feel that it's about time" - you don't have to be so precise about when wandering monsters happen.


Your players might also have buff spells running on them, so have them help you keep track of time! If the wizard casts mage armor, that is 1 hour per level.

Be fair to your players though, some might feel if you keep asking about "when are your spells going to run out" that you are waiting to pounce on them. Monsters that can't know the invisible force field protecting the wizard will run out in 30 minutes shouldn't suddenly be playing cards for the next half hour.

Basically, be honest. Let your players know random encounters are a thing (some people like them, some don't care, some just don't), and you are trying to be fair to the tables but not unfair to the players. Have them help you keep track of time. My table reminds me half the time because they enjoy random encounters (usually because its just a wandering monster, no moral crisis or debate, just fire and forget).

A good thing that can help keep it "random, but fair" is to roll a die for WHEN a monster attacks in its bracket. Say the party makes camp at 6pm. A few spells are still running. You know the encounter check is 4 hour increments. Ask whos on watch, if anybody has spells they want to cast or things to do, before they rest. Note down if so.

Now, roll your encounter chance. Got one? Ok, roll a d4, thats the hour after 6 that the encounter occurs in. Say you roll a 1, so its the first hour after 6. You could even then roll a d6 to get the rough minutes of that hour. Say, roll a 2, so 20 minutes after 6, just after camp is set up, something stumbles upon their campsite. Then, you let the remaining 3 hours and 40 minutes pass, everything is fine, until 10pm, time to check for encounters again. Then again at 2am, and 6am, and so on.

Do keep in mind the rules regarding interrupted rest when using random encounters. Even if the monster hits nobody and causes no damage, a middle of the night encounter can have a big effect on HP and spell recovery.

Sovereign Court

The Black Bard wrote:
Do keep in mind the rules regarding interrupted rest when using random encounters. Even if the monster hits nobody and causes no damage, a middle of the night encounter can have a big effect on HP and spell recovery.

Yes, but be careful - these rules aren't uniform. For example:

CRB > Magic > Preparing Wizard Spells > Rest wrote:
If his rest is interrupted, each i­nterruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells.
Combat > Healing and Injury wrote:
Natural Healing: With a full night’s rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level. Any significant interruption during your rest prevents you from healing that night.
Classes > Barbarian > Rage wrote:
The total number of rounds of rage per day is renewed after resting for 8 hours, although these hours do not need to be consecutive.

In general it's not that easy to completely prevent characters from resting and refreshing daily powers (who relies on natural healing anyway?). But players are still advised to seek a well-hidden place to camp in Scrapwall, because an attack while half the party is asleep is very dangerous. If only because most people don't sleep with their armor on!


I view random encounter tables as a helpful list of what the party could encounter. I use plot-based encounter rolls rather than time-based encounter rolls. If the party makes steady progress in the module, then they encounter the scripted encounters in those rooms. If the party dilly-dallies for some irritating reason, such as searching every corner of a natural cave for secret passages, then a random monster wanders into the room. If the party decides to spy on Sanvil Trett because he acts supicious, then they might stumble across some vexgit gremlins who are attracted by Trett's hidden technology.

Even if I believed in time-based encounters, the Fires of Creation table groups too many environments into a single table. The creatures of the caves would not be found wandering the streets of Torch, except for the gremlins. Likewise, encountering a Ropefist thug deep in the caves would make no sense. Even within town, the environments vary. A Ropefist thug is likely to hang around the warehouses or the gambling hall, but not near the town hall. If the party takes Val Baine's offer to sleep at the Foundry Tavern, the GM should make that a safe place, rather than having dire rats or wild pilos burrow in every 4 hours. They are more likely to be interrupted by a neighbor with a casserole than a dangerous foe.

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