I want to make the DM's work easier. Any clever idea?
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As I, as the DM, have already much to do during gaming, one of my players cares for the ini-list during combat. He'S very good at marking such things and the Combad-Pad helps a lot!
Anyway, I am not sure if one could say something like
1) a 4th level spell lasts for 4 rounds + wizard level, and if you prepare a 4th level spell in a 5th level spell-slot you can double the duration?!
Just an idea off of myhead, never tried it or even took anymore thoughts in it...sorry! ;)
Hand wave durations, have em be whatever you want. Your players won't even notice if an enemy's web spell ends a round, or even a minute, before it was "supposed to".
Also, if a PC casts a spell on themselves you should have them track the duration.It's their spell, why should you have to track it's duration? As the GM, you got enough on your plate.
Some DMs don't like fiat and prefer to follow the rules to the letter. That's fine for them. But I find that not worrying about it too much eliminates stress on my part and makes the game flow better.
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I want to make the DM's work easier. Any clever idea?
Some spells (those with hourly duration) can be easily folded into the daily duration. I don't see any biggie here, even for the lower level casters. Mage Armor, I'm looking at you; even ability -boosting spells such as Bull's Strenght (thus recreating the 3.0 rule) are good options, IMHO.
Others (the ones with duration calculated in minutes) can be generalized into "per-encounter" duration. No biggie even here. Shield and Bless are good examples.
Then other spells should definitely stay into the standard round/minute per level or else duration. Knowing that the spell can go off while the combat isn't over, or that a large part of the duration has to be expended while approaching the enemy/maneuvering into a better position, adds a whole level of tactical thinking and role-playing that I don't want to miss.
Invisibility, most Illusions, summons, and others too.
Comon folks, you can come up with a more elegant solution than a combat pad
One of the positive changes 4e is making is eliminating durations. Spells and effects last all day, one round, one encounter, or until a saving throw is made. In essence, most effects do that in 3.5; they are just hidden beneath formulas. I suggest that the PFRPG adopt a similar model. Cat's Grace lasts until the end of the combat. Mage Armor lasts all day. Ray of Enfeeblement lasts until the target makes a saving throw. Stunning Fist lasts one round. It's basically the same effect, just a lot simpler.
One of the positive changes 4e is making is eliminating durations. Spells and effects last all day, one round, one encounter, or until a saving throw is made. In essence, most effects do that in 3.5; they are just hidden beneath formulas. I suggest that the PFRPG adopt a similar model. Cat's Grace lasts until the end of the combat. Mage Armor lasts all day. Ray of Enfeeblement lasts until the target makes a saving throw. Stunning Fist lasts one round. It's basically the same effect, just a lot simpler.
I agree with this though we could be accused of copying 4th ed. Also, I think that spells that deprive you of your control over your character (like fear or dominate, charm...)should come with a save per round. It will at least give the player something to do.
One of the positive changes 4e is making is eliminating durations. Spells and effects last all day, one round, one encounter, or until a saving throw is made. In essence, most effects do that in 3.5; they are just hidden beneath formulas. I suggest that the PFRPG adopt a similar model. Cat's Grace lasts until the end of the combat. Mage Armor lasts all day. Ray of Enfeeblement lasts until the target makes a saving throw. Stunning Fist lasts one round. It's basically the same effect, just a lot simpler.
The first three are workable (as long as you can track all the effects currently on going), though there are some details that are weird (the same effect can have different durations depending on the source, which means you have to track the source as well as the effect, which is a pain).
However, it would take a lot of retro-fitting to slap it on 3e. It would be pretty ugly, and you have to consider for some abilities, they are design for more than an encounter, but less than a day. Do you give those extra uses?
The saving throw mechanic is just bad. Its clumsy, time consuming and inelegant. Coupled with the sheer number of powers and effects that can be flying around, you could literally have a situation where you have to make a number of saving throws equal to the number of characters x the number of monsters involved in the encounter.
Plus, there's something inherently sad about doing anything and having a 55% chance that it will end on the first round. Yes, you did just waste an action.
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Also, I think that spells that deprive you of your control over your character (like fear or dominate, charm...)should come with a save per round. It will at least give the player something to do.
While I agree that it sucks to lose control over your character, I think this is ok, as long as the DM uses such spells sparingly. Putting a save/rnd duration on things like Charm and Dominate would immediately place them in the pile of "spells never to be taken". As a player, I can't see ever burning a slot on something that worked like this. Besides, I would hardly consider it "domination" at that point.
Now, for fear effects and confusion and things, I could be persuaded to lessen the durations. Perhaps 1 rnd/2 CL would be more appropriate. On average, this would remove characters for 1/2 of an encounter. That seems fair. It is still a reliable "Save or Suck" spell, but the player isn't necessarily screwed.
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Steve Kenson's Psychic class has all of it's power durations based in one minute intervals.
Most buff spells, debuff spells or 'effect' spells, such as Slow, Bull's Strength or Ray of Enfeeblement could just be turned into a 1 minute duration. A flat duration would be pretty harsh, but extremely easy to track.
It's possible that a spellcaster could choose to 'maintain' a spell already cast for an additional minute by some method, perhaps by expending another spell slot of that level. Even a spell that required him to touch the target could be 'maintained' at a distance, as he's just feeding more power into a spell he cast a minute ago to keep it going.
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OK. I think I may be on to something.
Spells with a duration of 1round/level change to 1 minute/per casting stat bonus. (so if you have an 18 int, it would be 4 minutes, which effectively makes it a per combat (or 2) duration.)
Not really sure about the longer durations, but there has to be a way to tie it into casting stat, like 1 hour/level could change to 2X or 3X casting stat bonus in hours.
Eh?
Or maybe base it on Spellcraft ranks....
I love the all buff spell capped at 1 min (how many combats last more than that?). It's simple and elegant .
I also beleive that all the buff name should be renamed to magic so that they do not stack but overwrite each other. This would make dispelling at high level all that easier
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My take on this:
"Hour" durations: 1 hour/lever or until sunset/dawn or midnight/noon.
"Minute" durations: 1 minute/level or a full encounter.
"Second" durations: 1 round/level or 2d4 rounds or until a ST is made.
I think PF could list durations as it is, and let DMs choose if they want the "hard" or the "easy" way. Notice that there's no really easy way to handle the 'second' durations (it always requires either bookeeping or a bunch or dice rolls), but when you're dealing with a highly tactic game as D&D3.X is, there're some sacrifices to be made.
I think the duration "1 round/level" could also be changed in "for the duration of the combat". I think in most situations, a combat doesn't take much more than that amount of time, at least at lower levels.
And as low-level spells become less important on higher levels, you could maybe limit it to spells of level 1 to 4, as it would take almost no effort to replace them once they run out before the encounter ends.
As the maximum amount is 2 minutes, you also can be fairly sure it will be run out by the next encounter, even if you are engaging in running fights.
Spells with "1 minute/level" could run out during an encounter, but I think it's not worth keeping track of that during the encounter. If the duration is four minutes and you guess three minutes might have passed since the casting, don't keep track if the encounter lasts 9 rounds or maybe 13 rounds. In any event, just say it runs out after the encounter is over.
Spells with durations of hours and days can be ignored completely for this purpose.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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I agree with JDJarvis, well at least the first part. Graph paper was made for D&D. Those little squares are most awesome for tracking rounds, minutes, and hours in a day. Likewise they're good for cehcking off rations, ammunition, consumables.
The DM's job is to track time. Whether it's tactical movement, local, or overland a simple flowchart with lines, boxes, and circles makes the entire adventure cake to track.
PC's start in the Village of Podunk (Box) and spend 2 days gathering info and equiping waiting for the wizard and cleric to scribe a couple scrolls. Then they're off through the Forest Road to the Tower Ruins (Line) that's 15 miles of overland travel or 3 to 3.5 hours depending on the slowest PC. A wilderness encounter with an owlbear takes a minute or so to resolve (Circle) both fighting, looting, and healing. Finally arriving at the Tower Ruin (Box) they spend 10 minutes of local movement covering the perimeter of the walls looking for a safe way in and opt to enter through a crumbled section of wall rather than the walk boldly through the front gates.
Boxes are major areas, Lines are distances traveled, and Circles are encounters. Days, Hours, Minutes/rounds.
Graph paper is your best friend.
Spell durations are one of the handful of areas in the game where I think the "per encounter" paradigm works very well.
If a spell's duration is in rounds or minutes, then it's easiest to just say it lasts the entire encounter and be done with it. You cast shield? Fine, you have a +4 AC for the rest of this fight.
For spells with durations of hours, it's easy enough to just say that they last the rest of the day. The only problem there is that you get wizards who cast mage armor at the beginning of the day every day. But then, maybe that's not such a bad thing.
My take on this:
"Hour" durations: 1 hour/lever or until sunset/dawn or midnight/noon.
"Minute" durations: 1 minute/level or a full encounter.
"Second" durations: 1 round/level or 2d4 rounds or until a ST is made.
I think PF could list durations as it is, and let DMs choose if they want the "hard" or the "easy" way. Notice that there's no really easy way to handle the 'second' durations (it always requires either bookeeping or a bunch or dice rolls), but when you're dealing with a highly tactic game as D&D3.X is, there're some sacrifices to be made.
Great suggestions.
4e is doing the right thing here. Surely there must be some way we can adopt that.
In my experience, spells that last longer than 1 combat (but shorter than a day) led my groups to adopt a policy of: "Quickly lets search for more monsters while I still have my xxxx spell on". This often seems a bit silly.
So I like spells to work instantaneously, for a combat or for a day. There could be spells like charm that required a save every day...
I am not so much fond of 4e doing spells that require saves every round. This seems time consuming to me.
dragnmoon had some good thoughts on this in his thread im gonna post them here. I liked his ideal seems like its on the right track anyhow.
I did not know where to put this since it did not fit one category so I am putting it into General.
I am all into simplifying Combat and one of the things that slows combat down is keeping track of durations of effects *Be it spells, Feats, Class abilities Etc*
It is annoying using something that lasts rounds/minutes or hours and keeping track of that to know when the effect starts are ends.
My suggestion to simplify things is to put it into 5 categories.
Instantaneous: same as 3.5 rules
Short: Lasts 1 round
Medium: Last duration of Encounter
Long: Last 24 hours
Permanent: same as 3.5 rules.Get rid of this last so many rounds/minutes/hours. It is a pain tracking that.
This is my first go on this idea so if anyone wants to add to it..please do.
I can't possibly see everything this could effect, so this idea could break things.. I am hoping not though,
Having spell ending times works better than spell duration times. So if spells end "at dawn" that's better than them ending "in 24 hours."
-Frank
good point about times there frank but shouldn't spells have a constant time always I can see some issue with things like ending at dawn but what about something like until the wizard sleeps or something like that like memorizing new spells that may work better.
good point about times there frank but shouldn't spells have a constant time always I can see some issue with things like ending at dawn but what about something like until the wizard sleeps or something like that like memorizing new spells that may work better.
That kind of thing is really prone to abuse with stuff like imbue with spell ability and Rings of spell storing.
You really are better off just giving out spells a series of deadlines which come either frequently or infrequently and then letting all spells of an appropriate duration category end simultaneously. Short duration spells might vanish when a clock hits an even hour, medium duration spells last until the corners of the day (Noon, Dusk, Midnight, or Dawn), and long duration spells last until Dawn.
You can even have crazy long duration spells that last until New Year's or whatever. But by giving every spell a specific and exact expiration point you eliminate the whole thing where accounting is in any way difficult.
-Frank
That kind of thing is really prone to abuse with stuff like imbue with spell ability and Rings of spell storing.You really are better off just giving out spells a series of deadlines which come either frequently or infrequently and then letting all spells of an appropriate duration category end simultaneously. Short duration spells might vanish when a clock hits an even hour, medium duration spells last until the corners of the day (Noon, Dusk, Midnight, or Dawn), and long duration spells last until Dawn.
You can even have crazy long duration spells that last until New Year's or whatever. But by giving every spell a specific and exact expiration point you eliminate the whole thing where accounting is in any way difficult.
-Frank
not sure how easy that would be to implement but I love the flavor of that.has a nice mystic ring to it and a flow I really like love the corners of the day .with some work I could use this happily really.
Cheap and easy spell duration:
A d6 or a d10 or a d12
At the player's init, you simply drop it down by one.
Or just write the name of the spell on your notes where you track HP's of monsters and check it off round by round. Remember the old 4 ticks with a line through them to denote fives? Works good.
I'm lazy and a cheapskate.
how bout using dragnmoon and franks ideals
Instantaneous: same as 3.5 rules
Short: Lasts 2 round{changed it to 2}
Medium: Last duration of Encounter
Long: Last to the next phase of the day dawn,noon,dusk,midnight
very long:from season to season or to the new year
Permanent: same as 3.5 rules.
so you get instant,12 sec,a few mins,6 hours, 3to6 months ,a year and permanent
I did add a few but something like this looks nice to me.
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how bout using dragnmoon and franks ideals
Instantaneous: same as 3.5 rules
Short: Lasts 2 round{changed it to 2}
Medium: Last duration of Encounter
Long: Last to the next phase of the day dawn,noon,dusk,midnight
very long:from season to season or to the new year
Permanent: same as 3.5 rules.so you get instant,12 sec,a few mins,6 hours, 3to6 months ,a year and permanent
I did add a few but something like this looks nice to me.
DOH!!.. Someone did start a thread on this...
Though My thread was for all things that had a durations, not just spells..
I think anything that had a duration should be simplified into.
Instantaneous: same as 3.5 rules
Short: Lasts 1 round
Medium: Last duration of Encounter
Long: Last 24 hours
Permanent: same as 3.5 rules.
Much easier to track..
And I had no idea that 4E had something similar..
ya man I liked yours alot ,but I liked franks ideals as well so i combined em .