So, my games seem to get bogged down into the nitty gritty of tracking time fairly often.
So far, I've been counting the 8 hours of travel you can do a day against the 8 hours of item creation you are allowed to do. So, if a crafter takes 4 hours a day crafting they have 4 hours available for travel. If they travel further than that, they are force marching.
Is this correct? (I already know bout the rules for crafting while adventuring)
A second, and perhaps more important question, is in regards to spell research. If it says researching a spell takes a week, what does that mean in terms of hours? I read it as requiring all 8 of your 'work hours' for each day of a week.
Any insight appreciated.
Great questions. Just leaving a Dot here for future reference.
It means a day of doing no other significant activity. Period.So, my games seem to get bogged down into the nitty gritty of tracking time fairly often.
So far, I've been counting the 8 hours of travel you can do a day against the 8 hours of item creation you are allowed to do. So, if a crafter takes 4 hours a day crafting they have 4 hours available for travel. If they travel further than that, they are force marching.
Is this correct? (I already know bout the rules for crafting while adventuring)
A second, and perhaps more important question, is in regards to spell research. If it says researching a spell takes a week, what does that mean in terms of hours? I read it as requiring all 8 of your 'work hours' for each day of a week.
Any insight appreciated.
I don't see any reason this shouldn't be the case (so no crafting items and no travel; your 8 hour work day is completely consumed by spell research). I just have a player who insists otherwise.
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Generally speaking, you can only perform 8 hours of anything per day, as you are understood to be spending the other 16 hours either sleeping, eating, cleaning, tending, mending, packing, unpacking, dressing and occasionally gazing thoughtfully off into the distance.
In the case of item crafting, if you are out adventuring, traveling, and such you can use 4 of those 16 hours crafting, but only receive 2 hours worth of credit.
You are only forced marching if you actually spend more than 8 hours traveling, though if you can still find 4 hours you're not spending doing the sleeping and eating and such you can still craft and earn your 2 hours credit.
The rules for researching new spells vague, and I suspect intentionally so. It's whatever the GM wants it to be. My suggestion is to use the same rules for item crafting, converting days into hours and requiring 8 hours a day, or 4 hours a day if adventuring but only earning 2 hours credit.
In the case of item crafting, if you are out adventuring, traveling, and such you can use 4 of those 16 hours crafting, but only receive 2 hours worth of credit.
If the caster is out adventuring, he can devote 4 hours each day to item creation, although he nets only 2 hours' worth of work. This time is not spent in one continuous period, but rather during lunch, morning preparation, and during watches at night. If time is dedicated to creation, it must be spent in uninterrupted 4-hour blocks.
My understanding is that you can travel the 8 hours a day and do 4 hours of crafting (that only counts for two hours) using what my groups usually calls the 'crafting while adventuring' rule. However, I don't see what stops a character from, say, traveling for 4 hours and then crafting for 4 hours (otherwise the bold part of my quote is problematic).
However, how does this interact with, say, gather information (1d4+1 hours, if I recall correctly)? Does that interact with the idea you can do 8 hours of work in a day (which I don't think it stated anywhere in the rules, but seems to follow from the item creation and overland travel rules logically).
Ah, the perils of a game system where the need to sleep is poorly defined...
Okay, there are 24 hours in a day. Normally characters will spend 8 hours of that actually moving. Assuming a decent watch setup while camping, sleep consumes around 10 hours (5 x 2-hour segments ensures that everyone gets 8 hours of rest) which leaves everyone in the party approximately 6 hours per day to do "other things". I tend to rule that 2 hours is used for setting up and breaking camp, as well as a brief stopover for lunch. That leaves 4 hours of usable time for intra-party conversation, character intimacy, whatever.
Those 4 hours are the only time that can be used for crafting, learning spells, or whatever, unless other circumstances dictate otherwise. For example, in the campaign I just finished, the party travelled for a time with a wagon, in which the wizard sat during travelling, which I decided was peaceful enough for him to craft, but was not considered "rest", so couldn't be used as downtime before he prepared spells.
All very house ruley, but it worked well enough (particularly since there were time-constraints built into the campaign that meant he couldn't just hang out in town for a few weeks to make items).
Those 4 hours are the only time that can be used for crafting, learning spells, or whatever, unless other circumstances dictate otherwise. For example, in the campaign I just finished, the party travelled for a time with a wagon, in which the wizard sat during travelling, which I decided was peaceful enough for him to craft, but was not considered "rest", so couldn't be used as downtime before he prepared spells.
I hope you are only counting that as 2 hours of actual crafting time, as the rules are at least clear about that.
I think 10 hours of sleep is a lot. Of course, this is all house rule territory since unless you are a specific kind of caster it doesn't matter (however, that is the only precedent we have so 8 hours make more sense than 10... depending on how you count it and how you do watches).
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The 8 hour workday is derived from every rule concerning crafting (magical or otherwise). It's not specifically stated for anything, but I feel it's strongly implied. Far from a rule, so you could also rule that those actions that don't involve crafting either involve nothing else but that activity, or taking effectively no time but become complete only after a set time as passed.
My understanding is that when you spend 4 hours on item creation while adventuring, the time is not spent in one continuous period, as RAW states. The "if time is dedicated" only applies for circumstances in which you may receive full credit for the time (i.e. can work without interruption or distraction). So you use the 4 hours for 2 hours credit while traveling or on days which you can never get 4 uninterrupted hours of work done in a lab, but if you can get at least 4 uninterrupted hours of work done in a lab, then you get full credit even if you do other stuff that day (like undertaking an adventure that takes place near your lab and only takes a few hours).
You are only forced marching if you actually spend more than 8 hours traveling, though if you can still find 4 hours you're not spending doing the sleeping and eating and such you can still craft and earn your 2 hours credit.
How do you deal with a player who crafts for 4 hours and then wants to march for 8? You couldn't march for 8 and then craft for 4 (you could do 4 hours that count as 2, sure; but that is not the situation of the character who wants to craft and then march).
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You are only forced marching if you actually spend more than 8 hours traveling, though if you can still find 4 hours you're not spending doing the sleeping and eating and such you can still craft and earn your 2 hours credit.How do you deal with a player who crafts for 4 hours and then wants to march for 8? You couldn't march for 8 and then craft for 4 (you could do 4 hours that count as 2, sure; but that is not the situation of the character who wants to craft and then march).
Then I'd say he's wasting his time. No one marches for 8 hours without break or rest. The 4 hours of crafting is done during these rest periods, spread throughout the day. that 8 hours of marching probably takes something closer to 10-12 hours, not counting the time spent crafting while eating and breaking camp in the morning and while eating and making camp in the evening. There is never an uninterrupted period of 4 hours in which you can craft while everyone else does... something other than traveling.
Then I'd say he's wasting his time. No one marches for 8 hours without break or rest. The 4 hours of crafting is done during these rest periods, spread throughout the day. that 8 hours of marching probably takes something closer to 10-12 hours, not counting the time spent crafting while eating and breaking camp in the morning and while eating and making camp in the evening. There is never an uninterrupted period of 4 hours in which you can craft while everyone else does... something other than traveling.You are only forced marching if you actually spend more than 8 hours traveling, though if you can still find 4 hours you're not spending doing the sleeping and eating and such you can still craft and earn your 2 hours credit.How do you deal with a player who crafts for 4 hours and then wants to march for 8? You couldn't march for 8 and then craft for 4 (you could do 4 hours that count as 2, sure; but that is not the situation of the character who wants to craft and then march).
There sure are. Even if the situation is simply "hey everyone, wait while I craft for 4 hours before going on this trip to the next town. I'll buy you beer for the 4 hours."
The situation I am talking about is someone explicitly doing 4 hours of work in an uninterrupted block and then heading out for an 8 hour march.
Your statement that those 8 hours of marching takes 10-12 doesn't jive with RAW. If it takes you an hour to cross a mile hex, then it takes you an hour. There is no spare change added onto that for the sorts of things you are describing. Otherwise, how do you adjudicate spells with hour/level duration or (as was the case in the session I ran today) a curse with a 1/hour frequency.
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Once you are walking for an hour or more, you stop walking continuously in an uninterrupted manner. Compare walking per minute to walking per hour. When you should be walking 3.4 miles, you only walk 3.
The rules do a horrible job of explaining overland movement taking an hour or more. As it is, there is nothing in the rules which state your 8 hours of traveling must be continuous and uninterrupted. I also challenge anyone who thinks it's actually possible to try.
You do not walk for 8 hours without a break. Ever. Assuming the 8 hours of walking as described in the rules includes periodic periods of rest, then as many as all 4 of your hours of crafting may overlap with those spent walking. Even if only some of that time can (GM call how much), you're only getting 2 hours credit, and can't spend another 4 hours to get any more time (max of 4 hours a day you spend doing anything else).
When you a wizard says "hey, go watch grass grow for 4 hours while I thinker with this do-dad" the group should respond "fiddle with that junk on the way."
The only time an item crafter should work in solid 4 hour blocks is when he has a lab anyway, and you can't take those while traveling (there are a number of spell and magic items which actually allow you to, but by the time you have access to them, overland travel has become obsolete anyway).
Those 4 hours are the only time that can be used for crafting, learning spells, or whatever, unless other circumstances dictate otherwise. For example, in the campaign I just finished, the party travelled for a time with a wagon, in which the wizard sat during travelling, which I decided was peaceful enough for him to craft, but was not considered "rest", so couldn't be used as downtime before he prepared spells.I hope you are only counting that as 2 hours of actual crafting time, as the rules are at least clear about that.
I think 10 hours of sleep is a lot. Of course, this is all house rule territory since unless you are a specific kind of caster it doesn't matter (however, that is the only precedent we have so 8 hours make more sense than 10... depending on how you count it and how you do watches).
Yes to the first.
For the second, that's 10 hours for the entire party to sleep: The spellcasters try to go first or last, to get a solid 8 hours rest in, with the non-casters taking 2-hour slots in the middle. 2 hours on watch plus 8 hours rest equals 10 hours. Encounters in the night screw it up, but then they always do.
what happens if your caster pops one of those protected cabin spells in ten minutes and has a ring of sustenance? Is he still stuck with four hours of crap when he only has to sleep for two hours and has camp set up in ten minutes? Short of a giant throwing boulders at the building, I'm pretty sure your caster should have eight hours to work uninterrupted.