Figuring out the watch order is always a chore. In editions past I'd usually just hire an elf. However, with Golarion's supply of pointy-eared tree-huggers needing a full eight hours, my old standby is no longer an option. What do the rest of you guys do?
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Also from the new UW you can give this a try
erequisites: Wis 13, Alertness.
Benefit: The DCs of your Perception checks don’t increase when you are asleep. If you succeed at a Perception check to notice something dangerous while asleep, you can wake up to confront the danger.
Normal: The DC for a Perception check attempted by a sleeping creature increases by 10.
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The same way you would if there were no elves in the party? Basically, what John Napier said above.
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Waker May Changeling- for 2 feats you never need to sleep, to go along with your perpetual mien of sleepiness (you get other stuff too).
I have one, she's just a terrible, terrible lookout since she's terribly near-sighted and seldom particularly alert
But I mean, the rules say you need 8 hours of *rest* which might not be synonymous with 8 hours of sleep. So if you set up so people taking turns watching for trouble, as long as they spend their time not doing anything particularly stressful (i.e. their watch is uneventful) they should be fine.
I mean, if someone does attack you in the night, fatigued isn't the worst condition, and you can always sleep in the next day to avoid it. If the GM refuses to let you get uninterrupted rest since people keep attacking your camp, either you've put your camp in the wrong place or the GM is up to something (which might be "being a jerk".)
Well one artefact that still exists from the old days is that Elves are immune to Ghoul Paralysis still, that’s an artefact from way way back on tabletop games where Ghouls per unit cost less than Elves, to offset the difference they made the Elves immune to their paralysis.
Or something to that effect. But it still exists today, inexplicably in roleplaying games.
Humans on the start and end of the watch demi humans in the middle
Humans on the start and end of the watch demi humans in the middle
You go by race rather than class? What's the rationale there?
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You go by race rather than class? What's the rationale there?Humans on the start and end of the watch demi humans in the middle
At the start of the watch its still light/dusk.
At the end of the watch it's starting to get light/dawnHumans can't see in the dark. Everyone else can. Since the primary job of the lookout is to see something and yell "WAKE UP", which isn't really a class dependent ability, you maximize the parties ability to see stuff by putting the humans on watch when it's light out.
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You go by race rather than class? What's the rationale there?Humans on the start and end of the watch demi humans in the middle
At the start of the watch its still light/dusk.
At the end of the watch it's starting to get light/dawnHumans can't see in the dark. Everyone else can. Since the primary job of the lookout is to see something and yell "WAKE UP", which isn't really a class dependent ability, you maximize the parties ability to see stuff by putting the humans on watch when it's light out.
are you counting Halflings in with the Humans, or in the Demi Humans?
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Who plays short humans....
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You go by race rather than class? What's the rationale there?Humans on the start and end of the watch demi humans in the middle
At the start of the watch its still light/dusk.
At the end of the watch it's starting to get light/dawnHumans can't see in the dark. Everyone else can. Since the primary job of the lookout is to see something and yell "WAKE UP", which isn't really a class dependent ability, you maximize the parties ability to see stuff by putting the humans on watch when it's light out.
are you counting Halflings in with the Humans, or in the Demi Humans?
Aren't those animal companions? Wouldn't they be on watch at the same time as their owner?
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Why would they be? Isn't that kind of the point to owning a watchdog? Using any animal sidekicks or familiars for a watch shift is just smart.
Get a dog, not an animal companion dog. Just an ordinary breed that was bred for watching. It should set up a racket.
Solid idea for the lower levels. +8 to Perecption is going to beat an unconscious 4th level PC all day long.
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Who sets watches? I don't think that's something I've done since 2e, maybe early 3.0. It's just something that none of my groups I play in ever really think about.
I mean, when you go camping in real life you don't set watches. Everyone just goes to sleep in their tents and wakes up in the morning. The odds of something hostile stumbling across your camp by random is vanishingly small, and if it does the chance that it will be of a CR to actively challenge you is also pretty small.
If there is a story reason to expect someone to be actively looking for you, then sure, set up a watch. Just randomly? Seems pointless.
Todays campers also generally (but not always) do so in relatively safe areas. Wild animals have learned to generally avoid human contact (again, there are exceptions), and humans generally aren't considered prey. Plus, we aren't in a world with multiple intelligent nocturnal monsters, many of which wold just love the chance to attack a group of sleeping tasty humans. You can't compare real world activities with fantasy versions. The two worlds are ultimately no where near each other in pretty much any instance. Comparisons like that don't work.
It is a common error. Players tend to think of the real world and how things work here and giving no real thought to just how different your typical fantasy world really would be.
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Who sets watches? I don't think that's something I've done since 2e, maybe early 3.0. It's just something that none of my groups I play in ever really think about.
I mean, when you go camping in real life you don't set watches. Everyone just goes to sleep in their tents and wakes up in the morning. The odds of something hostile stumbling across your camp by random is vanishingly small, and if it does the chance that it will be of a CR to actively challenge you is also pretty small.
If there is a story reason to expect someone to be actively looking for you, then sure, set up a watch. Just randomly? Seems pointless.
Campers in real life don't have to worry about bandits or invading sentient species that kill or enslave all humans/elves/whatevers on sight.
Expressing how it works in the games I play is not the same as judging how it works in other games.
You did more than simply express, you asked a question: "Who sets watches?" As such, you shouldn't be surprised when someone answers you and it disagrees with your stance.
For me answering your question, I'm pretty sure everyone does unless they have a prior agreement that they are speeding things along to get to the adventure. [and even then, I'd assume the camp watching is still happening off camera] If you don't, you're handing off surprise/initiative off to the enemy while inviting coup de grace attempts.
the chance that it will be of a CR to actively challenge you is also pretty small
If it was about the odds, the players would most likely go through their life without a major adventure and/or bump into a CR threat much higher than theirs sometime in their adventures that'd wipe them out. PC's don't follow the odds: the odds weren't in favor of a halfling destroying the one true ring...
Secondly, a severely lower CR encounter could still kill some unconscious PC's. Some lame bandits looking to steal your stuff are more than capable of sneaking past sleeping people to coup de grace for [fort dc = 10 + crit damage + sneak attack]. Using simple spears that's 10 + 3d8 + 2d6 for 3rd level thieves [fort vs dc15-46, average 30] to DIE. Even at 10th level, is a dc30 fort save something to laugh at even if you're 10th? 15th? How about a 46? 3 cr2 bandits is cr 5...
I mean, when you go camping in real life you don't set watches.
In real life, you most likely aren't going to going to run into bandits, slavers or manticores in your backyard. Think of it like this: are you going to take a relaxing day fishing off Somalia without setting up a watch for pirates?
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Yeah. In a game that doesn't specifically remove the chance of encounters at night, we set watches. Even in organized play scenarios, we set watches. Random encounters may not jump the party, but there are scripted encounters that have enemies come after them in their sleep. If you refuse to take precautions, your characters can end up seriously wounded or dead.
The only times my party doesn't set watch is if we're sleeping in an inn where we trust the proprietor.
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Which doesn't discount the fact that sometimes scripted encounters come for your characters when they are sleeping.
Yep and it's not something the characters will always know might happen....Looking at you Strahd.
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Creating balanced encounters is enough work that as a GM I want every encounter to be story driven
So you find it impossible for a "story driven" encounter to happen at night or when the party is asleep? For instance, take those 3 thieves I mentioned before: they can be encountered as a simple encounter so the party can find a note on them but instead are deadly because the party didn't bother to use any precautions...
I honestly didn't think people still used random encounters. I haven't experienced it in a game in probably a decade now. It seems very strange to me. Creating balanced encounters is enough work that as a GM I want every encounter to be story driven so that I am not wasting time on scenarios with little narrative impact. As a player they just seem pointless. They don't bring anything to the table.
I appreciate them in a megadungeon campaign. They foreshadow threats, hint at dungeon level themes, contribute to world building, and remind players that they are in an active danger zone. They also provide a useful tool for hurrying players along when they get bogged down in minutia.
"OK, so on the off chance that there really is a secret door around here, we should use our adamantine weapons to bang on each 5' square of wall, listening for the sound of..."
"WHO-ROAR!"
"Owlbears. Listening for the sound of owlbears. Maybe we should make less noise."
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The odds of something hostile stumbling across your camp by random is vanishingly small, and if it does the chance that it will be of a CR to actively challenge you is also pretty small.
A level 1 commoner with a scythe and a Str mod of +1 sneaks up on you while you are sleeping and CdG you, assuming middling damage (say, 20, all told), that's a DC 30 fort save to avoid dying outright. That's something that can potentially one-shot a 20th level character. When you are helpless there are very few things that are to low CR to be a threat. Hell, your basic goblin straight from the beastiary using standard kit sneaks up on you and CdG you with its small short sword, rolls middling, deals 4 damage. That's still a DC 14 fort save, which is enough to get about a 50% kill rate on any level 5 party member who isn't fort focused.
A good old fashioned “Alarm” spell will do the trick also, a not to be understated spell.
Then “Rope Trick” is invaluable to literally hide the whole party inside the most inconvenient of spaces or dungeons safety. Combine the two and you should be pretty safe.
Alarm can be as much of a hindrance as a boon as it triggers from tiny or larger creatures. Things like fox, hawk, owl, raccoon, and snakes trigger it so if you're in a tradition wilderness area with wildlife aplenty, you can be in for a LOOOONG night of false alarms.
Rope trick works great unless you're using mounts. While one does hold 8 creatures, seeing a cavalier trying to push a horse 30' up in the air is something I want some popcorn to watch. ;)
EDIT: while these have issues, they are far superior to "Everyone just goes to sleep in their tents and wakes up in the morning." :P
Carry Companion is mandatory.
True, but we're now at using 3 spells just to camp. Secondly, that's only solving 1 mount. If a party of 4 or 5 is traveling overland and everyone has mounts [ordinary ones included], that's a lot of spells.
Those spells work best in areas where you have no normal mounts or normal wildlife [traditional dungeon crawl].
Yeah, I've never been in a game where we DIDN'T take watches. Split the night up into 4 watches, Casters take the first or last... Anyone with Darkvision takes the middle ones.. If they can't see the monster coming in the middle of the night, they can shout a warning when they're attacked.
Pretty basic stuff. My Dwarf fighter just got Restful on his armor so he only needs two hours... so he's open for more shifts now with darkvision... but his perception sucks, but the casters need their sleep :P
Who sets watches? I don't think that's something I've done since 2e, maybe early 3.0. It's just something that none of my groups I play in ever really think about.
I mean, when you go camping in real life you don't set watches. Everyone just goes to sleep in their tents and wakes up in the morning. The odds of something hostile stumbling across your camp by random is vanishingly small, and if it does the chance that it will be of a CR to actively challenge you is also pretty small.
If there is a story reason to expect someone to be actively looking for you, then sure, set up a watch. Just randomly? Seems pointless.
People who don't want to get killed on their third night out of town. We've had some nasty stuff jump us in the past, as recently as Shattered Star. I guess if you have a GM that doesn't do random encounters, you could skip it, but I'd check first before half the party wakes up dead.
The first level ranger spell "Keep Watch" has been our favorite in pathfinder.
The first level ranger spell "Keep Watch" has been our favorite in pathfinder.
Oh man... Could you imagine getting dispelled near the end of a Keep Watch spell?
"Well crap. Looks like we're sleeping in today."
Chairs would be thrown!
Casters need rest, not specifically sleep. I'm pretty sure it's even defined in the rules that you can be keeping watch and still count as resting.
Casters need rest, not specifically sleep. I'm pretty sure it's even defined in the rules that you can be keeping watch and still count as resting.
Rest: To prepare his daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. 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. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.
Even if you stay in one spot the entire time, keeping watch would require you to pay attention to the sights and sounds around you, enough to determine what can be ignored and what is a sign of nature (skill use). It would likely be fairly mentally demanding. The same applies to other arcane casters as well, not just wizards. Anytime spent on watch would need to be made up in order to get their spells back.
Divine casters don't need that 8 hours of rest, so they would be fine on watch.
Get a dog, not an animal companion dog. Just an ordinary breed that was bred for watching. It should set up a racket.
You have finally found a use for small, yappy dogs like Chihuahuas! A dozen or so should run close to a +20, easy!
Get a dog, not an animal companion dog. Just an ordinary breed that was bred for watching. It should set up a racket.You have finally found a use for small, yappy dogs like Chihuahuas! A dozen or so should run close to a +20, easy!
I've heard that that's actually what chihuahuas were originally bred for.
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I still classify them as vermin.