How to keep track of time in game?

[Yqatuba]

How exactly do you keep track of time in game? For example, if you have a dungeon that says you get a random encounter ever hour, how do you decide when an hour has passed?

[Charlie Brooks]

I usually use the old round/turn division from old editions of D&D, where it's generally assumed that the group takes a 10-minute rest to bandage wounds, search around for secret doors, and take a breather after an encounter. That makes for six encounters to an hour, unless the PCs specifically press on or take a longer time between encounters.

[Kayerloth]

For me it really depends on the group and the campaign style. I rarely base a random encounter purely on the passage of x time. I'll do it because the group seems restless. to use up more resources or allow the opposite for recovery after hard combats i.e. to control the pacing of the overall adventure. It also depends on what's going on within the campaign. Is it travel between 'dungeons', overland vs over water, indoor vs outdoor etc.. Is the group attempting to be stealthy or not. Are they focused on getting from A to B or just wandering a bit themselves. Are they a very tactical combat oriented group/campaign or more into detailed role play between each other and npc encounters. And as a result most of my random encounters aren't really all that 'random' since I'll decide when and if to use one.

[Mark Hoover 330]

An easy way to estimate time in the dungeon is think about the actual activities they're doing. Consider:

1. The party halts while a member of the group scouts ahead; said member moves Base 30' and is using Stealth, taking a double Move per round, and scouting for monsters/traps. This requires 1 round for every 30' traveled, plus another 1 round to advance the rest of the party to the scout's location.

2. After the party has covered, say, 60' this way, they have used up 4 rounds. The team happens upon a closed door 30' ahead. Again the scout advances using stealth and skill. Looking over the door there are no obvious traps and it appears locked.

3. Unlocking a door requires 1d4 rounds; the average is 2.5 but let's assume 2. The Disable Device user is successful and pops the lock so the party can fling open the door.

4. Battle ensues, with the PCs (APL 2) facing off against a mite riding a giant centipede supported by a mite druid 1 with an emphasis on summoning vermin. The battle is tactical, taking place across several ledges on the wall and rafters in the ceiling and is as much vertical as horizontal. This fight ends up eating through another 4 rounds

5. Wrapping the battle the Cleric and Ranger have taken some damage. The Cleric is going to use Channel Positive Energy to heal the 2 PCs; this ends up being too little to fully restore the Ranger so the Cleric will also use a Scroll of Cure Light Wounds. While she's doing this the Wizard, Fighter, and Wizard's Familiar are all using Perception; the Familiar and Fighter grant +4 in Aid Another bonuses to the Wizard who has a +7 Perception. The Wizard takes 10 for a total roll of 21. Using Perception is a Move action allowing you to use Perception and couple this with an actual Move or a 5' step and a Standard action each round. The way I houseruled it is that you can search a 5' radius out from yourself, take a 5' step, then search again so you can essentially search about 12 squares/round in my games. This room is 20 x 30 or 24 squares; it takes the 2 rounds the Cleric is healing to accomplish.

6. With their search done the Wizard, with the help of the Fighter and her Familiar, has found a secret niche in the wall. Fearing a trap, the Ranger is called over. The Ranger searches with everyone's help; the Ranger's base Perception is +9 and he manages to receive 3 successful Aid Another bonuses from the rest of the party for a total of +15. The Cleric grants a Guidance spell to the mix so the Ranger's total bonus is +16; the player rolls an 8 for 1 round spent searching for traps and getting a 24 total. No traps are found.

7. Now the niche is opened and inside are a couple small sacks of treasure, a book wrapped in oil cloth, 3 potions and a handful of tasteful nick knacks. The other PCs collect these while the Wizard casts Detect Magic. During this time the Ranger uses Appraise +6, aided by Guidance from the Cleric and a successful Aid Another from the Untrained Fighter for a total of +9. He rolls a 13 and sifts through the items to find one figurine among the other bric a brack that is worth a small fortune on its own. After another 2 rounds the Ranger has priced out 2 other pieces and the Wizard has successfully identified the potions as Magic Fang, Lesser Restoration and Keen Senses.

So after ALL of that, the party has been down here... 16 rounds, or 1 minute, 36 seconds. At this rate, and with encounters generally found in the modules I've used between 30' to 100' distance, avg about 60'-70' apart, this means roughly about 1-2 minutes/room spent moving between them, disabling the occasional trap or lock, fighting or fleeing from encounters, searching afterwards, etc.

If 1-2 minutes is the norm and the typical PCs can survive 4-5 fights, more if they're well optimized with experienced players running them, the PCs will more than likely only make it through about 10 - 12 minutes of ACTUAL exploration before they retire for the day.

Modify all of this if players decide to use the Take 20 mechanic instead.

[Jhaeman]

I try to just do a rough estimate based on what the PCs are doing, occasionally supplemented by every GM's friend, the dice. Where it's relevant (such as with minute-based buff spells or random encounter chances), I might say something like "okay, so you guys have sorted through the loot from the corpses, searched the room, and discussed what to do next--I'm going to say that about 4d6 minutes have passed." Etc.

Out of the dungeon, I'd be adding in some extra time for the things real people do that we're not going to role-play (polishing a sword, using the latrines, having meals, etc.).

[blahpers]

Also, note whether and when the party is hustling, as non-hustling characters will move more slowly, so adjust your measurements accordingly. (If they insist on hustling all the time even during long adventures, remember that after an hour a hustling creature takes 1 point of nonlethal damage and become fatigued until the damage is healed, and the amount increases each subsequent hour.)

[Mark Hoover 330]

B-laughs, remember: that is for Hustling consistently through Overland movement. Tactical, local movement such as in a dungeon is exploring an area after all. However I do agree that movement is the biggest factor for time spent in the dungeon.

There is no mechanic for a short rest in PF, so unless you house rule something in there's no mechanical benefit for stopping for a minute or 10 to catch your breath between fights. In fact, the durations on many buff spells make this rest prohibitive or penalizing. I don't have many players who pause between dungeon rooms.

Also the act of "searching" for stimuli in a given area is not well defined in terms of speed and time under the Perception skill. We know its a Move action but otherwise know very little about what that action entails. Some say it's a visual scan for clues, which means you can cover a "search" out the edge of your vision distance with one Move action. I on the other hand rule this as tapping, listening, really engaging all of your senses so you can only "search" 12 squares/Move action as the immediate area around your person. Either way though this really doesn't eat up THAT much time.

Moving between fight scenes however can be very time consuming, or it could be nothing, depending on dungeon design. Tactical movement, using Perception to check for traps and ambushes as you go, means you move half your base speed. If you've got a party of PCs, one of which moves at a 20', you double move every round with caution at 20'/round.

Taken a step further, again depending on dungeon design, you might have the PCs FIND stimuli in their environment to reward their caution, though this doesn't have to always be a monster. The party may find architectural details, clues to upcoming fights, defunct traps, or other dungeon "dressing."

You could also add incremental treasure contained in vases, barrels, chests; take your pick from one of the console game tropes here.

Finally this would be an ideal time to add a puzzle if your players are so inclined - so long as it is off to the side and doesn't hinder their main progress an interesting non-combat challenge can be fun and engaging, promising some extra bounty the PCs wouldn't normally earn in their monster-slaying activities.

All of this, the tactical movement and non-combat details investigated along the way, can eat up much more of the adventurer's day than actual combat and rest. Again, this depends on dungeon design and player interest. If your players don't enjoy such open environments then a small, 100' x 100' section of dungeon containing 5 encounters can be tactically cleared in roughly 7 - 10 minutes based on a 30' base speed and not taking 20 anywhere.

[Dave Justus]

I just go with my gut. If I think the party has spent about an hour based on what they have been doing I have the hour pass.

Once in a while, particularly things with minute per/level spells timing has to be more complex if the players are trying to get the maximum out of them (rushing from encounter to encounter is usually risky, but sometimes viable) and then I'll work out something more concrete, but for the vast majority of situations a vague notion of time having past is fine.

Also, the 'roll once an hour' thing doesn't mean that at the exact top of the hour a monster pops out (unless it was is a clockwork dungeon, which would be cool) but that every hour something might happen. It certainly isn't intended to be an exact, set your watch by it type of event.

[DungeonmasterCal]

I do pretty much the same.