Time & Searching

[The Angry Monk]

OK, here's what I'm trying to do.

I want to make empty (or apparently empty) rooms more interesting for my players (or maybe just me). To me, one of the most interesting aspects of the game is resource management. What's the biggest resource that characters have? Time. So I want to make time in the dungeon more valuable and its expenditure more costly.

Imagine a group of characters enter an empty room. Within the room, there could be secret doors, hidden compartments, or small clues that the heroes may wish to find…if they are willing to search the room most carefully. And I don't want to rely on the whim of the dice as to whether they find these hidden aspects of the room. I want the players to find the secret door to the evil wizard's laboratory, but only if they are willing to risk some of their time. Because as they are searching, I'm doing wandering monster checks or perhaps some terrible trap is slowly being sprung. At the very least, the party's torches and lanterns are burning and burning.

What I would like to do is to give each room a search value based on the amount of time it would take to find the room's hidden secrets. In the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets (on page 17 or J-5), a chart is given for the times required to do various tasks. To look over a 10' X 10' room, it takes 10 rounds (100 seconds). A 20' X 20' room takes 20 rounds. A 30' X 30' room takes 30 rounds. So my thinking was that if characters spend the maximum amount of time searching an area, they would find all the various hidden items and doors. If they spend only ½ the time, they find half the stuff (perhaps randomly determined). If they just walk through the room, I might allow the elves a chance to detect secret doors.

My problem is I need to figure out the length of time each room would require for maximum searching. I know how to figure out the area of a room (I passed grade three math), but as you might have noticed the search times don't increase linearly (I think I'm using the term correctly). Is there a simple formula I can use where I put in the area of a room (room is 40' X 30', therefore 1200 square feet) and calculate the time required to search it fully as per the JJRR guidelines. I know I could just make a guess or a ruling, but my OCD won't allow me to do that.

Help me, O Smart Math people!

[Dimirag]

According to your posting the values are:
10x10 = 10
20x20 = 20
30x30 = 30
So, for rooms with same measures the thing is easy, the problem seems to be with the other rooms right? Here is my formula:
Take the measures as A and B and do this: (A+B)/2
(10+10)/2 = 20/2 = 10
(20+20)/2 = 40/2 = 20
(30+30)/2 = 60/2 = 30

40x30 room = (30+40)/2 = 70/2 = 35 rounds

[The Angry Monk]

Okay, as I was reading an answer on another board, I realized what the answer was. I think I was making the math more complicated than it had to be. So if a 20 X 20 room (400 sq ft) takes 20 rounds and a 30 X 30 room (900 sq ft) takes 30 rounds, all the JGRR does is take the square root of the area of the room to determine the search time. So in my example, a 1200 sq ft room would take around 35 rounds (350 seconds or almost 6 minutes) of searching (the square root of 1200 is approximately 34.6). That hardly seems like enough time to look for things like secret doors or hidden compartments.

How long would a thorough search of a 10' X 10' room take? If you were checking walls, floors, and ceilings very carefully, I would say 10 minutes (1 turn or 60 rounds). So perhaps I should change the JGRR times from rounds to turns.

10' X 10' room (100 sq ft) = 1 turn (60 rounds)
20' X 20' room (400 sq ft) = 2 turns (120 rounds)
30' X 30' room (900 sq ft) = 3 turns (180 rounds)
40' X 30' room (1200 sq ft) = 3.5 turns (210 rounds)

I could say to the players, "What kind of search would you like to do? Cursory? Fair? Thorough?"

Then a cursory search has a value of 0.1, a fair search, has a value of 0.5, and a thorough search has a value of 1.0. If the characters do a thorough search, they find all the secrets (they don't automatically figure out how to open the doors or compartments). However, every 3 turns (in BFRPG), I'm doing a monster check and their light sources are burning lower.

How does that sound?

[The Angry Monk]

According to your posting the values are:
10x10 = 10
20x20 = 20
30x30 = 30
So, for rooms with same measures the thing is easy, the problem seems to be with the other rooms right? Here is my formula:
Take the measures as A and B and do this: (A+B)/2
(10+10)/2 = 20/2 = 10
(20+20)/2 = 40/2 = 20
(30+30)/2 = 60/2 = 30

40x30 room = (30+40)/2 = 70/2 = 35 rounds

But a room that was 20 ft wide and 100 ft long (2000 sq ft), would take about 45 rounds using my method, and 60 rounds using your method, right? I'm not a math guy. Your method means the room could be searched in 1 turn (10 minutes) if I have my math right. And that makes more sense than my 7.5 minutes. I think that's why I would divide the answer you get by 10 and change the rounds to turns.

[Dimirag]

BTB searching takes at least 1 turn per 10' square (traps) and per 10' (secret doors) searched, per character.
Both starts with a 1 in 6 chances, so, having a 100% success would mean having to search for 6 turns (if only one pc is searching).

So, 10 x 10 = 6 turns for total success. how about each extra 10' adding and extra turn? Then divide by the amount of searching members. And how about modifying the "PC value" based on how dedicated his search is?

[The Angry Monk]

BTB searching takes at least 1 turn per 10' square (traps) and per 10' (secret doors) searched, per character.
Both starts with a 1 in 6 chances, so, having a 100% success would mean having to search for 6 turns (if only one pc is searching).

So, 10 x 10 = 6 turns for total success. how about each extra 10' adding and extra turn? Then divide by the amount of searching members. And how about modifying the "PC value" based on how dedicated his search is?

Good point. More PCs means a division of labour. Hmm.
As for your point for dedication to searching, I would say that the whole party would have to agree to a thorough search or a cursory search. Since the entire party benefits or loses from the search (find treasure or face monster), I don't think I'd get into individual party member's abilities to search.

[Solomoriah]

... I would rarely give "total" success on a search. Perhaps if known items were searched for in a cluttered area without actual secret doors/compartments; but I'd never give a 100% chance to find a secret door or compartment.

Unless the party were literally tearing down the walls, of course. Even then, magical concealment might prevent perfect success chances.

[Dimirag]

The colossal issue I can foresee is not that of giving 100% treasure once the search time is reached, but the fact that is an all or nothing style of search, unless the GM is wishing to do maths on the fly to take the percent of anything found based on time spend... "ok guys, you stopped searching after 27% of time needed, that means you'll get 27% of all secret things (and the 27% of a longsword +1, a hidden door, a trap and an 3d10 gold coins is...)

[The Angry Monk]

... I would rarely give "total" success on a search. Perhaps if known items were searched for in a cluttered area without actual secret doors/compartments; but I'd never give a 100% chance to find a secret door or compartment.

Unless the party were literally tearing down the walls, of course. Even then, magical concealment might prevent perfect success chances.

Well, as I said, just because you find the door or compartment, doesn't mean you can open it easily.

I just find that I often have the coolest rooms located behind secret doors. To continue my example, the evil wizard's laboratory isn't going to be easy to find. In the old way of searching, sometimes the rolls don't cooperate and the players do not find the secret entrance. Now you could say, "Just fudge the rolls." I guess, but then secret doors have no real value. Say players walk into a room. They search but find nothing. However, I really want to get them in the lab, so I say, "As Magrog the Dwarf leans on the wall, he triggers the hidden entrance." What was the point? If I want them to find the entrance, I want the players to sacrifice some time to find it. Otherwise, I might as well have a sign that says, "This way to the laboratory."
Or I could put non-essential rooms behind secret doors. But why bother even making the rooms if players only have a small percentage to find them and they aren't important to the story.

[The Angry Monk]

The colossal issue I can foresee is not that of giving 100% treasure once the search time is reached, but the fact that is an all or nothing style of search, unless the GM is wishing to do maths on the fly to take the percent of anything found based on time spend... "ok guys, you stopped searching after 27% of time needed, that means you'll get 27% of all secret things (and the 27% of a longsword +1, a hidden door, a trap and an 3d10 gold coins is...)

I wouldn't do percentage. As I wrote above:

I could say to the players, "What kind of search would you like to do? Cursory? Fair? Thorough?" Then a cursory search has a value of 0.1, a fair search, has a value of 0.5, and a thorough search has a value of 1.0. If the characters do a thorough search, they find all the secrets (they don't automatically figure out how to open the doors or compartments). However, every 3 turns (in BFRPG), I'm doing a monster check and their light sources are burning lower.