Hours (5e Variant Rule)

This variant rule... Is ideal for adventures where time should feel limited. Provides a time-centric structure to exploration/travel, analogous to rounds for combat. Is structured to keep things moving at an easily-understood pace, getting to the highlights of an adventure swiftly while also giving more meaning to the choices made during exploration and travel that bridges these highlights. Takes some advice about time from the SRD/DMG and turns it into a more structured system.

When player-characters are not engaged in interaction or an encounter, time is measured only in hours.

The GM might ask "what are you doing for the next hour" in the same way they might ask "what are you doing this round?"

Ritual casting, travel, or thorough exploration is always rounded up to a full hour, as does generally anything that takes 10 minutes or more—including spells with a 10-minute duration. Individual encounters and interactions generally take less than 10 minutes, so they're generally rounded down to be only a negligible portion of a full hour's activities.

This rule also makes it easy to track what time of day it is, as the GM or a time-keeping player can jot down a simple tick mark for every hour that passes in a day.

hour-long activities

Some examples. Ideally the GM can improvise for activities not listed here, just like in a normal game.

anywhere

• Short rest. This includes activities like a feast, or sitting around a campfire, or casually reading—and potentially attuning to a magic item.
• Ritual cast a spell.
• Build a Simple Structure. Bundle together a makeshift raft, dig a pit and cover it with leaves, build a small wall for cover, or find a tree trunk to through over a quipper-infested river. This may require an ability check.
• Scavenge. Gather specified useful items from the environment, such as clean water, or branches that can work as greatclubs. This may require an ability check depending on the environment or items.
• Start a Campfire. This includes both procuring enough suitable wood to make the fire, and actually lighting it. Without something to light the fire like a spell or tinderbox, lighting it might take a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Survival) check.
• Thorough Search. Take an hour to examine every single crevice of a single room for hidden doors or secrets. This is the equivalent of "taking 20" on an Wisdom (Perception) check for every single 5-foot square in a dungeon room, and does not require an ability check.
• Travel. Travel time can be abstract as necessary to fit the story. Gathering horses and meeting at the edge of town could be an hour. Riding to the manticore den down south could take an hour, or maybe two. If for some reason realistic and specific travel time becomes necessary: At a brisk "normal" pace over roads a typical group can travel 3 miles (or 5 kilometers) in an hour, but is slowed by rough terrain or if trying to remain hidden. Traveling much faster in a single hour would require a Constitution save or suffer exhaustion, even for horses.

requires proficiency

• Craft a Disguise. Using a disguise kit with which you're proficient, create a convincing disguise for yourself or another creature.
• Forge a Page. Using a forgery kit with which you're proficient, create a convincing forgery no longer than one page. This may require an Intelligence check.
• Repair. Using appropriate tools, restore hit points (or durability) to an item. You must be proficient with the tools to do this.

in a town

• Investigate. Make an Intelligence (Investigation) check to gather information about a specific subject.
• Perform. Perform for tips on a city street. Make a Charisma (Performance) check and gain copper pieces equal to the result. If you have with you a musical instrument you're proficient in, or if you add double your proficiency bonus to Performance checks, you instead gain silver pieces equal to the result. You can't profit from a repeat performance in the same area until a night has passed.
• Trade. While in a town, buy a common item for its listed cost, or sell a trade good for its listed cost. You can buy or sell multiples of the same item, or closely related items like a bow-and-arrow. (Bulk buying and selling can be deserved for long rests are downtime, if using that rule.)

hour-long items

• A torch burns for an hour.
• A lamp or lantern burns through 1 vial of oil per hour. (There's 4 vials in a 1-pint flask.)

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