At the start of combat, roll a d4. In that many rounds, something (usually something bad) will happen.
I once had a GM whose house rules included every battle receiving enemy reinforcements each d4 rounds. One combat took three weeks to resolve. At the end there were four factions in the ruckus and it was taking about 60 minutes per round for him to run it. After the first evening we weren’t even trying to fight anyone, we were just withdrawing.
So a lot of these suggestions need “…but not to the point of bogging down the game” added.
So it is possible to have reinforcements every single round? Yeah, that is a terrible rule.
I have used a d4+2 to determine how many rounds of combat will draw attention, but only for a single reinforcement. The floor of three rounds is because that is 18 seconds in DnD. Enough time for other enemies to wonder if someone is just having a spat and not worth checking out or for the enemies to realize they are going to die and think of calling reinforcements being worth it over being ridiculed or punished by higher ups.
I once had a GM whose house rules included every battle receiving enemy reinforcements each d4 rounds. One combat took three weeks to resolve. At the end there were four factions in the ruckus and it was taking about 60 minutes per round for him to run it. After the first evening we weren’t even trying to fight anyone, we were just withdrawing.
So a lot of these suggestions need “…but not to the point of bogging down the game” added.
So it is possible to have reinforcements every single round? Yeah, that is a terrible rule.
I have used a d4+2 to determine how many rounds of combat will draw attention, but only for a single reinforcement. The floor of three rounds is because that is 18 seconds in DnD. Enough time for other enemies to wonder if someone is just having a spat and not worth checking out or for the enemies to realize they are going to die and think of calling reinforcements being worth it over being ridiculed or punished by higher ups.
Good call. Makes sense in fantasy combat-context.
Runehammer has a nice video on Timers with some more examples.