Apologies if this is a little long but I am looking to immerse myself in Amia but I would first like to understand 'time' a little better. (I hope this is the correct forum) I have started to play a bard/sorcerer and my spells have a nasty habit of running out at precisely the wrong moment! I have therefore been reading the NWN manual and the Amia website, recognising that in many cases Amia has adjusted the default durations. I have broken down my findings & questions as follows:

1) Rounds: each round lasts 6 Real Time (RT) seconds. I have successfully checked this (for example 'Expeditious Retreat' lasts 1 Round per Level, so when I cast it at fourth level it did indeed last 24 RT seconds. Hooray.

2) Turns: each Turn comprises 10 Rounds i.e. lasts 60 Real Time (RT) seconds. I have successfully checked this (for example 'Invisibility'lasts 1 Turn per Level, so when I cast it at 5 level it did indeed last 300 RT seconds i.e. 5 RT minutes. Hooray.

3) Hour: many spells in NWN state 1 hr/level e.g. Protection from Evil, Mage Armour & Bull Strength. The Amia website does not show any change to these durations. However when I cast them they seem to last approximately 10 Real Time minutes i.e. approx 600 RT seconds. What is the basis of this? Are these spells actually a fixed duration or do they relate to the character level? If the latter then it seems to be 2 Turns (2 Real Time Minutes) per level...is this correct?

4) Days: I presume that when Amia goes through a sequence of day and night that this represents a 'Game Day'. How long does this take in Real-Time? i.e. does Amia go through a day in 1 Real Time hour?

4b) ...in which case when a character cannot rest for 15 Real Time minutes does this represent a quarter of a day?

4c) How often are Amia resets? Is it a fixed time each Real Time Day? How many Game Days is this?

5) Dates: how do Game dates work? I see my journal automatically assigns dates to events....what is the basis? This obviously relates closely to point 4 above.

6) Seasons: how long is an Amia season and an Amia year in Game days? Therefore, based on 4 & 5 above, how long is this in Real Time?

I hope these aren't daft questions. I want to roleplay better but haven't yet got to grips with 4, 5 & 6 in particular.

Thanks in advance!

Spells still run on 2 minutes : 1 hour


One in-game hour is 10 minutes. So a whole 24-hour cycle should take estimately 4 hours. (Two days per reset)


Eight hours apart, barring crashes or failures on the server side. Should be two in-game days for every reset.


Standard NwN feature that's confusing and probably best overlooked.


Four seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn in that order) and the year is split into twelve months, each of those twelve months is split into ten days (hence the term a 'tenday'. But week/tenday are interchangeable terms on Amia) Then I think there are a few extra days (typically holidays) in between the months that round it up to a full 365 day year.

The twelve months are also differently named.

Hammer
Alturiak
Ches
Tarsakh
Mirtul
Kythorn
Flamerule
Eleasis
Eleint
Marpenoth
Uktar
Nightal

This is as good as I can remember off the top of my head from the FRCS. But don't fret too much about the difference between in-game days and real-time days, otherwise it'll just get confusing.

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Aoth Nathandem - Wizard of house Tholaunt and chosen of Ma'at.

Spells run on the in-game clock, I'll leave those calculations to someone else. In my experience though, if you are roleplaying the casting of a spell (such as a PnP spell) that takes one hour to cast the DMs consider the 10 min "in-game hour" to count for that.

However, the passage of time is considered to run 1:1 with real life. Meaning one day of real time is the same as one day Amia time, the same for weeks, months, years. This does get confusing with the in-game day night cycles, but like the other mechanical dates, it tends to be something you just have to overlook. This ratio can change depending on the DM's determination of "speed of plot" also. For general day-to-day playing the ratio of 1:1 is your standard.

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Iim'mur'ss - Grandmaster Shadowdancer / Aaralyn - Diplomat / Oleander - Toxic Desert Flower

1 year on amia = 1 RL year

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Indeed! It just turned over to 1383 D.R. and is now the month of Hammer.

Some things go speed-of-plot, as necessary. You just have to remember to be open to flexibility and suspension of disbelief.

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Thank you for your responses. So, in summary, this is what I have gleamed. Please advise if I am wrong:

1) For 'NWN game-mechanic durations' such as Spell durations (and other stuff such as bard-song) 1 Round is 6 Real seconds, 1 Turn is 1 Real minute and 1 'Hour' is 2 Real minutes.

2) I should ignore some other NWN internal mechanics, specifically (1) the dates in my journal won't align with Amia dates and (2) the daylight and night-time transitions will not match Amia. I am happy to ignore these, now that I understand!

3) For role-play purposes, in general 'in-game' time passes at the same rate as Real time. As a result 1 day in Amia passes each Real day.
However there are occasions, such as casting a spell that takes 1 'in-game' hour, where 10 Real minutes is considered an hour: this prevents someone having to spend a Real hour preparing such a spell - this seems sensible!
DMs may also make exceptions depending on the speed of plot".
This all seems pragmatic to me.

4) Since the passage of time is generally considered to run 1:1 with real life, then one day of real time is the same as one day Amia time: this also applies to weeks, months & years (and presumably the four seasons too).
Does this therefore mean that today, 14 Jan 2015, is equivalent to the 14th Day of the month 'Hammer' in the year 1383 DR?
(Alternatively, is there somewhere in-game or in this website that shows the current 'in-game' date?)

I am now happy to suspend my disbelief - I just wanted to get the basics right!

That date is correct! However, we do not currently have an calendar detailing the in game date.

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Aoth Nathandem - Wizard of house Tholaunt and chosen of Ma'at.