Hourglass or countdown timer.

One thing that I think is fun to do as a DM, and adds a bit more urgency to urgent in-game moments is to slap an hourglass down on the table. (A la Matt Mercer, that man has given me more ideas than I can count) Whether the room the PCs are in is filling with water, or the walls are closing in and they need to find a way to stop it, or maybe just if they are in a rapidly burning building, giving them a visible time limit is something that I think adds a bit more urgency and fun to the situation. I'd love to see that in some way implemented into Roll20 so I can portray time-sensitive encounters in a more engrossing way. 

Seconded, I've been looking for ways to do this but haven't really found any visualy appealing ones that actually stresses out the players that they have to do something FAST. They'll end up bickering anyway and when I call time up they feel robbed. If they had a visual countdown on the tabletop, they can't feel robbed, the timer was there, should've been faster.

I would love to have a timer visible to all my players. But I have found a fantastically dramatic alternative. There are songs that are made to build in tension and end at exactly at a rounded number of minutes. So I can click play as I present the timed challenge, making it clear that they are racing against the music, and when the song ends it is super tense and obvious that time is up. I hope this helps you. This is the method I am using for a fast paced one off I am running once a month. I am using a sort of kabuki theater song that slowly builds and suddenly stops with loud drums.

This could actually be done pretty easily as an API script. The timer could either be displayed periodically in the chat (every 1 minute, 30 second mark, 10 second countdown), or as a text graphic on the VTT that can be moved around with the PCs. Here's something put together by&nbsp;Temennigru in the Roll20 API repository. I haven't tried it myself and I don't know how well it's tested though. <a href="https://github.com/Roll20/roll20-api-scripts/blob/master/textTimer/textTimer.js" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Roll20/roll20-api-scripts/blob/master/textTimer/textTimer.js</a>

A simple countdown timer that displays into that displays into the chat would be great. I do this by counting down myself sometimes, but a tool for it would be appreciated.

A simple, clean countdown timer is exactly what I have been trying to search for on the API forum. Something like google's timer - would be ideal, or even just a bar that slowly ticks down? The hourglass/turn counters available are awesome but are either a bit hard to read during stressful situations or work by posting to the chat, which disrupts rolls and text RP. I am sure there is some API script somewhere that will suit okay but it would also be very useful to have it as part of the base GM kit.

I agree with this. In the middle of combat, it's a huge pain to keep track of time for spells and such. I've found ways to manage it, but it'd be much cooler if it were automated entirely without using API.&nbsp;

Chris F. said: I agree with this. In the middle of combat, it's a huge pain to keep track of time for spells and such. I've found ways to manage it, but it'd be much cooler if it were automated entirely without using API.&nbsp; You know that you can put in additional entries into the turn tracker? You can e.g. add a spell, give it 10 rounds for a start, and have that number reduced by 1 every round. So you can easily track spells, conditions and other effects that wear off after a certain time or, more precisely, a couple of rounds (as the tracker is tracking rounds, not time). See here:&nbsp; Turn tracker - Adding a custom item