Standard Operating Procedures

Standard operating procedures may be declared for your character/the group. A standard operating procedure can not be any action which requires a die roll (e.g. failure causes a penalty)—so it is not possible to enter a dungeon and say your characters will search or detect traps at all times, because failure causes a penalty. Furthermore, you may not declare as standard procedure the use of any feat. race, or class-related ability, or any action that takes more than 10 minutes of active participation to complete (in other words, night watch rotations apply to an 8-hour period but can still be standardized, while daily foraging for water while taking a monthlong trek through the desert cannot). Finally, it is not possible to declare a standard procedure that pertains to a specific location; it must be a generalized statement that can apply to all situations and locales. Exception: SP's specific to terrain type can be declared, i.e. when your character enters a forest, he will always pick up a handful of moss for his spell components.

What you can declare as a standard procedure is any common task, chore, or search that can be completed in less than 10 minutes (you can’t take 20). Several common standard procedures would be marching order, camp habits, hailing procedures when encountering NPC's, combat formations, and so on. Also small character quirks and habits can be declared as standard procedure.

Fighting characters and rogues can practice drills, (it is already assumed that they do), whether the player declares it or not. Priests may declare that they pray to their deity once a day, again, this is instantly assumed even if it is not declared. (Although the priest's church may still disapprove of long absences--since obviously no standard procedure supersedes the fact that the priest is away from his place of worship). Rogues can choose to pick up every small or interesting/shiny object they see (like Kender). No guarantees as to what they end up with, though.

A standard operating procedure for collecting cost-free spell components is completely allowable, but the component must have no cost whatsoever, and must be obtainable with less than 10 minutes of foraging. Whenever the spellcaster passes through an area abundant in a needed spell component, the player may raise that component by 10 pieces/applications. If an animal or monster must be captured and/or killed to obtain the spell component, you cannot standardize it, but if you pass an already dead creature the standard procedure works normally. It is recommended that the player be aware of his or her own components, and do not expect me to know every time a substance in the area is in fact a needed component. However if you pass an abundant area and don't remember right away, it is allowable to bring it up later and still receive the components.

In any situation where there is no die roll or ability use involved, and the action in question takes less than 10 minutes of active participation, the character is assumed to be doing what is most favorable, even if no standard procedure is officially declared. For example, if you do not declare that you’re taking off your full plate armor when you go to sleep, you still are, because if you didn’t you’d have penalties when you woke up in the morning. However, as a player it’s always best to err on the side of explicitness rather than assume I’m thinking the same things you are.