Sailing without a crew

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Agreed to some level. However note that, for instance, common tasks of riding a horse or driving a wagon are assumed for the entire populace. It's not unreasonable to assume the same level of proficiency with seacraft.

Actually, they aren't. Not exactly, anyway.

The Ride skill - that which determines your ability to effectively mount and control a horse - can be used untrained. This means that everyone is assumed to have enough familiarity with an animal that, barring being a complete manual dolt (i.e., Dex penalty), your average peasant can Take 10 on Bessy all day long and not fall off.

He'll be in trouble, however, the moment he needs to calm Bessy down, or the minute he needs to defend himself from horseback.

Profession skills - like Profession (Sailor) or Profession (Lawyer) - cannot be used untrained. The common commoner, therefore, does not have the basic indoctrination in the skillsets required by such tasks to perform them even at their most basic level.

So, 0 ranks in a Profession skill - unlike in a Craft skill - are not enough to perform the every day tasks.

PROFESSION (WIS; TRAINED ONLY)

 

[Saeviomagy]

Yes it is unreasonable. An analogy: The average American can drive a car. The average American CANNOT drive a semi-truck.

At a guess however the average american can hop into the cab of a semi, press in the clutch and get rolling.

He'll be shocking at parking it. He may stall it a bunch. He may even damage it or crash it. But he doesn't hop in and say "this is all alien to me".

Especially if he's been sitting in the cab next to the driver for 2 days straight with nothing else to do.

Survival, I will point out, has (or should have - I'm not going to look it up)terrain subskills

Nope, sure as heck doesn't. Nor should it. If it did, I don't doubt that it would cease to be a viable option for most characters. And, as others have pointed out, what really is the difference between survival(plains) and survival(tundra) when it's winter on the plains and summer on the tundra?

I would agree to providing situational modifiers. At sea, for instance, I may well give people practising survival a penalty for insufficient tools (whereas in the forest I wouldn't expect special tools to be necessary). I may well provide an increased DC for finding drinkable water. I'd probably do the same in the desert.

I'm not going to say that it just flat-out doesn't work.

just like Perform is divided by performance methods. Survival methods for the Desert are well nigh useless at sea.

Sure - stuff like digging to find water, and tying a cloth over your face to keep out sand are not going to work, but the ability to predict the weather, conserve resources and navigate by the stars, not to mention the tactics to avoid getting lost in a sandstorm are all going to be applicable.

Also, anyone who thinks finding their way is easy has obviously never been lost.

That would be why it's a DC 15 check. Honestly - doesn't ANYONE get the fact that a DC 15 check matches up with "untrained people will often fail at this"?
People seem to think that a DC 15 is easy. I think they forget that it means that an untrained individual will fail 75% of the time, and a first level, trained individual with no particular aptitude for the task (ie - the average hobbyist) will still fail about 50% of the time.

That's a lot.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Lay of the land? This is the ocean. By your argument, someone with survival could be put in a room with no contact to the outside, and then be teleported, room and all, and instantly know where he was. Water is pretty much featureless, and it's doubtful that the PCs would know enough to tell where they were.

Nope - I'd say being inside a sealed room with no information about where you are is probably grounds for denying a survival check to avoid getting lost.

Once out of the room however, I'm going to expect my GM to give me SOME information. If there's land and therefore terrain features. If there's recognisable migratory birds. Where the sun rises and sets. Where the stars and the moon are. That sort of stuff.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I would allow a survival check for something like what happened in the book Sole Survivor

And now that I've seen the review - looks like a guy with 0 survival ranks who pulled off the sort of stuff I'm talking about.

 

[Michael Morris]

At a guess however the average american can hop into the cab of a semi, press in the clutch and get rolling.

Not without releasing the air brake. Ever drove a standard?? That is a world of fun in and of itself (though many trucks are automatics these day, many are in the minority).

It was meant as a loos analogy. Maybe a better one is Sure, you can fly a ultra-light (Basically a gokart strung to a parachute or glider). That doesn't prepare you to fly a Boeing 747.

 

[Steverooo]

I would agree to providing situational modifiers. At sea, for instance, I may well give people practising survival a penalty for insufficient tools (whereas in the forest I wouldn't expect special tools to be necessary). I may well provide an increased DC for finding drinkable water. I'd probably do the same in the desert.

And, again, skill in Survival is more than adequate to handle the situation... For instance, when at sea, water is plentiful. Remove the salt and impurities, and it is even drinkable. Aboard ship, this can easily be done with a large piece of waxed cloth (or other waterproofed material), a pot, and a fire in the cook's sandbox... You boil the water and collect the steam, which runs off the sheet and collects as fresh, drinkable water.

The same can be done without the fire, when night cools the water in the air. Water can also be collected from rain, from plants (even from poisonous ones, with a simple "solar still"), etc.

I have no ideas what "tools" you think might be needed which are not commonly available shipboard, so I'll let that go. Penalties for finding water at sea? That I'd disagree with. a -2 in the desert would be okay.

I can understand the previous poster's view that plants and animals may be different in various areas, but the methods of survival are all pretty much the same. As such, a fairly small set of skills can be generally used world-wide. While (as I said before) you'll get less use out of your cold-survival tricks in the South Sea Isles than you will in Antarctica, once they're learned, you can use them anywhere.

Finding water in the desert still involves heading downhill. Solar stills still work. Getting moisture from plants and animals still works. Avoiding watering holes surrounded by dead animals is still a good idea. Even getting water from condensation still works (deserts are notoriously cold, at night). Shelter-building still works to reduce fatigue from the heat. Telling direction still works the same...