WonkaMania
First Post
EDIT- I've come up with the system I'm going to use, see my post below that explains it if you're interested. Going to leave the first message I had typed up just as a reference for anyone that is/was interested in that.
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Hello everyone!
In my new campaign that I'm starting this Saturday I want to add a bit of realism to the game. I want players to eat food and drink water every day and keep track of this, or they will start to become malnurished and fatigued. I want my players to roleplay deeply as if they where there character, to take their characters and breathe life into them! The game is going to be more based on being an experiment in *acting*! I had presented this to my group as an *idea* that I'd like to run a game like this, and if they'd enjoy it, and there was an overwhelming response of *yes*!
A little backstory and where this comes from:
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I've been playing some NeverWinter Nights online persistant world modules, and they use some great rules. In both modules I play in, one's character may NOT rest/sleep without eating food! They accomplish this differently: in one of them, you kill an animal and then use a skinning knife to carve raw meet from it's body. You then use a flask of oil to make a campfire and "cook" that raw meet into edible food! (or you can buy pre-made food rations which are expensive) In the other module, you pick food off of trees and plants, such as pears and grapes and lettuce and then use the cooking skill to make things out of it (such as a salad or apple pie) to eat. Alternatively you can get eggs from chickens, milk from cows.
(I told my players that background types of skills such as cooking and hunting and etc would be used, and that I'd give them 4 extra skill points at first lvl and 1 point per lvl thereafter; all of these bonus skill points only to be spent on either "craft" or "profession" skills)
Problem I'm having implementing something like this:
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OK, so here's the problem I'm having. How to go about implementing some sort of system like this and make it fun, reasonable, not too hard but also not to easy, and without screwing over the "Survival" skill? Under the current "Survival" skill (same as 3.0 "Wilderness Lore" skill) it has for a (I personally think) low DC of 10:
Get along in the wild. Move up to one-half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10.
Now, I had envisioned the characters basically using two differnt "skills". One would be either "hunting" or "farming" or "herbalist" used to gather the food. Then, the character (or someone else's character) would make a "cooking" skill check to see if he/she could successfully cook the food.
The Survival skill kind of screws over my plans that I had though.. how do I incorporate my planned system without screwing over the person that purchases ranks in survival? There will be a Barbarian/Ranger in my group. Now, I had thought about using a sliding scale such as the one that Survival uses, say you make the DC and you find enough food for one person. For every 2 points over the DC you find enough food for one other person. So, I could still keep Survival as saying such, BUT, once you find the food, you have to cook it! This would basically group "finding" food into 4 different skill checks: Survival, "hunting", "farming" or "herbalist". A different skill check "cooking" would then have to be made to cook the food!
That could work? Now, what about the low DC of 10? My players will start out at 1st lvl and be 2nd lvl within a few hours of play (just the way I have it set up from background xp rewards and roleplaying rewards/small adventure). So, they could have their skills at 5 ranks. So, to get enough food for themselves, they'd have to roll a 5 on a d20. (and that's not including any ability modifiers). That's.. uhm, not too challenging. Then again, that's assuming that players will max out said skill inlight of others (perhaps they want their character to be able to both find and cook food, or perhaps they went another route with things such as sailing/etc it's up to them, these are "background" skills) So do I raise the DC to take into account those that will "max" out the skill? And if so, to what, 12? 13? 15? I want it to be reasonalbe though.. at second level they are just starting to get good at doing said thing, but it's still perhaps a challenge? And later on in their adventuring careers they've been doing it for so long that it's not even really a challenge to them (which is perfectly fine and understandable and expected)
Cooking- I figured I"d make cooking a static DC. Say for vs. dc 12 or 15 or so you attempt to cook each individual piece of food. Either you cook it and it's edible, or you fail your check and the food is rendered inedible. A stationary object (say a stove) could give a +4 bonus, as could "masterwork cooking tools" give a +2 bonus.
On Micro-Managing
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I had originally told my players that they would be needing to keep track of encumbrence and arrow use, and that they'd have to hunt for food, cook the food, and drink water everyday. I asked players if they'd enjoy this type of game and got an overwhelming response of *YES*! (we play in another game where it's sort of "anything goes" maunty-haul, so I'm running this to provide a different experience from that game)
So it comes down to, am I wanting too much realism here? Am I biting off more then I could chew? The players said they'd enjoy playing in a game that incorporated this kind of thing, but I'm begging to wonder, from a games-mechanic point of view, should I just scrap the whole food/water idea? Please let me know your thoughts on the subject, and if you've done anything like this before, how it worked out, and/or if you have any suggestions to help make this work! Thanks in advance!
P.S.- I'm kind of confused by what is meant by the Survival skill's mention of "one half your overland speed".. does this mean that this speed reduction would not count in combat rounds, correct? Also, it says you make one check every 24 hours, the result of that check applies until the next check is made. So does that mean that they'll be moving at one-half thier overland speed for the 24 hours following said skill check?
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Hello everyone!
In my new campaign that I'm starting this Saturday I want to add a bit of realism to the game. I want players to eat food and drink water every day and keep track of this, or they will start to become malnurished and fatigued. I want my players to roleplay deeply as if they where there character, to take their characters and breathe life into them! The game is going to be more based on being an experiment in *acting*! I had presented this to my group as an *idea* that I'd like to run a game like this, and if they'd enjoy it, and there was an overwhelming response of *yes*!
A little backstory and where this comes from:
---------------------------------------------
I've been playing some NeverWinter Nights online persistant world modules, and they use some great rules. In both modules I play in, one's character may NOT rest/sleep without eating food! They accomplish this differently: in one of them, you kill an animal and then use a skinning knife to carve raw meet from it's body. You then use a flask of oil to make a campfire and "cook" that raw meet into edible food! (or you can buy pre-made food rations which are expensive) In the other module, you pick food off of trees and plants, such as pears and grapes and lettuce and then use the cooking skill to make things out of it (such as a salad or apple pie) to eat. Alternatively you can get eggs from chickens, milk from cows.
(I told my players that background types of skills such as cooking and hunting and etc would be used, and that I'd give them 4 extra skill points at first lvl and 1 point per lvl thereafter; all of these bonus skill points only to be spent on either "craft" or "profession" skills)
Problem I'm having implementing something like this:
----------------------------------------------------
OK, so here's the problem I'm having. How to go about implementing some sort of system like this and make it fun, reasonable, not too hard but also not to easy, and without screwing over the "Survival" skill? Under the current "Survival" skill (same as 3.0 "Wilderness Lore" skill) it has for a (I personally think) low DC of 10:
Get along in the wild. Move up to one-half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10.
Now, I had envisioned the characters basically using two differnt "skills". One would be either "hunting" or "farming" or "herbalist" used to gather the food. Then, the character (or someone else's character) would make a "cooking" skill check to see if he/she could successfully cook the food.
The Survival skill kind of screws over my plans that I had though.. how do I incorporate my planned system without screwing over the person that purchases ranks in survival? There will be a Barbarian/Ranger in my group. Now, I had thought about using a sliding scale such as the one that Survival uses, say you make the DC and you find enough food for one person. For every 2 points over the DC you find enough food for one other person. So, I could still keep Survival as saying such, BUT, once you find the food, you have to cook it! This would basically group "finding" food into 4 different skill checks: Survival, "hunting", "farming" or "herbalist". A different skill check "cooking" would then have to be made to cook the food!
That could work? Now, what about the low DC of 10? My players will start out at 1st lvl and be 2nd lvl within a few hours of play (just the way I have it set up from background xp rewards and roleplaying rewards/small adventure). So, they could have their skills at 5 ranks. So, to get enough food for themselves, they'd have to roll a 5 on a d20. (and that's not including any ability modifiers). That's.. uhm, not too challenging. Then again, that's assuming that players will max out said skill inlight of others (perhaps they want their character to be able to both find and cook food, or perhaps they went another route with things such as sailing/etc it's up to them, these are "background" skills) So do I raise the DC to take into account those that will "max" out the skill? And if so, to what, 12? 13? 15? I want it to be reasonalbe though.. at second level they are just starting to get good at doing said thing, but it's still perhaps a challenge? And later on in their adventuring careers they've been doing it for so long that it's not even really a challenge to them (which is perfectly fine and understandable and expected)
Cooking- I figured I"d make cooking a static DC. Say for vs. dc 12 or 15 or so you attempt to cook each individual piece of food. Either you cook it and it's edible, or you fail your check and the food is rendered inedible. A stationary object (say a stove) could give a +4 bonus, as could "masterwork cooking tools" give a +2 bonus.
On Micro-Managing
------------------------
I had originally told my players that they would be needing to keep track of encumbrence and arrow use, and that they'd have to hunt for food, cook the food, and drink water everyday. I asked players if they'd enjoy this type of game and got an overwhelming response of *YES*! (we play in another game where it's sort of "anything goes" maunty-haul, so I'm running this to provide a different experience from that game)
So it comes down to, am I wanting too much realism here? Am I biting off more then I could chew? The players said they'd enjoy playing in a game that incorporated this kind of thing, but I'm begging to wonder, from a games-mechanic point of view, should I just scrap the whole food/water idea? Please let me know your thoughts on the subject, and if you've done anything like this before, how it worked out, and/or if you have any suggestions to help make this work! Thanks in advance!
P.S.- I'm kind of confused by what is meant by the Survival skill's mention of "one half your overland speed".. does this mean that this speed reduction would not count in combat rounds, correct? Also, it says you make one check every 24 hours, the result of that check applies until the next check is made. So does that mean that they'll be moving at one-half thier overland speed for the 24 hours following said skill check?
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