WonkaMania
First Post
Vaxalon said:
Well, see that's where you have the wrong point of view. Gathering and cooking food IS NOT a "trivial" thing. In a time where there are no "supermarkets" or "McDonald's" to easily get food, it is a REAL concern! See what happens to YOU the next time you go 14 hours or so without food!
If you had read my original post you would see this is a differnt kind of game. It's NOT a "hack-and-slash kill all the monsters and take their phat lewt!" kind of game. It's more of an experiment in acting where the point is to actually immerse yourself INTO your character and play his life out! We had our first session this last Saturday, and there was no combat the entire 6-hour session, it was all EXCELLENT roleplaying about the characters meeting each other and discovering who each other is, along with attending the Cheese and Ale festival that I had set up with tournament games to play. The session got GREAT reviews from my players! They all thoroughly enjoyed this type of play and raved about how fun it was!
Of course, they all made sure that they where carrying enough water on them (2 waterskins) and ate some food while attending the fair. For anyone that is interested, here's the system that I came up with for finding/cooking food:
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(Special thanks to Ashrem, I adapted the system that you had presented and changed it to meet the goals I was looking for!)
Medium sized creatures need to eat 1 lb. of food per day, and drink 1 gallon of water per day. (Small creatures need half this amount, Large creatures need 1.5 times this amount)
A character can go without water for 2 days. After this time, the character needs to make a Constitution check (not Fort save) vs. DC 13 every 6 hours or take 1d2 points of temporary Constitution damage.
A character can go without food for 3 days. After this time, the character needs to make a Constitution check (not Fort save) vs. DC 13 every 6 hours or take 1d2 points of temporary Constitution damage.
Temporary Constitution damage from lack of food or water cannot be recovered until the character intakes whatever it was they where taking damage from lack of-not even magic that restores ability score damage heals this damage. If a character's constitution ever reaches 0, they have died.
A character that has taken constitution damage from lack of food or water is at a -2 penalty to attack and cannot run or charge.
Gathering food: (you may make a check even if you are un-trained)
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To gather food in the wild, your character must make either a
(1)Profession: Hunter check or
(2)a Survival check.
The DC to successfully "find" food is: 10 + 1d20. (Therefore the DC ranges from 11 to 30, the DM makes this DC-setting roll)
If you are successful in finding food, you roll a 1d2 + a 1d8. This is how many "pounds" of food you found.
The 1d2 roll represents food that does not expire (go bad) and does not need to be cooked (such as various roots and nuts). The 1d8 roll represents food that does expire and does need to be cooked/prepared (such as fish/meat/eggs/etc). This food needs to be cooked/prepared within 48 hours or it spoils/rots and is considered not "safe" to eat.
Special: If you beat the DC of the "find" food roll by more then 5, you roll 2d2 and 2d8.
Finding Water:
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If you are not close to an existing fresh water source (lake, river, stream, well, etc) you must also determine if you find water.
To determine if your character finds water, use the same rolls as above for finding food. Use the following to determine if/how much water you find:
Failed by 10 or more: You found no water
Failed by 1 to 9 points: You find/collect 1d6 gallons of water
Success: Success means you have found a source of fresh water and may collect as much as you wish from it.
Special synergy bonus:
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If you use Profession: Hunter for your check, for every 2 ranks you have in Survival, add a +1 bonus.
If you use Survival for your check, for every 2 ranks you have in Profession: Hunter, add a +1 bonus.
There is no cap to these bonuses.
Synergy bonuses:
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For every 2 ranks that you have in the following skills you may add a +1 bonus to your Survival or Profession:Hunter check. All bonuses stack, though there is a limit of a +3 bonus gained from one particular skill. (meaning, no matter how high your Search skill is, the most synergy bonus you can gain from it is +3, but it WOULD stack with your other synergy bonuses)
The skills that give synergy bonuses are:
Knowledge:Nature
Search
Spot
Listen
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Cooking/Preserving Food: (Untrained/Trained only)
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Let me first explain that by saying "untrained/trained only" means that cooking is "untrained" and anyone may attempt this, and that preserving food is "trained only" and only those people with ranks in the Profession:Cooking skill may attempt to preserve food.
SPECIAL- anyone that can cast the "ray of frost" spell has an "alternative" method for "preserving" food. (see below)
Both skills are accomplished via a:
(1) Profession:Cooking skill check.
SPECIAL- A character may decide to use either his/her INT or WIS bonus for this skill, whichever is higher.
Cooking
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To cook/prepare food one must first have a fire. You may make a fire with wood, or you may use a flask of cooking oil. Cooking oil costs 1sp per flask and weighs .5 lb. You must also use cooking tools (tripod, pot, pan). Cooking tools cost 5gp and weigh 5 lbs. (as per the phb "artisan's tools"). If you do not have a set of these you must use "improvised tools" which gives you a -2 penalty to your cooking check. (This penalty can increase to -4 if there is *nothing* to use as "improvised tools")
The DC to cook food is DC 10.
Failure means that you have horribly burned the food. It *IS* still edible, but it tastes horrible and is only "safe" to eat for 2 hours after it's cooked.
Success means that you have cooked the food well, it tastes good, and it is "safe" to eat for 2 days after it's cooked (48 hours).
SPECIAL: If you beat the cooking DC by 10 you have done a superior job of cooking it! Not only does it leave a lasting, well-remembered great taste, but the food is "safe" to eat for one extra day compared to normal cooking! (72 hours instead of 48)
Synergy bonuses:
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For every 2 ranks that you have in Knowledge:Nature you may add a +1 bonus to your Cooking check.
Masterwork Cooking Tools provides you with a +2 bonus. Masterwork Cooking Tools cost 55 gp and weigh 5 lbs. (as per the phb "artisan's tools: masterwork")
Special: A "staionary" iron or stone stove provides a +4 bonus; it provides an evenly-heated surface that makes it much easier to cook food. A Masterwork Stove provides a +6 bonus.
Preserving Food:
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Those persons that are trained in cooking also know a bit about preserving food to make it safe to consume for a longer period of time. The food that is preserved could be either pre-cooked or raw food. (although pre-cooked preserved food doesn't taste particularly well, and the raw food that has been preserved and then cooked seems to have a much more robust flavor to it)
To preserve food a character must use a preservation kit. This kit consists of special leaves to wrap the food in and various spices that aid in it's preservation (and taste) including sugar, salt, cinnamon and herbs. This kit costs 5 gp and weighs 5 pounds and has 50 applications. (1 application "preserves" 1 lb. of meat)
As previously said, A character uses his/her Profession:Cooking skill.
The DC's to preserve food is set by a 10 +1d20 roll. (this determines how long the food will stay "safe" for. A "failure" still allows the character to preserve the food, though not well)
The value of "extra days" determined by the rolls is in ADDITION to previous days considered safe from the days granted to raw meat and cooked food. (Raw meat is considered "safe" for 2 days after it is collected; Cooked food anywhere from 2 hours to 3 days, depending on skill check)
Failure by 10 or greater: 2 extra days
Failure by 5 to 9: 3 extra days
Success up to 4 over DC: 5 extra days
Success from 5 to 9 over DC: 9 extra days
Success by 10 or greater: 11 extra days
Synergy Bonuses:
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For every 2 ranks that a character has in the following skills, he or she may add a +1 bonus to the preservation check:
Knowledge: Nature
Profession: Herbalist
A MasterWork Preservation Kit provides a +2 bonus and costs 25gp and weighs 5 lbs. and has 50 applications.
Special: A "stationary" Smoking Hut is a large setup that provides a +4 bonus. A MasterWork Smoking Hut provides a +6 bonus.
(Please note, when saying "stationary" for stove and smoking hut, I mean that it is not something that adventurers would carry with them, these are devices that are built into buildings)
Ray of Frost Spell:
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The Ray of Frost spell can be used to "preserve" raw meat. A single casting of this spell "freezes" 1 lb. of meat for 12 hours if kept at room temperature. The time that the meat is kept "frozen" does not count towards the time that meat can stay "safe" for. (normally, raw meat can stay "safe" for 2 days [48 hours], if the meat is then frozen with a ray of frost spell, this would essentially add 12 hours to that time for a total of 2.5 days [60 hours] ) Raw meat that has been "frozen" needs to be cooked before it can be eaten. Freezing cooked food in this manner doesn't work out too well. Essentially the same rules apply, you can freeze cooked food and keep it "safe" for 12 hours, but after that it thaws out and is then considered to be "burned horribly" and only "safe" for 2 hours thereafter.
Eating food that is not "safe"
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If a character decides to go ahead and eat food that is not considered "safe", he or she must make a Fortitude Save vs. DC 15 (add an additional +2 to the DC for every day past the "safe" point that the food is eaten) or suffer from food poisoning.
Effects of Food Poisoning:
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A character that has eaten spoiled/rotten food and failed there Fortitude Save is considered to be food poisoned. A food poisoned character suffers a -2 penalty to Str, Dex and Con scores and may not run or charge. 24 hours after the initial digestion of the food, a character must make another Fortitude save against the original DC or take an additional -2 penalty to Str, Dex and Con scores. IF this second DC is successful, the character has "recovered" from the poisoning and all lost ability scores are regained. If this second check fails, the character must keep making Fortitude saves every 24 untill he or she is successful, otherwise taking the stated additional penalties. A character that reaches 0 Constitution is dead.
(A seperate character with the Heal skill made "aid" the food poisoned character and use his/her Heal skill check in place of the food poisoned characters' Fort save if it is higher, as per the description of the Heal skill)
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I had to change a few things to make this system work though, and those changes are:
1- The small change to the Survival skill (everything else is the same, except the "find food" part is different)
2- Rations in the phb are too cheap to make this system work, therefore I upped the cost of rations to 7gp per day.
3- Purify Food and Drink, the 0-th lvl spell. I removed the "food" portion of the spell and made "Purify Food" a 3rd lvl spell.
4- I gave out an extra 4 skill points at first lvl, and 1 skill point per level thereafter that are ONLY to be spent on Craft and Profession skills.
The intent of these changes and this system is that starving is a VERY real concern to low-level characters. Once one reaches higher levels, they have the skill points that they are good enough to not really worry about this sort of thing, and/or they have the magic to just create food. (remember that "create water" is a 0-th lvl spell).
No one had had a beef with the system, two people actually commented that they thought it was an excellent system and can't wait to see it in play! I had told them that we'll play with it for a while but if it proves to be too much of a hassle we'll get rid of it. All of them agreed to give it a try, so we'll see how it goes!
~Wonka
