[d20 Modern] Cooking: what skill to use?

[TracerBullet42]

Well, in a FR Campaign (I know...you said D20 Modern, but this is my experience to share...) I played a halfling on a mission, with his twin brother, to open the greatest restaurant in the universe. (They're still working on it, by the way.)

Anyhoo, we used Craft: Cooking to represent the skill needed to actually cook the food. If you look into Mongoose's Quintessential Halfling book, you'll some rules for cooking and the greatest prestige class of all time...THE MASTER CHEF!

It should give you some good ideas on new ways to use cooking in your game. And that's something that no game should be without.

 

[drnuncheon]

I would use Profession, not Craft.

If we take the Craft rules literally:

Chef Olaf wishes to prepare a banquet for 100 people. This will cost 1000 gp, or 10,000 sp.

The chef is a 5th level Expert, with maxxed ranks, +2 from Int, and skill focus in cooking for a total of +13 to his Craft (cook) - a great chef. He has twenty people on his staff assisting him, using the 'aid another' rules, totalling another +40 - that's +53 to his Craft (cook).

Assuming an average roll (or the chef taking 10) and dishes with a DC of 25, the chef can make (63 x 25) = 1575 sp worth of progress per week, meaning that it takes more than six weeks of working 8 hours per day to produce this feast.

That's a long time to wait for your food.

Since cooking doesn't produce something permanent and lasting, it's much easier to just handwave it and use the profession rules.

EDIT: and of course, now I realize that it's d20 Modern. For d20 Modern, Craft is fine.