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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6231763" data-attributes="member: 2067">I get that this doesn't do it for you, but it's totally possible that this does it enough for a lot of people. Have a decent STR and WIS score, and with the DC's you have to roll against, you'd be a fine model of a guy who lives in the forest and kills wild animals for food and makes homes out of logs. You'd be able to have a good chance of success at anything that this person would be assumed to do (climbing trees and swimming most waterways don't require high skill bonuses to have a good chance at accomplishing; even better with 3e's Take 10 rule). I'm not disputing the fact that this isn't enough for you, I'm just disputing your assumption that this shouldn't be enough, period. I mean, that's part of the difference, here. For some people, being an OD&D fighter and using a bow and saying "I live in the woods" is enough. For others, having at least 6 discrete character elements that individually or in total say "I am a survivalist archer!" might not even be enough.  There's no one true way to represent this, and there's no way that's inherently better or worse than another, it's just different for different needs.The needs are driven by what you need the rules to model. I'm of the opinion that the things you need a lot of rules for (a lot of character options for) are the things your characters will be doing a lot of. In a generic Gygaxian hex-exploration-and-dungeon-survival kind of game, a survivalist bow-using fighter would basically need something that says "I can hunt for my rations and shoot things good with bows." That might just mean "Have non-crappy Wis, Str and Dex scores." Any "e" of D&D can have that. You don't need ranks and skills and feats and class features and these elements, necessarily. You don't even need HIGH ability scores (since 10 represents a typical human's typical ability scores, and a typical human can survive in the forest with a bow, it's a pretty safe bet that a PC can, too).So put me down for "you can have a survivalist bow-using fighter in any edition." It's just that editions like 3e offer more detail for representing that. Whether or not that detail is constructive is a matter of individual preference, not objective reality.</blockquote>

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