Request for help: If your PC had to spend 2 years in the wild, how would he survive?

[Edena_of_Neith]

I have a question for all of you - how would a character of mine survive the situation below?
How could he survive?
Is it even theoretically possible for him to survive?

- - -

The character is a 1st level wizard.
He has on his person a heavy weather travelling cloak, a good tunic and breeches, and high soft boots.
He has a sword, bow, 12 arrows, a knife, a hand axe, steel/flint/tinder, several flasks of oil, rope, a backpack to put all this in, and a waterskin.
He has 2 weeks of iron rations, at the start.

In his spellbook he has the spells: Detect Magic, Magic Missile, Read Magic, and Sleep.

The situation in which this character is having to deal with is this:

He is stuck in an open glade Somewhere in Faerun.
This Somewhere is in the north temperate part of the continent, and at the start it is High Summer
The temperatures are warm to hot, for now ... come winter, it will be quite cold (as, say, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New England are cold in the winter.)
There are frequent summer storms; come winter, there will be heavy snow.

There are woodlands all around, game is abudant, and in addition there are herbs and berries and other such edible things as you would find in a forest setting.
There is a small stream nearby with fresh water.

The character is reasonably knowledgable in outdoor survival, learned in flora and fauna lore, can fish, has made a living hunting in his youth, and he is smart enough to know that while he cannot Track others, humanoid monsters generally ... can ... track pretty well.
The character is no Ranger, but he appreciates the Ranger as a very capable being, and a potentially deadly foe.

The character must stay ... here ... in the glade, or in the immediate vicinity of the glade.
He cannot attempt to travel in search of a village.
He cannot attempt to travel in search of a road.
There is NO possibility of an adventuring party or the occasional traveller running into him (or vice versa) by accident or chance.
There is a very GOOD possibility of humanoids, monsters of various sorts, and perhaps even fey creatures of the woodlands coming to this place, and an even better chance they will be hostile.

The character must stay here for 2 years.

The character must survive here for those 2 years.

How can the character survive?

 

[RogueJK]

He has...
He has...
He has...

There are...
There are...
There is...

The character...
The character...
The character...

He cannot...
He cannot...

There is...
There is...

The character...
The character...

Maybe it's just the lack of sleep talking, but I find your posts like these exceedingly tedious to read. In the future, could you make an attempt to combine your lists of sentences into some sort of paragraph structure? It would make your posts much easier to read.

I'd appreciate it.

(Sorry if this comes off as overly harsh.)

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Can the character survive?
Is it possible, even theoretically, for him to survive?

If yes, then ... how?

 

[hong]

Can the character survive?
Is it possible, even theoretically, for him to survive?

If yes, then ... how?

Your character would have to make a Wilderness Lore check at DC 10 to avoid suffering the effects of exposure, lack of food, lack of water, etc. If you have a Wis of at least 10, you can take 10 on this check and survive for an indefinite amount of time (until a wandering monster shows up, anyway).

D&D characters, even commoners, aren't complete incompetents outside their area of specialisation.

 

[tburdett]

Use the rope!

First off, basic survival is not a problem.

As hong stated, taking 10 will guarantee that.

Here is an outline to help explain what that might entail.

Water is available and Magic Missile will provide the player with a steady diet of squirrel, birds, and the like. Berries and other forest vegatation (identified as being safe and edible using the survival skills you mentioned) can supplement that and provide some variety. Magic Missile is great for hunting small game, as it never misses, and it shouldn't spoil the meat the way that a bad arrow shot would.

As long as the player is going to be in the area for 2 years he might as well excavate an underground area large enough to live in for the fall and winter months and build a treehouse as high up as possible to live in for the spring and summer months.

The fallen leaves during the fall and the heavy snows during the winter would help to conceal the underground hidey hole from prying eyes. The treehouse, if built high enough, should be hidden as well by the interposing branches and leaves.

This should give him a place to try and hide from creatures that may enter the area. The Scent ability, being as widespread as it is, will probably result in his being found anyway, but at least he'll die trying. What an opportunity to 'role-play'!

Having said all of that, I really don't see how a 1st level Wizard could survive this scenario without a great amount of DM sympathy and assistance.

Any creature with more than 20 hit points, or any creature that finds the PC while he is sleeping, is going to pretty much have its way. No 1st level Wizard is going to survive that Coup de grace attack. And even if you are awake, Magic Missile won't get the job done, and your BAB isn't going to help you hit anything with the bow or sword. You might get lucky with Sleep, but one or two successful saving throws, or being faced by more than a single foe, is going to put the PC on somebodies dinner plate.

The PC's best bet would be to fashion a noose with his rope and then create a new character that hopefully won't be stuck in the same type of DM generated death trap.

This involves a lot of misery and suffering, and that probably means that a bunch of 'real' role-players are at work.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, he can do it well like Hong said.

Oh, and if possible shoot this gomer in the head for being a Wizard when he knew all about the outdoors...talk about not makin' use of his skills! I give him two days without toilet paper, and we'll see how much his "spellbook" is used after that!

Magic Missle: It kills varmints, but it can't wipe your poo-shoot!

He could just cast it on himself. If he's lucky, he'll roll good and put himself at -1 hp, start to bleed, and then die.

If not, it is the DM's job to cricize him for not being competent enough to even commit magical suicide, the frickin' looser.

He should be able to be okay in the wilderness. But I do hope there's at least a few ranks in Wilderness Lore or Profession (fisherman) or something to represent his knowledge.

Remember: Wizards are the nerds of the D&D world. They can get beat up by nearly everyone, but people keep them around because they can be not completely useless.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Yeah, he can do it well like Hong said.

Oh, and if possible shoot this gomer in the head for being a Wizard when he knew all about the outdoors...talk about not makin' use of his skills! I give him two days without toilet paper, and we'll see how much his "spellbook" is used after that!

Magic Missle: It kills varmints, but it can't wipe your poo-shoot!

*AHERM* That's what Prestidigitation is for.

"They [Prestidigitations] can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round."

And since the spell lasts for an hour, that means he can clean up to 600 cubic feet of poo-shoot with a single spell.

Anyway... Perhaps, Edena, it is time to diversify that character. It seems to me, that character would multi-class to Ranger or Druid at the earliest possible convenience, out of necessity and opportunity. Surely an heroic adventurer alone in the wilderness would gain a level or two over the span of two years.

 

[Someone]

And try to make friends. Fey, or perhaps even a humanoid, and make a living as a shaman of the tribe.

 

[The Forsaken One]

He theoretically can survive, and single opponents he should be able to defeat rather easily since he has the location set up, made traps and defenses.

BUT there is one reason why he'll get killed I think... he can't advance!! He is a wizard! He can't learn knew spells at a new leven without having a place to write them down from.. unless he wants to research them but without lab and resources... haha....

If he'd been a Sorceror I'd have given him about one hundred times more chance.... since then he wouldn't have the need of other to advance his arcane... he'd just learn new spells by himself as he advances his arcane talents more and more during this.. advanture.

But I guess he could survive.. he just would end up level X wiz but stuck at level 1 spells. If you insist on this scenario with a d4 type.. i'd say go with psion or sorc... the wiz and his how to I learn my spells when I level is gonna bug this guy (or kill him).

But we also all have to remember the fact that as the average wiz he has a int of 18... as a player character or at least 16+
That would make him VERY smart... that will help him out alot and he will outsmart abuot 99% of his foes... and his learning capabilities and stuff....

I'd say the intellect would get him through it for sure unless some back luck stroke gets him but that counts for everybody. I'd say he'd be able to make it but as a wiz.. well I just pointed that out 2 times.

Hope u got my mail edena btw =]

(The making friends idea would get into his mind as a intelligent guy and maybe he has a nice charisma as well. But nonetheless a very good idea to make friends)

 

[drothgery]

Re: Use the rope!

Having said all of that, I really don't see how a 1st level Wizard could survive this scenario without a great amount of DM sympathy and assistance.

Any creature with more than 20 hit points, or any creature that finds the PC while he is sleeping, is going to pretty much have its way. No 1st level Wizard is going to survive that Coup de grace attack. And even if you are awake, Magic Missile won't get the job done, and your BAB isn't going to help you hit anything with the bow or sword. You might get lucky with Sleep, but one or two successful saving throws, or being faced by more than a single foe, is going to put the PC on somebodies dinner plate.

Fortuanately, he won't be a 1st-level wizard very long, but he'll probably pick up a familiar while he's 1st-level.

Staying alive through a handful of dangerous encounters (and for 1st-level wizard, a hostile small woodland creature is a dangerous encounter) ought to turn our 1st level wizard to a 2nd-level character, and then he's got several options, depending on what the DM allows and the character's stats.

The obvious choice is to take a level of Ranger, but he doesn't have to do that. If he's stubborn, he takes a 2nd wizard level. If he thinks the only way he's going to survive is with divine intervention, he becomes a cleric or a druid. If he has the strength and constitution to pull it off, becoming a Barbarian is not a bad idea. If he's lawful, becoming a Monk isn't a bad idea either; they're very good at survivng with minimal equipment. If his charisma is decent, though, he might want to become a Sorcerer; spellcasting is more natural to him than fighting with weapons, and then he won't have to worry about finding spells. And the Rogue's tons of skill points, sneak attack, and Evasion at 2nd level are all very useful.

Given the unavailability of good weapons and armor, becoming a fighter or paladin is probably not the greatest idea, and with no instruments in his inventory, becoming a Bard isn't a great idea either.

Still, unless our wizard actually has good stats for what he multiclasses into (and he's certainly not stubborn enough to take more than 2 levels of wizard, with no level 2 spells around), he's probably a poorly-optimized character by the time he gets off the island (as he's probably a 4 Rgr/1 Wiz with stats and 1st level skills/feats chosen for a Wizard), and very short on equipment, making it difficult to put him in group of PCs.