RFC-1: Crafts and Wilderness Lore
- Thread starter Steverooo
- Start date
Maximillian
First Post
Great Idea, actually. I'd wanted to see something to that effect. Is your intent to make it just another use of the skill, or did it involve a feat or something? I think it'd be fine without, but just a thought. A roommate of mine has been working (forever) on a system for wilderness lore driven trapmaking. I'd like to see this. Submitting to Dragon? Or someone else? another one of your three posts mentioned an "article."
Khorod
First Post
Wilderness Lore currently includes: Survival in the wilderness, finding food (etc), reading the weather, keeping track of your compass direction, and tracking.
Then as per various discussions, elaborate on the tracking to include forensic analysis abilities.
I think that this skill is already one of the most important in the game for anything wilderness related, and definitely one of the strongest skills unless survival and tracking are irrelevant skills.
I suggest creating a Craft[primitive] skill that allows the creation of crude equipment out of simple materials- armor, weapons, traps, clay beads, etc. Finding the materials for this uses Wilderness Lore, Search, & Spot as appropriate, and usually by the character's with the skill (because after a short amount of time, PC's only do this when they are in a desperate situation with no way to get to safety.)
Then as per various discussions, elaborate on the tracking to include forensic analysis abilities.
I think that this skill is already one of the most important in the game for anything wilderness related, and definitely one of the strongest skills unless survival and tracking are irrelevant skills.
I suggest creating a Craft[primitive] skill that allows the creation of crude equipment out of simple materials- armor, weapons, traps, clay beads, etc. Finding the materials for this uses Wilderness Lore, Search, & Spot as appropriate, and usually by the character's with the skill (because after a short amount of time, PC's only do this when they are in a desperate situation with no way to get to safety.)
Khorod
First Post
And speaking to the ranger ability- why couldn't a barbarian from a savage tribe do such things? Or the evil sorcerer raised in the in the hills?
A Craft[primitive] skill would be useful only to hardcore nature people, to everyone else it would be more flavor than benefit for usefulness.
A Craft[primitive] skill would be useful only to hardcore nature people, to everyone else it would be more flavor than benefit for usefulness.
Might want to check out Heros of High Honor: Half-orcs from http://www.badaxegames. He's done something similar to what you're wanting in this book
- WL can be used for creating tools, as well as harvesting poisons and curing hides
- A Craft(savage) roll can allow the character to make bone, stone, or wood tools.
- To speed things up (I need a hundred spears NOW!) you can produce shoddy goods. Essentially, you can create these items in half the time, at half the cost, or with a +5 to your roll (less skill). Each of these you use gives a 1/20 chance of breaking the weapon. (So a shoddy spear that was made at half cost and less skill breaks on a natural 1 or 2)
Its only $10, and has lots of other goodies for wilderness/savage type characters.
- WL can be used for creating tools, as well as harvesting poisons and curing hides
- A Craft(savage) roll can allow the character to make bone, stone, or wood tools.
- To speed things up (I need a hundred spears NOW!) you can produce shoddy goods. Essentially, you can create these items in half the time, at half the cost, or with a +5 to your roll (less skill). Each of these you use gives a 1/20 chance of breaking the weapon. (So a shoddy spear that was made at half cost and less skill breaks on a natural 1 or 2)
Its only $10, and has lots of other goodies for wilderness/savage type characters.
Khorod
First Post
Skill points aside, Tracking is in wilderness lore, since we are balancing this with special attention to the ranger, who has Track...
As it stands, a ranger who doesn't max out in WL is somewhat foolish. If you add this, and the campaign places any sort of emphasis outside cities, a ranger who doesn't seriously consider Skill Emphasis might be foolish!
And when I said a Craft skill, it wasn't to use the craft rules- we are talking about crafting something, its a craft skill. The only reason why Alchemy isn't a Craft skill is that it would require many exceptions if it were. (Fighters with Alchemy as a class skill?) I was thinking just make your rules, but slide them under a new Craft skill instead of overloading WL.
I do think that such a skill would be worth taking. Skill points back in, I have firmly decided to bump skill points by 2. Adding another cool skill like this would actually help balance that.
As it stands, a ranger who doesn't max out in WL is somewhat foolish. If you add this, and the campaign places any sort of emphasis outside cities, a ranger who doesn't seriously consider Skill Emphasis might be foolish!
And when I said a Craft skill, it wasn't to use the craft rules- we are talking about crafting something, its a craft skill. The only reason why Alchemy isn't a Craft skill is that it would require many exceptions if it were. (Fighters with Alchemy as a class skill?) I was thinking just make your rules, but slide them under a new Craft skill instead of overloading WL.
I do think that such a skill would be worth taking. Skill points back in, I have firmly decided to bump skill points by 2. Adding another cool skill like this would actually help balance that.
