D&D 5E Self sufficiency

[Calion]

[MENTION=73976]Calion[/MENTION], Let me see if I get this right, you have no experience living or surviving in the wild and you take Survivorman (a psuedo-reality entertainment product) as your souce of truth?

One person with wilderness experience has said he has lived in the wilds at "Comfortable" living standard. I will add that have have spent upto 8 consecutive weeks living off my skills in the wilds. I was comfortable, never more hungry, hot or cold then when I live my comfortable life at home with my A/C and car. For someone proficient, it's not big deal.

More importantly, as has been stated, the down-time rules are there to make down-time quick and simple. It is not intended to be a reality simulator, nor are the intended to be detailed. It's not what the game is about.

In the end, if you don't think the rules fit your "reality" then change them when you DM.

How many changes of clothes did you have? Did you eat three good meals a day, every day, with large variety in the dishes you ate? Did you have a soft bed and other furnishings? Reasonably reliable light (equivalent to candles or oil lamps)? What legal protections did you have (oh wait, you had plenty of those. That's probably not the case in a D&D environment). Were you safe from wild animals (yes, probably, in this day and age. Not true of adventurers) and monsters?

You certainly can have been "comfortable" relative to someone without your skills. I don't see how you can have been as comfortable as someone living in a private room at a fine inn in 1200 A.D.—unless you take into account your enjoyment of the outdoors, which does not count here.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Hi again.

We're looking for different things in the game. That's well and good, but it means that you are not going to be convinced by my efforts to help.

Caloric intake is not part of D&D. This is a game where a halfling's armour and a human's weigh the same; where hit points are an adequate representation of *something* (although no two people will ever agree on what); and where magic and multiple pantheons of gods objectively exist and interfere with the world.

We all have hobby-horses about the rules (I certainly have mine, and I make no secret of them), but I can make and play characters who avoid those issues so that it doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of the game. I hope you can too.

Fine, but the rules that do exist should make sense, shouldn't they?

Rules that exist should facilitate smooth game play. Often they succeed. There will always be inconsistencies, or assumptions about the uber-ness of katanas, or whatever. For me, there is nothing in these rules that is egregious or requiring change.

So, in answer to your original questions: No there is not a typo. Yes, I feel there is something you are not getting. I would be very happy to see what changes you would propose to make sense.

Happy gaming.

 

[LordEntrails]

How many changes of clothes did you have? Did you eat three good meals a day, every day, with large variety in the dishes you ate? Did you have a soft bed and other furnishings? Reasonably reliable light (equivalent to candles or oil lamps)? What legal protections did you have (oh wait, you had plenty of those. That's probably not the case in a D&D environment). Were you safe from wild animals (yes, probably, in this day and age. Not true of adventurers) and monsters?

You certainly can have been "comfortable" relative to someone without your skills. I don't see how you can have been as comfortable as someone living in a private room at a fine inn in 1200 A.D.—unless you take into account your enjoyment of the outdoors, which does not count here.

You're just going to refuse to believe anything other than your pre-conceived notions aren't you?

The guy living in a private room at a fine in in 1200 A.D. most likely lived with fleas and lice. I did not.

I had 5 or 6 changes of clothes, more than most people in Europe in 1200 had.

Yes I ate well, meat every day. Yes I had a soft bed with a large sheltered area (about 300 square feet). I had as much safety from wild animals that the kid who got attacked by a bear in Colorado this week had.

None of that matters though, because you have already made up your mind and refuse to change your opinion.

And all of that is fine. Just make up your own rules for the game you want to play. Just don't imply that we are lying because we have experience that proves your opinions are false.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think you're making some assumptions here based off of exposure to some falsehoods. For one, "comfort" is sort of relative and subjective. I can tell you, I am often MOST comfortable when I'm out in the woods. No traffic, no people, no pollution, no red tape, not of that BS. I'm responsible for my own well being, full stop, and there's a tremendous amount of comfort in that. I know how to make temporary bedding that is just as comfortable as any bed you have, and that's just on the fly (I live in Oregon, so plenty of Douglas fir, etc). I know how to make shelter and how to make a fire to maximize heat, keeping me warm all night long. Food is never an issue here if you know what to look for, from mushrooms, to tea from dandelion root or pine needles, to fish, to squirrel, to birds, to herbs, etc, etc. I can make a meal that rivals just about anything I make in my home with what I find in the woods. I know what plants keep the bugs away. I know enough about natural medicines to rival anything you'd find in a medieval town. I know how to make glue from the bark of a birch tree or pine sap, and how to carve spoons and dishes, and tan hides, and make lamps with an old can and tree sap, and make a mud oven, and any number of things you might think you can only get from a store.

And I can also feel a whole hell of a lot more safe out in the woods than I could in any room at an inn in a town or city where break ins, muggings, disease, loud neighbors, etc are all at. I know how animals behave and can take measures for that.

 

[Calion]

You're just going to refuse to believe anything other than your pre-conceived notions aren't you?

The guy living in a private room at a fine in in 1200 A.D. most likely lived with fleas and lice. I did not.

I had 5 or 6 changes of clothes, more than most people in Europe in 1200 had.

Yes I ate well, meat every day. Yes I had a soft bed with a large sheltered area (about 300 square feet). I had as much safety from wild animals that the kid who got attacked by a bear in Colorado this week had.

None of that matters though, because you have already made up your mind and refuse to change your opinion.

And all of that is fine. Just make up your own rules for the game you want to play. Just don't imply that we are lying because we have experience that proves your opinions are false.

And you made all of these things yourself? In eight weeks?

And to say that it's less likely that an outdoorsman will have fleas and lice than someone in a nice inn, with at least some clothes, body and bedclothes washing seems…implausible.

 

[Oofta]

And you made all of these things yourself? In eight weeks?

And to say that it's less likely that an outdoorsman will have fleas and lice than someone in a nice inn, with at least some clothes, body and bedclothes washing seems…implausible.

For you it might be. But people lived comfortably "off the land" for millenia before we became civilized. In many cases they were healthier than people that lived in cities which were (depending on timeframe and city) filthy and disease ridden.

It's all going to depend on situation of course. It will be easier to live off the land in the Pacific Northwest than the Sahara desert.

 

[Kobold Stew]

And you made all of these things yourself? In eight weeks?

As I said in post 8: "You are confusing being able to survive comfortably and being able to survive without any resources."

 

[LordEntrails]

And you made all of these things yourself? In eight weeks?

And to say that it's less likely that an outdoorsman will have fleas and lice than someone in a nice inn, with at least some clothes, body and bedclothes washing seems…implausible.

Some of it, some of it you take with you. It's not like a character walks naked into the woods with only a dagger.

And yes, fleas and lice don't live in the woods. They live where people congregate. With their is refuse, rubbish and garbage. They are problems with "civilizations" not in the wilds. If you don't wash yourself, your clothes, and your bedding, it doesn't matter if you live in a lean-to or the Ritz.

Once more, I will say, doesn't matter. This is a game. Just like most fantasy game maps don't have outhouses or toilets, why do you want to simulate lice?

For real life reference; with a hatchet, knife and twine, in one day, you should expect someone proficient to be able to build shelter, bed, a fire that burns 24 hours and water, without much challenge. They should also be able to set traps, probably catch some small game if they have a bow, fish if they have a hook and line, and forage for some roots and berries. Now, extreme environments like high altitude, winter, deserts, etc would change that, but again, that's not really shouldn't be the standard expectation for a game.

Yes, this is not what they show on Survivorman or the other survival "reality" shows. That's because of 2 things; would not be worth a TV show, and often they have artificial objectives to achieve (i.e. find civilization, travel x miles, etc).

 

[Sacrosanct]

And you made all of these things yourself? In eight weeks?

And to say that it's less likely that an outdoorsman will have fleas and lice than someone in a nice inn, with at least some clothes, body and bedclothes washing seems…implausible.

It's actually extremely plausible. Lice typically don't move from animal to human. They are almost always human to human. Out in the woods? I'm not sharing pillows or furniture with other people, so.... And fleas are naturally repelled by cedar. Which I happen to be surrounded by out in the woods. And again, I'm not in close proximity with other things that have fleas, like sleeping with a animals or having swarms of rats and mice crawl over everything I own because they are not only not afraid of people in the city, they depend on those people.

There's a reason why infestations are almost always in populated areas. I'll also note that cities are more likely to have a ton of feces everywhere, which propagates disease. And I'm not even talking about rat and other animal droppings all over the place. I'm talking about humans. You should look up why platform shoes were a necessity in 16th century London.

I also think you have a very romanticized version of what city life was like in the middle ages that isn't really based on reality at all. I would take the woods now over a modern city, let alone one with two inches of feces and animal entrails over everything. Seriously, you should really read some of the court documents from the renaissance in London. I recall one where a guy sued his neighbor because his sewage was literally pouring into his home. The ruling? The offender had 30 days to fix it. Meanwhile, 30 days of sewage kept going into the other guy's home. And butchers just dumped the waste out in the middle of the street. Such things were not all that uncommon. Just getting to that "nice" inn meant you had to navigate a gauntlet of filth and disease.

Pretty much everyone else in this thread has pointed out how your assumptions are mistaken, and two of us have plenty of experience as bushcrafters/woodsman, but you seem dead set in entrenching yourself in inaccurate assumptions. I suppose I can't change that, but I hope you'd at least re-evaluate your position when presented with new information.

 

[Sacrosanct]

As an aside, 8 weeks is a LONG time in the woods when you have nothing else going on. You should see some of the stuff some of the people on the TV show ALONE have made in much less time than that. One guy tapped because he was living so nice (even made boardgames) and that comfortable existence made him have a lot more time to think about his family that he missed. So he just tapped for that, not that he was having it rough. I can make a really good, almost permanent home, in 8 weeks, along with animal tanning and a buttload of crafting of items like utensils and furniture.