Level Up (A5E) Thirst, hot weather gear and Berserker's Path of Scorching Summers Developed Talent

[thuter]

Berserkers get two Developed Talents that deal with opposite survival aspects. The Path of Scorching Summers deals with hot weather and thirst, whereas the Path of Lean Winters deals with cold weather and hunger.

The Berserker's Developed Talent Path of Scorching Summers has the following effect:

By emulating the beasts of the desert you are above the concerns of heat and thirst. You gain advantage on saving throws made to resist the effects of hot weather as though you were wearing hot weather gear, but without the disadvantages in cold weather. You also gain advantage on saving throws made to resist the effects of thirst.

It mentions hot weather gear, but this item does not exist in the Adventurer's Guide (cold weather gear and marshland gear do, though), nor does it in O5E. If we are to assume it is the equivalent of cold weather gear, but for hot weather, we stumble upon some interesting differences. First: cold weather gear makes you automatically succeed saving throws against effects caused by an environment of extreme cold, while the Developed Talent only grants advantage on such saves even though it mentions 'as though you were wearing'. Even more interesting is that the Path of Lean Winters (which gives the effect of cold weather gear), has this same difference:

You gain advantage on saving throws made to resist the effects of cold weather as though you were wearing cold weather gear (...)

This strikes me as odd. Why is 'as though you were wearing cold/hot weather gear' not actually describing the effect of that gear, and why would it be a worse version of it?

The second part of this Developed Talent talks about advantage on saving throws made to resist the effects of thirst. Not only are the effects of thirst nowhere mentioned in the Adventurer's Guide, it only talks about it in terms of supply, but even considering Exhaustion as a result of not consuming supply, there are no saving throws connected to it at all. Not consuming supply (which in A5E is the simplified term for food and water), leads to a level of exhaustion, no save involved. In fact, Path of Lean Winters' effect that lets you

(...) go without Supply for a number of days equal to 3 + your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) before suffering a level of fatigue .

Which would include water. So what was the idea with this talent and thirst? Did the rules on survival change throughout development?

 

[Nephilim00]

Did you look at the Trials and Treasures book?

 

[xiphumor]

Looking these over, I think you’re right and the developed talents could stand some errata, perhaps enough to bring them in line with the comparable secrets of nature for druids.

 

[thuter]

Did you look at the Trials and Treasures book?

I did. In fact, I searched the whole A5E.tools compendium while I was at is for both 'thirst' and 'hot weather'. For thirst, the only relevant hit (so not bloodthirst or thirst for battle) I got was the reference to the adventure guide where it states supply is food and water. Hot weather came up sort-off in Trials and Treasures, as the Parched Sands and Fiery Hellscape regional challenges where it adventurers increase their supply usage and gain fatigue on long rests in the region. Thirst or saving throws are not mentioned.

So maybe I missed something, but I tend to agree with Xip

Path of Lean Winters is very nice and would not need a buff, but it would be nice to have consistent wording on cold weather gear. Path of Scorching Summers however... I would say is basically useless because a 15 gp investment into common adventurer's gear (assuming hot weather gear exists) gets you a bigger benefit.

 

[Nephilim00]

I’ve noticed that sometimes you need to decipher what is descriptive text and what are actual game rules.

Kindred Spirit (Ranger)
You intuitively sense when another wilderness
expert is nearby. (That’s just descriptive text) Your passive Perception increases by 5 to detect hidden or invisible creatures within 30 feet of you, and you instantly detect whether any creature you can see is proficient with Stealth
or Survival (This is what you really get).

 

[thuter]

I agree, but I am not sure what you mean by this in the context of this topic?

 

[Nephilim00]

From your original post, you seemed to be confusing descriptive text (the feature acts like cold weather gear) with actual mechanical effect (the character gets advantage on saving throws vs cold weather).

 

[xiphumor]

From your original post, you seemed to be confusing descriptive text (the feature acts like cold weather gear) with actual mechanical effect (the character gets advantage on saving throws vs cold weather).

I disagree. Cold weather gear has very explicit rules attached to it. Also, the flavor text almost always comes before any of the mechanics.

 

[thuter]

From your original post, you seemed to be confusing descriptive text (the feature acts like cold weather gear) with actual mechanical effect (the character gets advantage on saving throws vs cold weather).

I am sorry if I came across that way. The problem is not distinguishing fluff from crunch, it is inconsistency (advantage on saves vs. automatically succeeding), referencing an item that does not exist (hot weather gear), and finally granting a boon that seems to have no benefit (saving throws against the effects of thirst are not referenced anywhere as far as I could find).

 

[Valrei]

Now why would you be looking at hot weather survival traits I wonder... Oh right, thats why
The only thing I can imagine is if the DM runs the thirsty area as an exploration challenge:

Exploration Challenges | Level Up

a5e.tools

Other than that I can't find any link between thirst and saving throws, most things having to do with supply in arid dry areas just deduct more supply, no checks or saves involved.