Woodland Survival - Help out my game!

[Woas]

True hong, you can take 10/20 on survival. But it would seem like it would slow you down even more. For example, in the Adventuring chapter the table says that people can trek 12 miles (24 base/2 for trackless forest) a day. The survival skill says that with a role of 10 you can get along in the woods finding food & water for yourself and move at half your speed. You think the survival skill would be applied on top of the general "trackless forest" modifier which would result in a total of 6 miles on average? To me this seems right. I can picture the characters using up a lot of time setting up simple snares to catch game, collecting water and foraging for berries/roots instead of getting some good hiking in.
But for the first couple days the characters will have a search party on their tail complete with hounds and such. On top of that the search team will have supplies so can avoid the "find supplies in the woods" survival check and move faster than the characters... although maybe not since tracking slows you down again without taking a penalty. Hmm something folr me to think about anyway.

Peni G. thanks for the help. I don't think in all the years of gaming a situation where starvation and thirst actually has come up ever. I had forgotten there even was specific rules about them. I'll have to bone up on those. And I have the Iron Heroes Bestiary and there is that one creature, I don't have the book on hand right now but it starts with an S... its that shapeshifting fay (I think) creature that always has a unique physical mark no matter the shape it takes. That creature would fit in nicely with the suggestion Rhun made.

Again thanks for all the help so far. Does anyone have any advice on running such a situation. What I'm looking for now more than actual plots/encounters is to really make this whole thing snap and not get bogged down with a lot of book-keeping, abscure rules look ups, and tedious search/spot/listen/survival checks.
In other outdoor situations I run I often create a string of 'rooms' like old text-based RPGs had and each 'room' represents a unique/important part of the trip almost like a storyboard. But this is a big vast forest and require a lot of 'rooms'. Any suggestions?

 

[Peni Griffin]

I think you'll have to wing most of it. Keep asking: "So, what do you do now?" and let the players generate the action, while throwing obstacles like fatigue and hunger across their paths when your gut or the passage of time tell you it would become a factor.

The main storyline is the pursuit, so be prepared for players to try to improvise traps, lay false trails, set up ambushes, or just hide.

Have a good grasp of the survival rules, a mental picture of what the forest is like, a system to track the trackers and generate random events (like stumbling onto a fawn, stepping into a bear trap, and getting so lost they circle straight back onto their pursuers), and a readiness to respond to whatever the characters do. PCs are always wild cards, and in such an unusual situation, this is even more the case than usual. You literally have no way of knowing what wildhair action they'll decide to take, because it's so far out of your usual experience.

If it were me, I'd need a map (try getting an actual forest map, maybe a topo from the Geological Survey) to keep me oriented, maybe some tables for obvious random elements, and a stack of reference books, to which I'd probably never refer, but which would give me (and the players) confidence. Don't forget Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Eull Gibbons's classic on foraging!

 

[JDJblatherings]

Use the terrain as much as possible during encounters. Lots of chances to slip, move slow, fall, drown or just get wet.

6'4" paladins are mega coool..until you have to chase goblins thru a thicket and across a bog carpet to get your lunch back.

 

[Ourph]

Nothing like a big ol' storm to make them cold, wet and willing to check out that strange light in the distance. 'Maybe it's shelter', one of them says....

This is the perfect setup for further adventure. Things they could encounter while searching from shelter from the storm.

• A network of caves, populated by ....
• A harmless old lady living as a hermit, but is she as harmless as she seems?
• An apparently abandoned cottage. Unfortunately, the original tenant isn't gone, he's a ghost and he doesn't like trespassers. Of course, when the ghost is dealt with, the PCs have to deal with whatever killed him in the first place.

 

[ethandrew]

I would have the townsfolk assemble an adventuring party of their own, hunters to track down your characters. A couple ranger folk would help. That way, if your characters are heedless and just plod through the woods, a skilled tracker would be on them in an instant. Make them fearful.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Forest huh? Diseases, cold snap, frosts, strange sounds and lights, wolf or dire wolf packs (they hunt by swarming one target at a time) floods, bridge out over cliffs and a rapids, lost trail, tiger ambush, skull, feral children (druids), mountain range crossings, avalanches, drenching miserable rain or sleet, wind and collapsing trees and flying branches, land slides, hail, forest fires, bad food, crevasses, weird terrain (bolder plains, broken glass plains, etc...), volcanoes, strange plants, weird smells, etc...

Once your players understand mending (cantrip), prestidigitation, and rope trick, it becomes easier to survive in the wilderness, create water (orison), purify food and drink, life becomes easier. Best to dump these spells as treasure and let the PC's figure out how to use them to their benefits.

 

[Woas]

Use the terrain as much as possible during encounters. Lots of chances to slip, move slow, fall, drown or just get wet.

6'4" paladins are mega coool..until you have to chase goblins thru a thicket and across a bog carpet to get your lunch back.

Haha! I haven't had a good sprite/pixie encounter in a long time. That's definetly on the agenda now.

I worked out a basic topographic map with landmarks. Also added a grid to it and worked out possible 'exits' to where the characters will even end up if they do end up walking 'through' the forest.
I think what I am going to do now is add "spheres of influences" or such with the grid system. While the characters are treking through specific grid positions, I will role d% to determine if they run into specific landmarks or face certain encounters that are linked to that particular area.
@ Warren Okuma - The only thing though is that in Iron Heroes magic is very rare. In fact, none of the characters in the party have any access to magic what-so-ever. But you got me thinking that maybe instead of dropping magical treasure for the players to "figure out" how to use I might instead develope a 'herb' list for the game and maybe let them find some useful alchemical/natural items that could give them more mundane benifits. Items that could say, give a bonus to a characters Con check when making forced marches, etc. Basically same benifit, different theme.

Thanks again everyone. Any other tips are still welcome. Especially a link to maybe like a Netbook or home-made list of alchemical/natural woodland things to find. And any other tips overall on running this (although it's definetly clearer now!)

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Check out Discovery Channel's Man vs. Wild.