Surival and foraging per Basic Set

[Grayscale]

Assuming we are working with the Basic Set only (nevermind Low-Tech and DF 16), how do Survival and Foraging interact?

The foraging rules (B427) allow for one Survival or Naturalist roll per day to find 1 meal. So far, so good.

Then the Survival skill states:

"This is the ability to “live off the land,” find safe food and water, avoid hazards, build shelter ... To live safely in a wilderness situation, you must make a successful Survival roll once per day. Failure inflicts 2d-4 injury ... (emphasis mine)

Is this a reference to the foraging rules, thus I need two survival rolls per day, one for food and one for other hazards?

Or is this a simplified way of accounting for the both avoiding hazards and finding food with a single survival roll per day, foregoing the foraging rules?

[Dingle]

Originally Posted by Exallted

Or is this a simplified way of accounting for the both avoiding hazards and finding food with a single survival roll per day, foregoing the foraging rules?

^^ I think this is the case.

The foraging rules (B427) are for traveling.It gives a benefit of one meal per roll, but no penalty for failure, other than having missed a chance to get food.

The roll mentioned in the survival skill description is for settled life in the wilderness. Success means you and up to 10 other people are safe and fed for a full day, but if you fail, everyone takes damage.

The difference is that foraging is for when you are tracking meals and hazards separately; but the survival skill is when you want to abstract things and only have one roll per day for the whole group.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Exallted

Is this a reference to the foraging rules, thus I need two survival rolls per day, one for food and one for other hazards?

Yes.

Foraging is one roll, the other is building shelter, gathering firewood, avoiding hazards, etc. Note, the second one often gets bonuses for your survival equipment (tent, camping supplies, clothing, etc), where the former should only get bonuses for hunting/foraging gear (gun, bow, fishing line, water purification system, etc).

[Stormcrow]

Survival has always been a poorly explained skill. I think how it works is this: in the wilderness, someone in the party has to make one Survival roll a day to avoid everyone taking damage. In addition, if you want to do things like forage for food, build a shelter, find water, or trap wild animals, you have to make a separate roll to do each of these things.

The daily Survival roll represents things like avoiding that patch of giant hogweed, spotting those rocks that might come loose and crash down on you, and recognizing that that stream you're crossing has been tainted in some way, so don't drink from it. The party must keep track of its food and water, and these must be replenished separately, and when they camp they're at the mercy of the elements unless they build a shelter.

A group that doesn't care so much about tracking these things could just ignore the details and just make a single Survival roll per day to represent all of it.

[bocephus]

I hesitate to chime in here (after what happened in the light thread) but here's how I have used it.

Forage - is to locate food for one person. I have allowed up to 3 people worth of food in a day depending on the degree of success / skill.

Survival - is like Housekeeping in that its just a catch all for skills that you would have at some minimum level just to exist in the environment. Neither skill is terribly realistic (Survival or Housekeeping) but you also don't want to spend all day rolling every facet of setting up camp, running camp and moving camp, unless you that's exactly what you want :)

I rule it as its written like a "Wilderness Guide". He knows enough to keep a buncha folks alive with a little planning, the right tools, and some reasonable luck. I'm not talking about dropping 5 people on an island with a potato, lighter and a Cosmo and saying see ya in 3 weeks, I mean like taking a 3 day rafting tour with pre-planned locations and most of the stuff you need, supplemented by some fortunate hunting or random nuts, tubers, berries. He might have a gun and a basic skill to use it against bears and such, first aid, meteorology, carpentry, stuff like that but not at a level that would warrant making money as a carpenter,.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Survival has always been a poorly explained skill. I think how it works is this: in the wilderness, someone in the party has to make one Survival roll a day to avoid everyone taking damage.

For me, that depends on the fiddliness of my campaign.

House Rules Abound:
For 'harsh realism' campaigns, each individual rolls Survival, if someone wishes to act as a 'guide' for a group, they can roll Leadership (or some other group 'leading' skill) to give everyone a Complimentary Bonus to the group.

For Action! campaigns, I usually have the PCs make a Group Roll (best skill in the group, +1 per other person that has the skill, - number of people in group). For a "if one person fails we all fail" roll, I have the PCs make a Weakest Link roll (lowest skill in the group, +1 per other person that has the skill, - number of people in group).

For DF I just use the rules in DF 16 Wilderness, one person makes all the rolls for the group which are, Foraging, Survival, and Making Camp.

In addition, if you want to do things like forage for food, build a shelter, find water, or trap wild animals, you have to make a separate roll to do each of these things.

I have never done that and no GURPS book I can think of requires such fiddliness. In general it's usually just the two rolls, Foraging and Survival. Some settings add in Making Camp, as those settings add specific features for making good (or bad rolls) when setting up camp.

Originally Posted by bocephus

Survival - is like Housekeeping in that its just a catch all for skills that you would have at some minimum level just to exist in the environment. Neither skill is terribly realistic (Survival or Housekeeping) but you also don't want to spend all day rolling every facet of setting up camp, running camp and moving camp, unless you that's exactly what you want :)

Pretty much exactly. I've also used Survival in the same capacity as the Soldier skill for a PC to have remembered to do certain things like proper camp clean up, covering their tracks, recognizing odd land features, when animals are behaving oddly, etc.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Pretty much exactly. I've also used Survival in the same capacity as the Soldier skill for a PC to have remembered to do certain things like proper camp clean up, covering their tracks, recognizing odd land features, when animals are behaving oddly, etc.

Odd natural features, animal behaviour, etc., I put under Naturalist - Naturalist is knowing and noticing stuff, Survival is doing stuff, to me. Covering tracks is explicitly part of Tracking.

[safisher]

After the End 2 and Low-Tech Companion 3 both have a lot of details on how Survival skill works. There are more rules in Pyramid 3/90 After the End, in the article "Survival at the End."

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Odd natural features, animal behaviour, etc., I put under Naturalist - Naturalist is knowing and noticing stuff, Survival is doing stuff, to me. Covering tracks is explicitly part of Tracking.

I allow a lot of skills to cross-pollinate in small ways. It helps to reduce skill bloat.

[Grayscale]

Originally Posted by Dingle

^^ I think this is the case.

The foraging rules (B427) are for traveling.It gives a benefit of one meal per roll, but no penalty for failure, other than having missed a chance to get food.

The roll mentioned in the survival skill description is for settled life in the wilderness. Success means you and up to 10 other people are safe and fed for a full day, but if you fail, everyone takes damage.

The difference is that foraging is for when you are tracking meals and hazards separately; but the survival skill is when you want to abstract things and only have one roll per day for the whole group.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Yes.

Foraging is one roll, the other is building shelter, gathering firewood, avoiding hazards, etc. Note, the second one often gets bonuses for your survival equipment (tent, camping supplies, clothing, etc), where the former should only get bonuses for hunting/foraging gear (gun, bow, fishing line, water purification system, etc).

So see, already the first 2 answers believe in different views on the matter. I believe this indicates that maybe there's some need to clarify things.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

For Action! campaigns, I usually have the PCs make a Group Roll (best skill in the group, +1 per other person that has the skill, - number of people in group). For a "if one person fails we all fail" roll, I have the PCs make a Weakest Link roll (lowest skill in the group, +1 per other person that has the skill, - number of people in group).

Group rolls I'm aware of, having seen them in both Action and DF. Weakest Link rolls are new to me, where can I find about them?

Originally Posted by safisher

After the End 2 and Low-Tech Companion 3 both have a lot of details on how Survival skill works. There are more rules in Pyramid 3/90 After the End, in the article "Survival at the End."

I'll take a look at those! Though at least for now, the exercise in question is to look at how these things work going from the Basic Set alone.