Shipwreck survival

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by acrosome

I thought that with no equipment just about everything is already at a blanket -5. Survival skill assumes at least the possession of Personal Basics, doesn't it?

At most, it assumes you're not naked and you have a knife. At least, that holds true for anything on land that isn't a radioactive wasteland.

[Refplace]

I would go with -5 for pretty much everything the first night, plus any penalties for exhaustion. No shoes will cause significant problems then improvised gear penalties once they make them

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Vynticator

What kinds of skills (and penalties to those skills) would a party face if shipwrecked on a cold, exposed coastline with absolutely no equipment or clothing?

First, without at least a "personal basics" survival kit you are at -2 to Survival. High-Tech p. 58 discusses what happens if you are missing essential items. Low-Tech has rules for fire-starting. It says "any attempt to start a fire without dedicated equipment takes 6 minutes and a Survival or
Housekeeping skill roll. Double fire-lighting time if any of the components
aren’t completely dry – and kindling that’s actually damp to the touch won’t
catch fire at all with low-tech methods!" it also notes that "Friction techniques cost 1 FP per 3 minutes of effort." Low-Tech 3 has a lot of rules for this situation, including details on hunting, gathering, and crafting. The recently released Wilderness Adventures for Dungeon Fantasy has a lot of advice and situational rules that, despite being explicitly for DF, are general enough -- if somewhat generous -- to work for most games.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by malloyd

If not, you should try to salvage something from the wreck, if nothing else there should be some bits of wood and cordage.

If nothing else, nails. A bit of hammering and grinding can turn a nail into a better-than-nothing knife. Of course, if the wreck is so far off shore, that's not happening, but a bit of wreckage might make it ashore near the survivors.

Originally Posted by Vynticator

Sleet - assuming base air temp was at the lower end of the range given, I thought perhaps 'wind chill' might cause snow to come down as sleet sometimes. I'm not a weather expert, though!

Wind chill is a measure of how much colder you feel because the wind is blowing away the layer of air your body heat is warming (or, more generally, the increased loss of heat as any warm object tends to reach temperature equilibrium). It can't make water go lower than the actual ambient temperature.

[Refplace]

You can have sleet at temp above freezing though. It wont last long on the ground and most times I have seen it happen melts practically instantly, even on hitting a car.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Refplace

You can have sleet at temp above freezing though. It wont last long on the ground and most times I have seen it happen melts practically instantly, even on hitting a car.

Note that sleet can mean two different things. In North America, it means icy pellets. In the rest of the English speaking world, it means slushy snow. The former usually means that surface temperatures are below freezing, the later can occur when surface temperatures are (slightly) above freezing.

[Vynticator]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Note that sleet can mean two different things. In North America, it means icy pellets. In the rest of the English speaking world, it means slushy snow. The former usually means that surface temperatures are below freezing, the later can occur when surface temperatures are (slightly) above freezing.

Ah ok that's clearer. Sleet in the UK is slushy snow. The icy pellets are hailstones.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Vynticator

Ah ok that's clearer. Sleet in the UK is slushy snow. The icy pellets are hailstones.

Hailstones and (US-style) sleet are two different things. Hailstones form in thunderstorms, and are usually associated with violent summer weather. Sleet is just rain that froze as it fell, and distinct from freezing rain, which freezes on or after landing.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Vynticator

Would you really apply *both* penalties here? Skin can be dried fairly easily if you have *no* clothing, no?

Maybe I'm just the SOB GM, but yes, I would in some conditions. For example, if it's raining or sleeting when you come out of the water, you're not going to dry off quickly at all. Absent that, yes, it's reasonable to dry, but those minutes before you do are going to be miserable.

Since skills are often -5 for improvised equipment and -10 for no equipment at all, I don't think the penalty is unreasonably harsh.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by RyanW

It can't make water go lower than the actual ambient temperature.

Well, it can if the air is dry, but the effect isn't very pronounced at low temperature, and clouds are usually not dry air. As I understand it, usual way you get hail is an updraft carrying raindrops up to a high enough altitude that the air there is below freezing, and you can get freezing rain if the air at cloud level is freezing, whatever the temperature at ground level (you can also get the water equivalent of this -- rain that evaporates as it hits the ground, or even before).