Making a spear

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

The wood you use for making handles for wooden weapons is not green wood, but is instead seasoned wood that has been selected carefully. Heck, if there's any fitting to be done, the last thing you want to do is use green, sappy wood that is going to dry out, split and crack while you are using it.

How do you know that?

Is it perhaps... that you have some skill?


They person I knew who spent 3 days failing to make a simple fishing spear is not hyperbole. He'd never dealt with construction anything of wood before, but he had plenty of experience using wood products (tool handles, furniture). But no, he didn't know you needed to find a good seasoned piece of wood, or that too many crooks or a curve makes using it difficult, about finding the right thickness, how to spot the difference between seasoned and dry and brittle. Then he had difficulty just smoothing and shaping the prongs, and attaching them almost proved too much.

Did he finally make a decent(ish) fishing spear? Yes, after days of "Spear making isn't hard, after all primitives could do it!", even after discovering that survival was hard even though "primitives could do it".

It is a skill roll. Armoury/TL 0 (IQ-5). Though yeah, I'd give a +2 with a successful Survival roll (or just let them make Survival -3) for a simple all wood spear.