Low-Tech Survival Skills

[fritzbc]

Suppose you’re in the wilderness. It’s the summer solstice, in 160 days there will be the first snow. It’s a temperate environment, Tech-Level is 2, with realistic survival mechanics. For the sake of simplicity, you can assume that you’ll have relevant basic equipment for skills. As well as that, you assume all attributes are 10 and you have 60 points to spend on just skills.

Now, I’m curious; What skills would you take? What are absolutely necessary, what could you need but not require? What could you forgo and what will you ignore entirely? Why? How long do you think you could realistically survive? If you’d like, you can also ask further questions about my little “Scenario”.

For me? I’d take Carpentry, Fishing, Gardening, Weather Sense, Cooking (iirc you need it to preserve food), Survival (Woodlands and Plains), and most likely Axe and Bow. I’m eager to see your responses.

[Pursuivant]

High levels of Area Knowledge, on the assumption that they'd be complementary to Survival and other useful skills. Area Knowledge tells you where local resources are available.

If you have the ability to quickly clear land and suitable seeds, Farming and Gardening skills become viable for quickly-growing crops, although planting in late June is several months too late for most temperate climate grain crops. Sowing winter wheat or similar crops which overwinter and which can be harvested in June of next year is a more viable option, but that doesn't help you get through the winter.

Stealth and Tracking are requirements for most game hunting. Armoury skill is needed to make replacement arrows and weapons. Depending on the terrain, however, Fishing or Traps/Camouflage might be the better option for obtaining protein that resists becoming protein.

Naturalist skill might be useful for telling you know details about the natural environment, such as when herd animals migrate, fish spawn or fruits ripen or how prey animals behave.

Axe isn't necessarily useful as a craft skill. If you want to turn trees into lumber, Carpentry or Survival might allow decent defaults, especially at TL2, but the proper skill is PS (Lumberjack).

Other useful skills are First Aid, Leatherworking (to turn hides into leather and to make leather into shoes, etc.) and Sewing (to turn hides into clothing).

Given the long list of skills, it's clear that wilderness survival is a cooperative venture with different specialists needed. A loner would need very good Survival skill, possibly other skills, like Armoury (Bows & Arrows), Stealth and Tracking and some luck, particularly in the matter of finding good, defensible waterproof, wind-proof shelter, like a cave.

[fritzbc]

Interesting. I took Axe, not because of felling trees, but because if I had an axe, I might as well fend off any animals that would mess with me. However, I know it’s not common. PS (Lumberjack) is something I didn’t think about, but Gardening was for after the first winter (if I even made it though).

Now, do you think you could make anything more than clay and thatch huts? Realistically, it wouldn’t be easy, especially with a lack of nails, spending time to make dowels would slow down the process a decent bit. I am not also sure that you can replace nails with dowels in every scenario, either.

[jason taylor]

Area knowledge (Oregon) and Common Sense would tell me,"Walk downhill". Sooner or later you find water (there is always water in Oregon). Water will take you to civilization.

Now if you would rather NOT be near civilization-say you are flying Over the Hump and don't know whether or not you crashed in Japanese held territory, it is different.

But in Oregon survival is rather elementary as long as you do not go into actual D.B. Cooper country.

[fritzbc]

I suppose survival in Oregon would be rather simple. Now try rural North Dakota or Wisconsin, maybe even Finland or North Karelia.

[dcarson]

Housekeeping covers basic cooking, sewing etc. So that instead of the seperate skills might be more useful.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by fritzbc

Now, I’m curious; What skills would you take? What are absolutely necessary, what could you need but not require? What could you forgo and what will you ignore entirely? Why? How long do you think you could realistically survive? If you’d like, you can also ask further questions about my little “Scenario”.

My choice is probably Navigation and locally appropriate social and job skills - I want [out] of this damn wilderness and back into whatever passes for civilization around here as soon as possible. People survive much, much better in groups.

If I'm stuck with the wilderness, well:
Survival for whatever the environment is around here is obvious for water purification, foraging, shelter and fire starting, and covers snares too, which are handy.
Sling is an easy to make weapon that can use found ammunition, so it's probably a better option than Bow for taking small game. I wouldn't mess with Tracking; hunting large animals you need to search for probably isn't worth the effort required for an individual.
Housekeeping/TL2 is actually a pretty good choice for the long term, not just for the cooking and clothing repair but for the absolutely critical long term meal planning and food preservation people don't do so much anymore but which you will need if you want to survive the winter.
Machinist/TL0 (aka "Flintknapping") is a nice skill to have for genuinely alone in the wilderness scenarios - it's not just about stone tools, but covers other materials too. If you are sticking with that Bow consider a point in Armoury [missile weapons]/TL0 - that gives you a shot at making functional replacement arrows.
Gardening isn't a bad choice for a long term food supply.
Basketry is a craft people underestimate a lot. It's pretty nice for alone in the wilderness cases since it works with lots of common raw materials and few or no tools. Containers are vital for collecting stuff, and you can probably take more water produce with basket traps than you would with Fishing.
Leatherworking maybe - you're going to need replacement clothing and shoes eventually and are not going to be doing the entire cloth production chain on your own.
For a [group] Physician/TL5 and Pharmacy (Herbal)/TL5 would be really nice, but it's actually pretty hard to treat yourself when you are sick or badly injured, so it might not be worth the points for a single person.

I assume you picked Carpentry with an eye to building a long term shelter. That's not a terrible idea, but you will need a pretty substantial toolkit to get much use out of it. If you're here with a few friends and a wagonload of supplies, then sure, alone with just your axe, maybe not so much. The Basketry (for thatching and wattle and daub) might be a good option here too.
Note BTW GURPS seems to have settled on Forestry rather than PS (Lumberjack) for its tree-cutting skill. And no isn't all that hard to construct wooden buildings (or wooden anything else) without nails - usually with better results; nails are the compromise option when fast and low skill required are major considerations.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Housekeeping covers basic cooking, sewing etc. So that instead of the seperate skills might be more useful.

It covers very basic sewing. It'd consider a little Sewing itself, to allow the actual making of clothes, tents, etc. But Housekeeping is absolutely worthwhile just for keeping one's living space in a habitable state.

Hiking will be useful - you'll be doing a lot of walking.

I'm not sure if soap-making comes under Housekeeping. If not, Pharmacy (Herbal), perhaps? It'd be useful regardless, but access to soap is hugely beneficial to hygiene and health.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by fritzbc

I suppose survival in Oregon would be rather simple. Now try rural North Dakota or Wisconsin, maybe even Finland or North Karelia.

That would depend where in Oregon you are and when, because what might be a 'live for a few days while you walk back to civilisation' event today might well be a 'fend for yourself for months or more' a couple of centuries ago.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Rupert

That would depend where in Oregon you are and when, because what might be a 'live for a few days while you walk back to civilisation' event today might well be a 'fend for yourself for months or more' a couple of centuries ago.

There are very few places on Earth you can be a month's walk away from a village of some sort, at least not since the invention of agriculture. Of course it is possible to wander in circles, or be stuck on an unpopulated island, but for the most part if you want to be isolated for months, you need to start somewhere remote and not move.