What's the skill to kill birds with a stone and catch fish with your hands?

[SID]

As the title reads, what's the skill to kill birds with a stone (throwing) and catch fish with your hands?

My parents spent part of their childhood in rural areas, where people could occasionally "hunt" like that (mostly kids playing like boy scouts). I know there’re the fishing and throwing skills, but I think survival (woods) might include this, what do you say?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by SID

As the title reads, what's the skill to kill birds with a stone (throwing) and catch fish with your hands?

Catching the fish is a maybe though that might also be DX-based grappling. The throwing is Throwing though (or DX-based stone throwing).

Long-term survival in the woods might be a Survival-based Job Roll or something like that.

[Varyon]

Actually hitting a bird with a stone is going to require Throwing, Thrown Weapon, or similar, with Survival serving to help you find a bird to hit and Stealth (optionally with Survival as a complementary skill*) serving to get you close.

For bare-handed fishing, I'd be inclined to actually just use Fishing skill, with a penalty for having no tools. You can probably reduce this penalty with a Technique - might as well call it Noodling.

*Realistically, actually sneaking up on an animal is pretty difficult. More likely, you use Survival to figure out how close you can get without spooking it, and strike from there. Although really skilled hunters will indeed use Stealth.

[Dinadon]

I would not bother with any combat skills for catching small game. The only risk is that you go hungry, which is covered by skills like Survival and Fishing.

[RGTraynor]

Survival for the latter, plus a Technique to bleed off the substantial penalties.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

I would not bother with any combat skills for catching small game. The only risk is that you go hungry, which is covered by skills like Survival and Fishing.

Now that I'm at my books, I decided to see what LTC3 has to say about it. For hunting small game - and killing any number of birds with a stone would certainly qualify - it calls for Survival, Tracking, or Naturalist to locate the target, Stealth or Camouflage to get close, and a weapon skill (typically a ranged weapon, although a particularly stealthy hunter - or one going against particularly unobservant prey - can reach melee range) to attack it. For fishing, it actually notes that fishing bare-handed still uses the Fishing skill - it gives the penalty for being "wholly unequipped" as -5, which I'd be inclined to let be bought off as a Hard Technique (as I noted upthread, might as well call it Noodling).

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by SID

As the title reads, what's the skill to kill birds with a stone (throwing) and catch fish with your hands?

My parents spent part of their childhood in rural areas, where people could occasionally "hunt" like that (mostly kids playing like boy scouts). I know there’re the fishing and throwing skills, but I think survival (woods) might include this, what do you say?

DX-based Fishing and either Throwing or DX-based Survival.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

I would not bother with any combat skills for catching small game. The only risk is that you go hungry, which is covered by skills like Survival and Fishing.

Since GURPS 3e days, its been canonical that you use a Ranged Weapon skill such as Throwing to hunt small game while travelling. I agree with others that "tickling a trout" is probably an optional specialty of Fishing skill (to make up for equipment penalties).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Now that I'm at my books, I decided to see what LTC3 has to say about it. For hunting small game - and killing any number of birds with a stone would certainly qualify - it calls for Survival, Tracking, or Naturalist to locate the target, Stealth or Camouflage to get close, and a weapon skill (typically a ranged weapon, although a particularly stealthy hunter - or one going against particularly unobservant prey - can reach melee range) to attack it. For fishing, it actually notes that fishing bare-handed still uses the Fishing skill - it gives the penalty for being "wholly unequipped" as -5, which I'd be inclined to let be bought off as a Hard Technique (as I noted upthread, might as well call it Noodling).

I would rule out Tracking for birds. As flying creatures, they don't leave a lot of tracks, not like rabbits or deer or tigers. Otherwise I agree.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I would rule out Tracking for birds. As flying creatures, they don't leave a lot of tracks, not like rabbits or deer or tigers. Otherwise I agree.

I think flying birds still tend to leave some evidence of their passing, giving the hunter clues as to where they are likely to be, but that's probably more Survival than Tracking. Characters with Distinctive Sense of Smell may still be able to track them, however (indeed, LTC3 notes that if you have dogs and at least one hunter has the relevant Animal Handling at an appropriate level, you can use the dogs' Tracking skill in place of the humans'). But, yeah, some of the skills may not be usable for certain game - something that doesn't leave tracks you can perceive can't be hunted using Tracking, Camouflage is useless against something that doesn't rely on sight or scent (you've got to be quiet and/or avoid generating vibrations through the ground, which is the domain of Stealth), etc.