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Monday, November 14, 2011

Scrounging

The foraging and hunting rules are, of course, reusable in many different ways.  For example, searching for water would use the foraging version of the rules, but with the categories as wet, average, dry, and desert, with perhaps a category shift for those experienced in a particular region... plus a potability check similar to the edibility check.  The general pattern for re-using the rules is:

  • Assign category descriptions to each of the base time periods (turn, hour, four-hour, day;)
  • Use the d6 roll, with 5+ meaning success;
  • Pick a trade-off for the effort, ranging from a simple move modifier (like foraging) to something more extreme (fatigue rolls, use of resources,) or even treating retrieval of items found as a separate task.

As an example, consider scrounging: finding re-usable materials to replace lost or spent gear. Unlike hunting, it's something you might be quite likely to use in a dungeon. The categories are based on how long ago the area was occupied:

  • Current: Reasonably savvy tool-users still live here. Time measured in turns.
  • Recent: Someone was here a couple years ago. Time measured in hours.
  • Old: It's been at least a generation, so everything's decayed or gone to seed. Time measured in four-hour periods.
  • Ancient: Abandoned for at least a hundred years. Time measured in days, but for incredibly ancient sites, shift upwards to weeks or months, if a particular item is even possible.

Shift upwards one or two time scales if you're trying to replace or repair something very unusual, because replacing a torch is pretty generic, but replacing a gear in a clockwork device is a little harder. If you're just looking for something big enough to plug a specific hole, or gooey enough to work as a sealant, the categories change to:

  • Generic: You just need something the right size, weight, or color. (Turns.)
  • Specific: You need something with the right common property, like "sticky" or "flammable" or "waterproof". (Hours.)
  • Combo: You need something that fits two or more criteria. (Four-Hour periods.)

Again, shift upwards for more unusual property requirements. You might also want to shift upwards or downwards based on character knowledge of how to fix or build the type of gear in question, or for cataclysmic events (finding a replacement torch in a sunken ship should take a little longer...)

Edit: Forgot to add the trade-off. Scrounging works like either hunting or foraging, depending on what you're searching through, and for what. If you're searching a pile of debris for replacement gear, you're assumed to have stopped movement altogether and will have to make repairs or adjustments to what you've found. If you're searching a wide area for flammable goo, you can search as you travel, but move at a slower rate.

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