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Table of Contents
Looking for Stuff Outdoors
Food & Water
You make a forage check vs the location-specific DC.
(For those who are using the optional skill rules that some editions have, use survival. In our group we just use a plain wisdom check.)
Anyone who isn’t doing anything else that day can try.
One roll for both food and water.
If you succeed, you make two separate 1d6+wis rolls to see how much you find. Pounds of food & gallons of water, respectively.
Other Stuff
Those 1d6+wis you used to find pounds of food? Let’s for the sake of explaining this call those “forage points”. One “forage point” equals one pound of food.
You can search for other things as well:
| Name | Use | Finding | Environment | Storing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blood viola (tiny red flower) | Part of a potion of healing | 3 forage points | Forests, meadows and swamps | Tiny item, but soft so 50 of them can fit into empty bottles |
| Moss or fireflies | One hour of Light spell | 3 forage points | Forests, meadows and swamps | Small item |
| Phosphorus, wychwood or glowworm | Six uses of Dancing Lights | 1 forage point | Deep forests | Small item |
| Dry balsa wood | Three uses of Dancing Lights | 1 forage point | Forests on dry days | Small item |
| Mistletoe Sprig | One use of Goodberry | 10 forage points | Temperate leafy forests | Small item |
| Sammarcass root + Bee’s wax + Bepuga seeds | One 20-application batch of bug salve | All forage points for a day | Chultan Jungle | Small item |
| Deathtoads | 10 doses of Deathtoad Toxin | 5 forage points | Tree tops | The toad is a small item, the vial of toxin will be a tiny item |
| Ichor | 10 doses of Chuul Ichor poison | All forage point for a day | Harvest from vampires, ghûls, zombies, similar | Tiny item |
| Murk leaves | 10 doses of Wooziness Tonic | 4 forage points | Leafy trees any climate | Tiny item |
| Precious Tear (little white flower) | Part of basic poison | 3 forage points | Rainy days far from the madding crowd | Tiny item |
| Sticks | Part of torches | Free | Any trees around? | Each is a small item |
| Typha plants (“cat tails”), or dry grass, or bark | Part of torches | Each forage point gives you 10 | Down by the water | Each is a small item (10 is a big item). |
| Animal fat | Part of torches | Free… | …if you have a dead animal | Small item, or take it once you use it |
But there is a ginormous brutal catch.
That’s right.
You have to announce before you make the initial forage check what you are looking for and how many you want to find. Any leftover forage points you find as food. (Water is and remains its own untouchable 1d6+wis roll.)
For example, you are looking for two blood violas and you make the forage check and then you roll 8 forage points. You find the two blood violas for three points each and then you find two pounds of food for the two leftover points.
Another example: you are looking for one mistletoe sprig and you make the forage check and then you roll 8 forage points. You don’t get enough to find the mistletoe sprig. And you don’t get any food either. It’s only the excess points after you found everything you asked for that become food.
For “all forage points for a day” items like bug salve ingredients or ichor, you don’t even need to roll the 1d6+wis for food, just for water.
Making the Stuff with the Stuff
| Tool&Proficiency Needed | Ingredients | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Herbalism kit | (Up to) 25 batches bug salve ingredients | One full day |
| Herbalism kit | 25 blood violas + 1 flask | One full day |
| Herbalism kit | 100 blood violas + 1 flask | 1 workweek |
| Herbalism kit | 1000 blood violas + 1 flask | 3 workweeks |
| Herbalism kit | 10000 blood violas + 1 flask | 4 workweeks |
| Poisoner’s kit | Deathtoads + vial | Short rest |
| Poisoner’s kit | Ichor + vial | Short rest |
| Poisoner’s kit | Murk leaves + vial | Short rest |
| Poisoner’s kit | 50 Precious Tears + vial | Two full days |
| Cook’s Utensils | 4 (or 2d4) pounds of fresh food + lucky die roll | Short rest |
| “Torchmaker” | Stick + Wick + Thick | 2 mins per torch. |
For the bugsalve, you are using the wax as emulsifier for the fat in the seeds and you store it in the root. It takes a full day for it all to dry out properly but you can make 25 batches in that day.
For creating rations, you need to make a DC 20 check with your cook’s tool proficiency. If you succeed you also get the benefits 1 hour of rest. If you get 11 or lower, the ingredients are destroyed and you don’t get the rest either. But on a 12-19, you can choose between
- getting the rest but losing the food
- losing the rest but keeping the food fresh for one more day
It’s your choice to go for 4 to 2, or roll both sides (2d4 to 1d4). You could end up paying 2 for 4, but you could also end up paying 8 for 1.
You are a torchmaker if you are an alchemist, ranger, scout, outlander or outrider. Other people get a once-in-a-lifetime DC 20 wisdom check to see if they are a torchmaker by figuring it out on their own. If they aren’t, they can become a torchmaker by learning it in ten 2h lessons from an alchemist, ranger or scout. (Other types of torchmakers can’t teach it. It’s kinda tricky to get it right.) Foraged wicks (instead of using torn cloth or something) is fiddly and adds +5 mins per torch. If using salve as thick: +5 mins per torch. If using animal fat as thick: +30 min base and +3 mins per torch.
(Deathtoad Toxin, Chuul Ichor and Wooziness Tonic are from a book called “Beyond Damage Dice” #nospons The blood viola, precious tears, bug salve ingredients I came up with on my own. Thanks for having patience with that…)