IoK Saline Mechanics Review:  Wilderness Survival

The cycle of a day - Characters are assumed to be eating, snacking, and drinking throughout the day.  From a game mechanic point, characters must commit a ration in the morning to their day.  If no ration is available that morning, they go hungry that day.  Keep this in mind while using 'Survival' to Get along in the Wild.  You will not actually eat the rations you recover that day until the following morning (example:  if you had no rations in the morning, you don't eat until you find food.  This is what you are doing all day on an empty belly.  By the end of the day, you have food.)

After the morning ration, characters can recover spell points and reassign magicks.  Then you pack up camp and get moving.

The 'Overland Movement' phase is dependent upon the slowest persons movement rate coupled with terrain modifiers.  Currently, the players are in a wild forest.  This cuts overland movement in half unless players have skills that can modify this effect (IoK Feat Woodsmen or Mountaineer).  So as an example, if the slowest member of the party is moving at 20MR, then the party is traveling at 1 MPH in 'trackless forest' (d20 overland movement is player MR/10 = MPH, trackless forest cuts overland movement rate in half).

Note that this impacts players differently... if the armored dwarf is slowing the party to a rate of 1 MPH due to his 20 MR, this may allow faster players to do other things.  'Survival' Get along in the Wild action is one of them.  When using this skill, the player must move at half their movement rate.  It would be a horrible idea to have the slow dwarf perform this action, as that would slow the party even further.  The scout or ranger with a 40 MR though would be perfect, as their reduced speed while hunting would not impact the party.

After 'Overland Movement', the party enters into 'Camp' phase.  This is when players are allowed to engage in crafting, healing, or any other skill which generally requires sitting still.  Having units on watch during this time is important as players are considered 'distracted' while engaging in camp activities.  These players will suffer 'spot' and 'listen' check penalties while deeply involved in their actions (studying books, performing rituals, preparing food and camp sites, chopping wood).

The Getting along in the Wild skill continues into this phase.  This is considered a 'full day' action.  While on the march, the player was scouting for game, picking berries, and finding water.  During camp, they are preparing that food, boiling/filtering water, and preparing campsites.  The player is always getting along in the wild and attempting to support those that cannot.

The DC is this current forest is 15 for Getting along in the Wild.  The standard is 10, but this forest is currently coming out of winter and wild food is not plentiful.  It is mating season though and game animals are plentiful.

The last phase is 'Rest'.  It is important that characters get 8 hours sleep.  Doing so allows their mind and bodies to heal.  Getting woke up for an encounter will not through off rest periods, so don't worry about waking up the caster along as they can go back to sleep when the fight is over.  There should be a watch though as characters are at an extreme penalty to checks while sleeping (-10 listen, no spot).  They are also considered 'helpless', so the toughest character can be subject 'coup de grace' actions. 

Crafting - Gathering resources while in the wild is a key element of IoK.  Typically, this is dependent upon the Profession skills, though craftsmen can gather resources as well.  They just are not as good at it.  See 'Starting from Scratch' in the IoK sourcebook.  The Survival skill can be used for 'Living off the land' which allows gathering food, leathers, furs, hide, wood, bone, and herbs.  Survival is only 1/3rd as effective as a Profession skill at gathering these resources.

So far, the party has been using Survival to gather leather.  They have been given 50lbs of unworked skins to refine leather from.  The DC for refining 'unworked hide' is DC 10 to refine 5 'Craft units'.  The base leather from boars is considered 'Basic', so each pound is considered 5 SP worth of leather.  To determine how much work the players can perform in a day, see the following formula:

 CU = (Player Survival Check x DC 10) / 3

For every 5 Craft Units (CU), the players turn 2 lbs of boar hide into 1 lb of  basic leather.

In an average Camp Phase, an average 3rd level Survivalist should be able to create 60 CU worth of leather.  This means they can turn 24 lbs of hide into 12 lbs of uncured leather.  Give it a few more weeks of drying and they will have 60SP worth of trade goods. 

Average roll of 10 + 8 Survival = 18
Times DC 10 = 180
Divided by 3 for using Survival instead of Profession:  Tanner = 60 Craft Units

The leather curing process is part of the refining, but doesn't take actual work.  This is dependent upon the material being worked, so the GM must look to real world examples.  30 days is the classic time it took to cure leather after preparing.  This makes it highly profitable to hunt furs and leathers in the wild.  A couple month venture could return with riches in hides.