Topic: Foraging: how much food/water do you get?

[kevinmccollum]

How much food and/or water does one get from a successful foraging roll? Enough for one person on a 101? Enough for five? Has anyone come up with some realistic numbers?

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

I would say that it heavily depends on the terrain.

[Right Wing Wacko]

And on how high the roll is.
The higher the roll, the more food is found.

But Rasyr is right. It is mainly dependent on the terrain. Food is more abundant in the woods than in the tundra...

[kevinmccollum]

Not an answer to my question. Those are obvious statements. Has anyone worked out a chart or rule of thumb? Can one forager in a temperate woods supply a party of seven with food?

As foraging is supposed to be developed seperately for each terrain type, do you allow foraging from one developed type to be used at a penalty in another with increasing levels of diffulty the more removed from the one that a character knows?

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Can one forager in a temperate woods supply a party of seven with food?

Enough to keep them from starving? Quite likely, but only barely, depending upon the season, and how thick or sparse the woods are. There are a lot of factors involved, especially as foraging does not, IMO, including hunting for wild game (that would be other skills) which can have a large impact on the "not starving" part of things.

As a general rule of thumb, I would require at least 1 hour to forage for 1 person, and then another 15-30 minutes (depending on how well they rolled) for food for each additional person (water being much easier to find most of the time).

That will keep them from starving, but they won't be eating well by any measure. One day it might be a handful of berries, the next, it might be grubs from under rotten log.

[Right Wing Wacko]

Common sense and some simple research will do you wonders.

There are a number of modifiers I might apply. None of which can be codified in a manner I think you want.

Good luck.

[Ecthelion]

How much food and/or water does one get from a successful foraging roll? Enough for one person on a 101? Enough for five? Has anyone come up with some realistic numbers?

Personally I'd say a successful foraging roll lets you find enough nutrition for one person for one day. The terrain IMO should effect the modifier, so that e.g. foraging in a desert is harder than in a forest.

[markc]

Not an answer to my question. Those are obvious statements. Has anyone worked out a chart or rule of thumb? Can one forager in a temperate woods supply a party of seven with food?

As foraging is supposed to be developed seperately for each terrain type, do you allow foraging from one developed type to be used at a penalty in another with increasing levels of diffulty the more removed from the one that a character knows?

 I do not know of a chart that can help you out as in my games it has always be GM call in any game we have played.
 Also I think people have said that the size and mobility of the foragers has a big impact on the quantity and quality of the food gathered. In military doctern it is often a close call on if an army attacking a castle or town can forage from the countryside to survive or do they have to have a supply line or carry enough supplies.

 I do not know if you can get a hold of one but maybe a military book on survival or a very very good book on survival can give you some guidelines on how to rule.

Does that help? Or at least give you a direction to go?
MDC

[RandalThor]

Is there anything about this in the School of Hard Knocks for RMFRP? That is not RM2/C, but it could help. I will look and see mself.

[Ecthelion]

SoHK says that vegetables and water for one person are being found on a successful maneuver and that it takes one strategic turn, i.e. 4 hours, for the maneuver.

[vroomfogle]

I think it can greatly depend on how many people are doing the foraging.   Even unskilled people will be helpful as long as there is a master forager there that can direct them, based on the current ecoregion they are in, what to look for.   e.g.  "Look under rocks for slugs, look for this type of plant, etc.   

If the master forager is familiar with this particular type of ecosystem (i.e. he makes a successful roll) then I think that he could impart enough basic information to his group so they can go out foraging on their own (and maybe with a bonus, or penalty, depending on the roll).   I'd use a Perception maneuver for them, with a success giving enough food for 1 person for the day.

4 hours to find enough food for 1 person may be a little high, but not that far off.   I think it's a reasonable estimate.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

4 hours to find enough food for 1 person may be a little high, but not that far off.   I think it's a reasonable estimate.

That depends totally on the amount of food available in the area. In an extremely fertile region, it would be way way high, in a very non-fertile region, it would be on the low side.

Vroomfogle's other comments about helpers did spark a bit of an idea though...

Look at the rules for finding herbs, for how long it takes to search a given region, and how other searchers can help. Apply the same sort of mods and time limits, after all searching for herbs is similar to searching for food (as I stated before, hunting would not be the same as foraging).

Then adjust for the availability of food in the area....

[Shottglazz]

According to the description in Rolemaster Companion 2:

"Bonus chance of finding any local source of potable water or edible plants and animals. Includes basic food acquisition such as gathering or fishing."

The book then specifically list clamming, fishing and hunting as examples. Given that, one person could easily feed a party of seven including fishing and/or hunting.

[Right Wing Wacko]

Ahh, but it has already been said that foraging is distinctly different than fishing/hunting...

And again, it depends on the population as to how much food is gained.
Fishing for 6 hours with only a blue gill and 2 bass to show for it, or spending all day hunting only to bring down an old, skinny, wild boar with tough, stringy meat, ...
you get the picture...

Maybe rolling hunting/fishing/foraging into one skill called "food gathering" could help...
but it would still be dependant on local factors/terrain as to what and how much is gained...

[providence13]

SOHK does have some pretty good rules for people working together.. You all can look them up; but here are some.
   
    Smallest skill bonus in the group
+  Leader's Skill Rank
-  # in group
+  Leader's Ranks in Leadership
----------------------------------
The Leader can also split their own Skill Rank bonus among any people in the group they want. This can temporarily increase the individual's skill; adding to the group bonus.

To the last line about Leader's Ranks in Leadership, I would add, Flora/Fauna (Water) Lore, maybe Region Lore, Cooking (can stretch rations so there are mor eot go around), etc.     

Now the Skill does have difficulties for different climates/terrains. One person takes 4 hours to forage so that they can survive. Each additional person raises the difficulty by one!

So to use the Coordinated Effort rules above, I wouldn't lower the difficulty (more mouths to feed and all). I would just modify the chance to actually find enough to food/water to survive.   Eating raw or even fire cooked wild onions will make you pretty darn gassy. Gleefully gobbling up a handfull of minnows or grubs, won't help your standing with those ladies in waiting who lost their way in the forest. You definitely won't gain weight eating like this, but the skill says that you may survive.            

[providence13]

To really address the poster's question...

Each individual requires different amounts to survive. IMHO, this skill was left ambiguous on purpose.

[Grinnen Baeritt]

The terrain should determine the base difficulty and potiental yield per area.... the season applies a fairly hefty modifier to the difficulty/yield.

Given average conditions, I'd rule a forager (achieving 110) should provide at least enough food for a single person to achieve the bare minimum for survival for a day in about an hour in any terrain.

A bigger yield (as a percentage) should be gained for higher successes... and additional time spent foraging a wider area will produce even more. Perhaps use the M/M table?

A "specialised" forager might be able to increase the yield for a specific area or halve the time taken finding what is available.

[yammahoper]

Anyone remember the pizza-pizza back in the 80's?

Once upon a forage roll the player hit a natural 00.  I informed him he found a fully loaded pizza-pizza, in the box, still hot. 

 

[RandalThor]

That depends totally on the amount of food available in the area. In an extremely fertile region, it would be way way high, in a very infertile region, it would be on the low side.

I believe you adjust for this by assigning a negative modifier to the skill check (i.e., setting a low fertile area a higher difficulty than a moderate or high fertile area - which might grant a bonus). So the results end the same, it is just that it is more difficult in the harsher terrain. The success levels (amazing, unusual, etc) could dictate how fast the food is gathered. If the forager want to find food for more than one person, I would assign another modifier (on top of the modifier for terrain) to the roll; how high would depend upon how many people they wanted to feed. Of course, you could just say that instead of it taking less time for a higher success level, they were able to find food for more people.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Actually, in addition using numerical adjustments to the skill roll, I would also have the availability of food also affect the time required as well.

The point is, there is no quick and easy method to say how fast or slowly it takes to gather enough food for 1 person. There are a lot of variables, and those variables affect both how much can be gathered and how quickly it can be gathers, and those variables are not always going to be in sync with one another either.