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Ebrim
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Joined: Tue 30 Jul 2019, 22:51

Food and Water

Tue 05 Nov 2019, 21:16

I’ve been taking about the possibility of putting more stress on food and water. Either limiting the size of the resource die or perhaps making food and water heavy items starting at d10. Though more likely just for water, it’s heavy, carrying around days rations of water would be prohibitively heavy.
 
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MegaMagus
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Joined: Thu 29 Aug 2019, 05:03

Re: Food and Water

Wed 06 Nov 2019, 01:49

I found the need for this in my game too, I have simply increased the failure state of the resource dice to be a 1,2 or 3. But I will probably increase and decrease this until I find the right level.
 
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Ebrim
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Joined: Tue 30 Jul 2019, 22:51

Re: Food and Water

Wed 06 Nov 2019, 02:07

That’s an interesting fix.

I also considered limiting a water skin to a single unit of water, maybe two. For more water to carry in they’d need a barrel, or more waterskins.

Another idea I’m kicking about is having an infection risk each time they take water from a wild source. So they may fill up to d12 at a well and know that water is safe but that’s the last safe water they’ll have till finding civilization again. Would also give a good use for a cauldron if they want to boil it.
 
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hperantunes
Posts: 158
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Re: Food and Water

Wed 06 Nov 2019, 07:53

A simple suggestion to make consumables more challenging: decrease the dice one step if the player does not roll at least one success (6+).
 
withoutscratch
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Joined: Mon 07 Oct 2019, 13:39

Re: Food and Water

Wed 06 Nov 2019, 11:06

I considered to make it time fixed.
All 3 days the die is reduced by one.

So a D12 would be consumed in 12 days
D10 in 9 days
D8 in 6 days
D6 in 3 days
 
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MegaMagus
Posts: 68
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Re: Food and Water

Wed 06 Nov 2019, 12:39

I considered to make it time fixed.
All 3 days the die is reduced by one.

So a D12 would be consumed in 12 days
D10 in 9 days
D8 in 6 days
D6 in 3 days
That seems quite lenient, if the degradation is predictable, players can just plan out when they are going to get water, it removes some of the drama and makes surviving easier I think.
 
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michael
Posts: 57
Joined: Tue 24 Sep 2019, 13:31
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Re: Food and Water

Wed 06 Nov 2019, 12:48

I googled around a little and read that an average human being needs at least 1 litre of fluids (water) per day to survive, ignoring other factors such as heat or activity causing perspiration. If I remember the mechanic and calculated correctly a player should roll on average 18 times for a resource to go empty from a D12 (D12 → D10 → D8 → D6 → 0), meaning a D12 is at least 18 litres of water, probably more... that's a lot of water to carry around in your water skin. :)

Suggestions so far are very good, and I will probably implement the first two, like you can see below.

--

Changing the mechanic, as suggested, from (1, 2) to (1, 2, 3) lowers the average rolls by 1/3, so D12 → 0 equals around 12 instead of 18 rolls. These amounts work quite well with food, arrows and torches too I think to keep the rules consistent for all resources. Increasing encumbrance on water and possibly food, makes transporting larger quantities of these more difficult too.

I have also house ruled that when you roll a 1 or 2 (now including 3) on the D6 resource die, the character discovers that they are running very low on that resource.  There is still one unit left (D12 → D10 → D8 → D6 → 1 → 0). This makes running out completely of a resource less of a surprise; you'd think that the character would notice and think to themself "I'm running very low on water, but I'll get by until tomorrow!" instead of being completely left without.

WATER and FOOD
D6 (~2 units)
D8 (~5 units)
D10 (~8 units) heavy (2)
D12 (~12 units) heavy + normal (3)
(All average units in above table is +1 if you use my house rule of D6 → 1 → 0)

--

Another idea to consider if you want to "keep it simple, stupid!" is to just increase the frequency for which you roll your water resource die. For example additional rolls, due to manual labour (such as hiking) and possibly for weather or other external influences too.

Or just add that as well to any other changes you make if you want to torture your players and their characters........
"To fall in hell, or soar angelic, you need a pinch of psychedelic."
 
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Ebrim
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Re: Food and Water

Wed 06 Nov 2019, 17:26

Yeah, I think increasing frequency of water usage may be the most elegant way to handle it. I'm pretty okay with food as is, there are limits to how much you forage/hunt based on skill success. Whereas water is 1 success = nearly unlimited water forever.
 
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Ebrim
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Re: Food and Water

Wed 06 Nov 2019, 18:35

So I’m thinking of doing the following for the next campaign:

Foraged water has a 1 in 6 base chance of having a pathogen. Having a cauldron means you can boil it so no biggie.

There’s base 1 resource roll a day for water and food. Hiking (any amount) adds 1 water resource roll. Heat adds 1 water resource roll and extreme cold adds 1 food roll.

So up to 3 water rolls or up to 2 food rolls/day in certain conditions.
 
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mafusael
Posts: 75
Joined: Sat 15 Dec 2018, 23:09
Location: Poland, Warsaw

Re: Food and Water

Wed 18 Dec 2019, 13:18

yep, same again ))

Survivng in this game not work very well, as water and food easy to find and hard to lose.
Try to put -2 roll to find clear water in any place, hepls a lot ))

Also in my game we use food and water as a healing resourse - so is much easy to run out of it.
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