Forum

1. How much time takes scouting form a lookout point?
2. Stalker can Find the Path as normal, so when he enter sector he can take ammo, grub, water - at no time? Sector is considered as explored. Am i right?

1. I would rule that it would take just as long to scout from a lockout point that it would take to scout it by foot (usually four hours).

2. To walk through a sector that is explored takes one hour and I would rule that it doesn't take much longer to go to the various places that stalker saw the ammo/grub/water/artefacts from the lookout point.

But the stalker (and his group) can't just walk into the sector just like that. The threat (that the stalker have seen and/or seen tracks off from the lookout point). that might be there must be dealt with somehow.

Then if the stalker rolled badly he is allowed to roll again when he walks into the sector, but doing so will take the normal amount of time (he is after all searching the sector again).

So when Stalker is scouting from lookout point 7 sectors its take 28 hours?

Personally I don't even like this rule and have my own interpretation of it:

So. If it takes 4 hours to search a sector, why would it take shorter to do it from a distance? In most cases it would be totally impossible (according to me) to even search another sector from that distance.

(edit: why i wrote 4 hours was that if you allow a stalker to find bullets from one mile away when he looks into a sector, why would that take shorter amount of time that it would to actually be in the sector and poke around).

I don't know how the creators thought about this. But since this is an RPG after all (and those needs to be adjusted sometimes) my (house)ruling of the subject is:

* It takes about an hour to scout a nearby sector (depending how much ruins there are). The stalker can only detect threats. He cannot use any bonuseffects to find grub, water, bullets or artefacts. He can only use the following:
* You can assess the general level or Rot in the sector.
* The exploration (scout from a lookout point in this case) takes half the time (half an hour for a normal sector).
* You rush through the sector in a quarter of the time it would take to explore it, You avoid all threats <>. Here the stalker see a path that he can take if he decides to move into the sector.

But since the scouting from a lookpout point is a calm and safe things to do(hopefully) he will have a chance to use some scouting and/or know the zone to further analyse the threat(s).

Then after this he stalker have to option to:
* If the stalker used a bonus dice (from above) to find an easy way through, it will only take one hour to walk through the sector (avoiding any threat). The sector is not marked as explored since he has not dealt with any threats or looked around for grub, water, bullets or artefacts.
* If the stalker wants to search for grub, water, bullets or artefacts, he have to deal with any threats and also he must use 'keep looking' (takes four hours) to find those things.

Hi,

This rule is a little tricky, yes. The idea is that a Stalker can find a lookout and spend time there to scout surrounding sectors before entering them, and idea that I feel makes conceptual sense.

To "explore" an adjacent sector, please note that it's not enough to look at it for 5 minutes. You need to scout it for a long time, for hours, to see what monsters and other threats are roaming there - these might not be immediately visible. So yes, four hours per sector is not unreasonable, in my opinion.

When a sector has been explored from a distance, it count's just like any other explored sector (page 122). It still takes an hour to pass through. Threats in the sector will be known, but the GM is till free to place threats in such a way that the PCs need to deal with them in order to cross the sector.