Why survival? Sleeping seems something related to the body. I'd go with a fortitude check (with appropriate bonuses for equipment, survival check and penalties for extreme environment).
Because if you give me about an hour to set up shop i can make a bed that's more comfortable than the ones in a cheap hotel room out of branches, or just find the right bed of moss. (warning: you are not the only one that likes to sleep there. On the other hand forest critters make excellent sources of warmth...)
I'd like to see what an actual druid could do...
A 20 seems kind of high. That's in the navy seal/ superskilled human range, not something basic most people can learn to do most of the time with a little training.
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I say give a bonus of 25-50 X character level experience to people who start the game with a well thought out gear list, give the XP publicly in front of all players and move on.
Prestidigitation and create water can do allot of things one would normally with equipment which can significantly lower the weight a primary spell caster needs to carry.
I camp and do SCA events in a period tent, so its important to me to cover the little details of survival gear and handy tools.
Also you could always get a pack saddle for animal companions. Remember quadrapeds can carry more wieght. This even will be helpful for a ranger that wants to wear light armor and not have a medium load to be slowed so tracking takes longer and overland movement.
Actually I have an idea for wizards and witches get a goat familiar and put a pack saddle on that. One minor rules quibble I have is the pack saddle does not adjust for weight so a small pack saddle still weighs 15 lbs by raw. Even with this the goat can take 28 more pounds of gear and still have a light load.
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I find it unfortunate that people handwave so many survival rules and basic equipment. I agree that there's a limit to simulationism, e.g taking a dumb or tracking down the weight of gold(unless you happen'd upon a dragon hoard and it's part of the scenario to transport that loot), but I really like the survivalist feel of the early steps of the game and getting rid of such common considerations like sleeping on the ground and finding game cheapens the game for those of us who play wilderness character and "mundane" classes in particular.
For an anecdotal example, we recently got a replacement character in our Serpent's Skull campaign. An enchantment cleric of Milani with 8 str who has no skill points in such mainstay adventurere skills like Climb, Swim, Acrobatics, Knowledges or Diplomacy. We basically carry him around in the jungle since he goes to medium load without the Ant Haul spell. I'd feel like an ass to start complaining about the roleplaying considerations of the character, for instance the fact that party is so full of individualist tough types that they wouldn't have accepted someone who can't carry their weight(he's a pacifist too, btw), but it still saddens me to see this brand of gamism enter the game.
Sure, it's annoying to find out that in your pregame loadout you forgot to include clothing(cost and weight too), but there's such a variety of cool gear and natural and environmental issues to tackle and, hell, even consider in the game that skipping right ahead into the mid-game tactical magic combat simulator always bothers me.
We don't bother with this kind of equipment. We assume every adventurer has his gear and don't waste roleplaying time on that. Likewise, we assume that enemies who get killed have some cash on them. But we don't keep the books on that and just say that this cash covers the basic living cost of the PCs (eating and sleeping at normal inns).
You have 2 options. You can either create your own basic "adventure pack" tell the PC's that they have to carry it any time they are traveling and endure all the under the breath comments or just forget about all that stuff like I did forever ago. The game already gets hung up from time to time on things, unless my players are going somewhere like an icy wasteland I just ignore such trivial things and everyone seems to have much more fun.
I find gear micromanaging amazingly boring. Treasure is already enough bookkeeping.
I usually buy most of the basic stuff at the start of the campaign, but never seem to remember to buy a blanket and half of the time I don't need the stuff besides ropes and grappling hook.
I have them buy a standard "adventuring gear" pile of stuff. It includes bedroll, soap, backpack, towel, food, water, torches, flint, sacks, rope, clothes, etc. I generally handwave the price, throwing out a number that fits the race/class combo.
If they don't buy it they walk up wearing nothing but a sword and a smile. Never had to resort to that yet tho.
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While we don't really apply "mechanical" effects for a lot of things, the players and DM like to roleplay our characters responding to the situation.
While trudging through a swamp might not cause any mechanical impact to combat or social situations (other than the obvious, like "please don't step on the expensive carpet in those boots", etc), I still play my noble-born-turned-wannabe-rustic-adventurer as half enjoying, and half despising the situation.
I'll spend cash on getting clothes cleaned, or a change of clothes, or delay doing adventure/social things until getting a bath, etc.
Sure, I could play it out differently and not suffer any real mechanical problem... but that's the fun of the game, isn't it? Playing pretend?
Seeing as this thread is still here, and I'm not sure if it's been posted...
Now, I used to make a big deal out of this building characters. I was notorious for it. Granted, at this point, our stingy GM was giving us 1000 gold to work with. No exceptions. If we were lucky, double that, which is still negligable.
In one of the few rules-debates I've won, I've convinced him that the CR system adheres to the WBL chart, and we should probably get a bit more cash to spend, and lately I've found all of this gear fall by the wayside as I spend my cash on belts of giant's strength. I'm using these equipment kits to slowly get back into the habit. They're a great resource. Check em out.
Ironically, the first time I didnt bother was the first time our GM used the weather rules for cold. Go figure. :P
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This is going a ways back into the thread, but I'd like to address something the topic's question and original post bring up... and offer a different answer.
While I haven't DM'ed before, I know precisely what I would 'do with players that never buy bedrolls, blankets, etc.' I would communicate with them. I'd sit down and figure out how we're going to handle this so we're all on the same page. Do you want to track survival gear, mundane items, etc.? Do your players want to?
If so, awesome! You've got plenty of rules for how to go about this, so it should fit right into the game once everyone understands they need to track it. If not, it's easy enough to overlook this stuff.
The key point is to communicate. This sort of thing strikes me as core to the tone of the campaign, and I would expect to go over it with the DM while we're all making character sheets. A simple "Hey guys? I'm going to enforce mundane gear/survival. Buy stuff to account for it," should suffice at the least.