Is it my impression or the skill feat Forager is close to useless

[pdscosta]

Ok, so the skill feat forager indicates you can feed yourself while surviving in the wilds.

Which would make sense, if the text did not indicate it is only usable in Downtime and not during exploration time.

So my druid, which at level 4 is an expert at survival, with 4 modifier in wisdom is unable to forage after the end of the traveling day. This is further compounded with the presence of create water and food spells (which I wont discuss here as this was already discussed in another thread in this board).

In addition the action "survive in the wild" of the skill survival is also useless outside downtime. So the party after a days march will not be able to create a shelter or hunt for food as the mode (and I am sorry but mode "changes" feels a lot like a video game and less like p&p) of the game is exploration and not downtime.

Am I missing something or is the objective of these feats and actions to be useless...

[Rysky]

pdscosta wrote:

So my druid, which at level 4 is an expert at survival, with 4 modifier in wisdom is unable to forage after the end of the traveling day.

That would be Downtime Mode.

pdscosta wrote:

So the party after a days march-

Downtime Mode.

[pauljathome]

There are currently quite a few skill feats that are somewhere between "Meh and not worth taking" and "all but completely useless".

Given that skill feats are meant to be one of the key differences for proficiency levels this really HAS to change in the final game. Skill feats need to be dramatically improved in general (there are exceptions to this)

[Captain Morgan]

I like Rysky's interpretation, even if I'm not sure it jives with the rules as written. I was basically gonna rule it would let you do that anyway.

[pdscosta]

Rysky wrote:

pdscosta wrote:

So my druid, which at level 4 is an expert at survival, with 4 modifier in wisdom is unable to forage after the end of the traveling day.

That would be Downtime Mode.

pdscosta wrote:

So the party after a days march-

Downtime Mode.

I would love to consider it as you do, but the rules as are do not match up.

Page 332 mentions resting in exploration mode and quoting page 333 "In downtime, you can sum up the important events of
a whole day with just one roll. Use this mode when the
characters return to their home base or otherwise have
some time off for adventuring."
What I take from this is that downtime is only between adventures and not at the end of an exploration day. This means that the characters are not expected to forage, hunt or fish to feed themselves during an adventure. So in my travel to a dungeon which is 5 days away, I travel during 8 hours, rest for another 8 and twidlle my thumbs during the remaining 8 (7 if I am a caster and need 1 hour prep time)...

Hope you bought enough trail rations...

[Rysky]

I interpreted Downtime to be basically anytime in which you weren't Exploring or Fighting, rather than a super strict "this is what you're doing this day, pick one and you can't pick another later" since that would be rather silly.

The language can stand to be cleaned up.

[vestris]

Well I would support what Rysky says, as often regarding this playtest.

However the playtest book has some inconsistencies in its wording, some emerge when you translate between the modes (e.g. fatiguing tactics) and some emerge from general descriptions to specific descriptions later in the book. This is true for some of the basic concepts like critical hits/failures as well as the different game modes.

Quote:

p. 7

Downtime takes place when the characters aren’t
facing any active threats.
...
These three modes are distinct, but the game’s flow
between them isn’t always clear-cut. It’s possible that a
day that starts with downtime will involve the exploration
of the city’s sewage tunnels, leading the characters to the
secret base of a depraved cult and then into an encounter
with the cultists. The more you play the game, the more
you’ll see that each mode features of its own play methods,
but moving from mode to mode has few hard boundaries.

This would imply that you can have downtime at the start and likely at the end of the adventuring day while the PC's are in their makeshift camp.

But the description on page 332 is way more strict. I would argue stricter then intended as described on page 7.

So the final product overall needs some better clarifications about some concepts and how they are intended to work and descriptions how free a GM can rule.

[Grimcleaver]

It seems to me that the three modes break down like this:

Encounter Mode: You're in a fight. You track time round by round in initiative order.

Exploration Mode: You're on full alert, minis if you have them are on the table and you're moving around between fights--running into traps, looking for secret doors. That kind of thing. At this point initiative is fairly sloppy often happening at the 'speed of talking'. By the way, I sort of feel like we need there to be an initiative order here as well, so folks aren't free to just be all over the place with one person doing a whole bunch of things while a more meditative player barely gets a chance to go at all.

If it's not one of those two, I'd call it Downtime. You aren't on the map at all. Your location isn't being tracked precisely. You're off talking to people or looking for firewood or buying swords at the blacksmith.