Exploration and Discovery

[Omnitricks]

Currently playing a sandbox exploration game. PCs are about level 6-ish.

Referring to the exploration rules in Ultimate Wilderness, what is needed to build a PC which is good at it?

Currently have linguistics for gazettes. Can fly. Perception focused (although the negative wis hurts) but at least its better than untrained survival (not a class skill so no point for me investing just for a +5 compared to perception which is although we are allowed a free rebuild so I could change it to survival if I can figure out how to make it work)

Problem with survival is, there are barely any items to use it for exploration. Mundane or magic. Most of the survival items are very narrow e.g. for getting lost or food and water with no general survival use so there still isn't much bonuses to be gotten for it to perception either.

I think that is all I can think of unless there is something I'm missing from the rules.

[avr]

A hunter's band gives +5 competence to survival (but costs 11K), and a four-leaf clover could give +2 luck to any skill. Perception is certainly easier/cheaper in magic items to boost.

[Wheldrake]

You don't need a huge Survival skill for most applications. A few ranks should do you, though obviously it helps to have a positive WIS bonus and to get it as a class skill. Several traits can help you with that, if necessary using the feat Extra Traits.

[Meirril]

The party needs 1 person that is skilled at survival. That doesn't have to be you. Also for exploration and discovery you also want someone with KS: Geography.

There are lots of other skills that get used occasionally to overcome challenges, but honestly it isn't worth trying to cover all of them. History will give you clues to past civilizations in the area when you run into ruins or artifacts left behind. Linguistics to pick up the languages of any cultures you run into. Generally that isn't necessary, but it makes future diplomacy a little easier.

[Omnitricks]

Meirril wrote:

The party needs 1 person that is skilled at survival. That doesn't have to be you. Also for exploration and discovery you also want someone with KS: Geography.

There are lots of other skills that get used occasionally to overcome challenges, but honestly it isn't worth trying to cover all of them. History will give you clues to past civilizations in the area when you run into ruins or artifacts left behind. Linguistics to pick up the languages of any cultures you run into. Generally that isn't necessary, but it makes future diplomacy a little easier.

Unfortunately party is unreliable because I'm playing this online and GM made it sandbox so I can pretty much go without any other players if I want to, which is what I'm trying to do with exploration during downtime to reap all the rewards.

From reading the UW rules for this, there really isn't any other skills in contention RAWise unless its really weird places in which the GM expects there to have weirder rolls. I just want to make the common/normal/usual uses of the rules more reliable for myself.

So yeah, if anyone is familiar with these rules, could use a hand.

[Cevah]

The spell Whispering Lore gives +4 to a knowledge skill appropriate for the terrain.
The spell Speak With Animals also can help to get information on an area.
The spell Tears to Wine gets +2/+5/+10 to Int/Wis skills. [+2 at 6th.]
The Ioun Stone (Magenta Prism (cracked)) can give a daily floading +2 bonus to a skill.
The Spyglass at 1000 gp helps you see far away things.
The Farglass is a magical spyglass.

/cevah