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View Full Version : Question about Survival/Urban Survival [GURPS 4th Edition]



Ragitsu
2011-02-06, 10:10 PM
If one is trying to catch birds in a city (they are pretty much a "natural" part of the landscape), which Skill(s) would they use, and at what, if any, penalty?

HMS Invincible
2011-02-07, 02:32 AM
Some sort of knowledge skill or survival to track down the bird, maybe a stealth skill to get close to the bird. Or a survival skill to make bait for the bird. Then a dexterity skill of some kind to make you "catch it". Whatever floats your boat, guns, knives, bare hands. etc etc.

Ragitsu
2011-02-07, 02:48 AM
Some sort of knowledge skill or survival to track down the bird, maybe a stealth skill to get close to the bird. Or a survival skill to make bait for the bird. Then a dexterity skill of some kind to make you "catch it". Whatever floats your boat, guns, knives, bare hands. etc etc.

I know how to fully game out sneaking up on prey. I'm just trying to abstract a series of events (finding a bird, catching/killing them, and cooking them) into one roll.

Now, Urban Survival handles, in my mind, dumpster diving and knowing which plants are okay to eat, but i'm not really seeing it being used to trap crows/ravens.

On the other hand, Survival (Woodlands)/Survival (Plains)/etc is THE go-to Skill for capturing wildlife native to those environments.

However, these are city birds, which creates a blurring/overlapping of applicable Skills, and this confuses me. By the way, if i'm wrong on Urban Survival's ability to handle catching animals, someone please correct me on this (preferably, with an example/examples).

Ragitsu
2011-02-07, 08:49 PM
Where my GURPS homies at?

dariathalon
2011-02-07, 09:04 PM
As long as you're trapping it in the big city for survival purposes, I'd just go with urban survival. If you don't have that, then perhaps a default from another applicable similar skill (survival plains, woodlands, naturalist, etc.) with a slightly higher than normal default.

Your difficulty with blurring of skills is actually fairly common in GURPS. Having so many skill possibilities makes the boundaries between them pretty vague at times. For example: Is survival the best choice here? If so, which one? Or maybe the set of skills mentioned earlier (tracking, stealth, combat skill)? Why not professional skill trapper? There are probably a few others that could work too.

Ragitsu
2011-02-08, 05:58 PM
So, someone with Urban Survival is a-okay. Someone with Survival (Woodlands) would be at what penalty?

dariathalon
2011-02-08, 07:34 PM
I'm don't have my books in front of me at the moment, so there might be an official answer to this, but if I had to eyeball it, I'd probably go with a -2. This particular application of the skill would probably be pretty similar in both fields.