Exploration and discovery

[omnitricks]

These set of rules came out of Ultimate Wilderness but eventhough its kinda straightforward, I find it a little hard.

Anyone knows what is needed to make full use of this? Like the best or the most resource efficient PC wise?

I'm not just talking about builds, I'm also talking about the items needed.

E.g. I've been looking through items but would you believe it, there are barely any items to increase survival in general. Its always tied down to "not getting lost" sort of thing. May as well eat the -5 and go with perception instead looks like.

So you get the gist of it. Any information would be welcome.

P.S. for my specific set of circumstances, I'm playing a level 6 sylvan trickster rogue.

[Saintheart]

About the only thing I can think of that makes a marked difference is if the party's speed is greater. Increase the speed - hitch a wagon to a couple of appropriate monsters and make sure everyone rides - the faster you get your exploration done and the less random encounters you eat.

[omnitricks]

Nah this is for the exploration rules in Ultimate Wilderness. There is no marked difference for what move speed you use since the only variables to your exploration time is hexes and whether you want to take in extra hours without rest.

So yeah, not looking for rules GMs think work for exploration but more on the mechanics for the rules introduced in UW.

[upho]

Aside from area-specific or use-specific stuff (gazetteers, maps, way signs, following tracks, navigate specific area etc), there are only very minor bonuses to Survival to be found. However, I definitely believe this is simply an unfortunate oversight, as there are absolutely no balance reasons whatsoever for why there wouldn't exist items such as say a pair of "binoculars of Survival" or similar granting a generic competence bonus to all kinds of Survival checks (just as for example Eyes of the Eagle do for Perception checks).

I recommend you talk to your GM and suggest they use the vastly improved and very easy to use alternate magic item rules found in Steelforge 1 (by Dreamscarred Press). If not, I strongly recommend they, at the very minimum, allow you to add a competence bonus between +1 and +5 (at normal bonus2 x 100 gp cost) to any skill and slotted magic item without additional markup price. This is far more balanced and makes for more interesting item choices than the current "special GM permission required and x 1.5 markup price".

As a side note, the following bit about the alternate item rules, taken from Endzeitgeist (http://endzeitgeist.com/)'s review of Steelforge, pretty much says it all.

"The final chapter of the pdf covers a topic near and dear to my heart: Combating the Christmas Tree syndrome. This section pretty much is worth getting the pdf on its own. Why? Well, while most of Dreamscarred Press’ recent offerings have been geared towards high-powered gameplay, this chapter will provide a ton of benefits for pretty much all groups I can think of: Rare/Low magic campaigns can employ it and its massive table to codify the value of saving throw bonuses, armor class bonuses (by type) or resistances to be added to items, allowing for customization of more unique items and adding their benefits. Since the enhancements are listed in steps, they do take the slot component into account. This section is pretty minimalistic, yes – it basically covers the must-own enhancers to make the math come out right. I absolutely love it. The section is made primarily for GMs and can prove to be extremely helpful when pricing items that feature these options among others – from legendary items to legacy items, these humble two pages will see A LOT of use in my own game. One note, though: In spite of the non-stack caveats and very precise presentation here, I’d suggest GMs keeping a tight control over these rules, since, again, system-immanently, the added variety does allow for combos otherwise impossible. This is very much a feature in 99% of the cases, but it can be a bug, in spite of the section doing everything right."

[Florian]

These set of rules came out of Ultimate Wilderness but eventhough its kinda straightforward, I find it a little hard.

Anyone knows what is needed to make full use of this? Like the best or the most resource efficient PC wise?

Basically, these rules are simply a straight update of the hex crawl rules found in Kingmaker and Ultimate Campaign, adding a little bit more depth and integrating some more options (like flying) to them, nothing more.

As a player, you won't get much use out of this unless you happen to be in either a hex crawl or another type of wilderness exploration campaign, then you can optimize this with pretty low investment, meaning putting everyone on horseback, buying a map and hiring a guide for aid another, nothing else is needed.