Hunting (sage ability)

Hunting is an amateur-status sage ability that permits the character to effectively locate animals so that they can be brought down by weapons, for the purpose of obtaining meat, leather and other products. These animals will occur either in or out of season; the commonality of the animal will determine how many hours the hunter must spend hunting before coming within range, and thereby having a chance to take it down.

Animal type (order of likelihood)	Season	Hours to find		Missile range	Wgt. of meat
		in season	out
groundfowl	Aug-Dec	1-4	3-36	short	6-24 oz.
burrowing mammal	Apr-Nov	1-6	2-16	short	1-3 lb.
waterfowl	May-Nov	2-7	3-18	medium/long	2-4 lb.
light herd animal	Apr-Oct (dry season)	2-12	3-18	long	51-110 lb.
heavy herd animal	Mar-Oct (dry season)	3-18	5-20	long	200+ lb.
predator	Apr-Oct (dry season)	2-20	4-24	medium	81-100 lb.

Locating

All types of animals may be rolled for on any given day, with the actual species occurring randomly. When finding a herd or burrow of animals, multiple animals may be tried for, once per hour (as the herd will be spooked and must be carefully approached again). Hours to find new fowl or predators resets after finding. The weight of meat is given per animal. Light herd animals weigh up to 300 lbs.; heavy herd animals are larger.

WORKING ...

The "out of season" and "in season" parts indicate those times of year when the animals are scarce as opposed to when they are abundant. In either case, the hunter is shown a given number of rolls per full day. Each roll is done on 2d6. When the minimum number shown is rolled, it indicates that the animal has been found. A range is then shown for how far away the animal is when the hunter is able to shoot at it. Finally, the amount of meat the hunter can expect to obtain from the slaughtered animal is also given.

If a hunter were to hunt half of that time, then the number of rolls would also be halved. In cases where this produces a fraction, the hunter can be allowed to roll a % die to see if a roll is obtained. One way to do this [and the way I will do it in my world] would be to fraction every possible roll that would exist if a full day were spent hunting. For example, a hunter is hunting for partridges in season, but only hunts for five hours; rather than say that the hunter gets two rolls, rather we roll a 50% chance for all four rolls, then give the hunter any rolls that proved to be obtained in the five-hour period.

While it is possible to find a bear during its hibernation season, the chance is so unlikely that it isn't worth indicating on the above table.

The ranges indicated are as follows, for the purpose of hunting: Short, 1-12 hexes (d12); Medium, 13-24 hexes (d12+12); Long, 25-47 hexes (2d12+23). The hunter must then determine the range for the weapon (a different sort of short, medium and long) to determine the chance of hitting the target. All resolution of hitting the target and hunting afterwards is resolved like any other combat.

See Scouting