Truffle hunt

So I'm running a pathfinder game and the party is going to a festival. How would you run a truffle hunt in pathfinder?

Wizard casts Locate Object.
Done.

>How would you run a truffle hunt in pathfinder?

Just so we're clear, you mean a literaly truffle hunt, right user?
Like, with piggies and those black, tumor-looking, mushrooms wot live underground?

Yes.
The country it's located in hates magic. It's been legalised recently but would still be against the rules of the event.

The use of truffle hogs is actually discouraged due to the damage they do to the mycelium. Causes gradual and progressive economic damage and loss of yield.

Actually good question, how do you run ANY search and find in a tabletop?

I've been thinking that myself since I tried to make my players get invited to a upper class hunting game and I just deadwalled. How do you do it? Do you create a map and run with the normal rules, no because then you get a lot of boring "I roll to search her, no? Okay lets move on" and if you try to invent a small minigame you've essentially taken away what the players came to play and even then how would the new rules look?

The best way is to include tips and hints and make it more of an investigation rather than a roll perception till you pass.

Like your trying to find a key.
In the drawer is a parchment with a written set of numbers. under the bed is a box with receipts with a manual that'll tell em how to reset the password in case they didn't find that, one being for a small safe. Under the pillow is a knife with a riddle carved on to it just to fuck with players. behind the painting that looks likes its been moved a lot is a safe with a combination. In the corner is some carpentry tools to show the safe was put in recently.

Stuff like that but with better planning and including more fail safes.

Alright that's good but lets apply that to the theme, hunting. Either for truffles or game. I mean, how do you convey that they found their shrooms?

If it's a competition against other people, you could have them find things that cause set backs to make other participants take the lead?

alternatively
Druid wildshapes into some creature that can smell them.
Cleric Conjures Food (you're getting what's common for the region, so in truffle land it will be truffles)
literally anybody with sufficiently high Survival forages for them

>The country it's located in hates magic. It's been legalised recently but would still be against the rules of the event.
instant plot hook - wizard needs to avoid getting lynched

>instant plot hook - wizard needs to avoid getting lynched
That's an idea. The main thing involving wizards (as it's been about 5-6 years since the legalisation), is that for the first time in the festivals history there's a wizards duel event. Of course it's a low-budget arena tucked away behind everything else, but it's present at least.

Handle Animal.

That was hard.

That was boring.

>>steal the skill challenge format from 4e. X successes before Y failures, don't tell the players they're in a skill challenge, keep the action moving on successes or failures. No one can use a skill anyone else used in the same go-around of the table or that they've used at all.

Never played 4e all that much, is there a link to this?

If its a high fantasy setting keep the antics crazy. Mix up a traditional truffle hunt in a fun way. Maybe the truffles in question are mushroom creatures that the players have to find their hidding places and catch them without damaging them so the truffles will still be good. Or maybe the best truffles grow somethere they shouldn't like the back of a giant boar or golem and the players have to get them from said crature without harming the truffles or maybe. Have then growing s swamp with geysers that spew toxic sludge. Something crazy that some experienced commoners could still do just with some stipulations so your Dragon slaying heroes cant just throw a fireball or cut with a sword. Make them think outside the box and have fun with it

Bonus points if they get showed up by a middle aged farmer who has done this all his life

One of the things about truffle hunting you should know is that the male pigs can smell the truffle, because it releases chemicals similar to pig sex chemicals. But, this also means the pig will try to eat the truffle before you get to it. Dogs can be trained to hunt truffles, but they don't seek it innately, whereas any male pig can search for it, but they'll try to eat the fucker. So it's a give and take, and you'll probably have to hold that pig back really hard while someone else digs out the truffle. Also, truffles grow near/underneath the roots of trees since they're a symbiotic organism with the trees. Someone able to speak to the trees might be able to locate them all on their own.

Ah the classic old school d&d method of creating interesting encounters that really challenge or account for all of the player's skills and options that never gets old.
Nuh huh that spell doesn't work here because of a thing.

They get advice from npcs in return for small favors, or from someone who wants to run the hunt. Or that one dick just stalks the more successful hunters, kills then, and takes their shrooms away while making it look like an accident.

It's not a contest of skill and luck if one person has a Here It Is button. Don't be a faggot.

Well don't try and set up a challenge that can be easily solved with a common win button built into your system. Or you can keep trying to work against the system and not with it like an idiot.

>The truffle hunting grounds are stalked by a giant, crazed boar, mutated from a farm pig that ate so many truffles it transformed into a giant beast so that it might fight off anyone trying to come and steal its delicious fungal treats

Tell the elf character the truffles are cocks, and he'll find them all for you in as short a time as to put 10 champion truffle hogs to shame.

Shut up you idiot. Artificial limitations exist in real life, for what purpose would they not exist in D&D, where the vast majority of the population can't into magic?

If anything, limitations are even more common in fantasy literature in regards to magic than real life limitations are. When people have contests they want contests of skill or luck ON THEIR LEVEL. No one would allow a world chess master to enter a local chess tournament in a town of 10,000. At least not without the caveat he can't win first place but he can play.

I basically summed it up there.
>X successes before Y failures
>Usually half-ish failures as successes, lower for harder more for easier
>A character can't use any skill used in the same round by another party member, or the same skill they used at all

And the general tips for it:
>Don't tell your players that's how it works, just start going around the table.
>Keep the scene and action changing as the skills roll, successes and failures affecting the ongoing avenues.

>truffles release pig sex chemicals
>therefore male pigs want to eat them
Are you saying all pigs are vore fetischists

4e spellcasting worked a bit different, so I'd take "cast a spell" as the equivalent of a skill check. That is, one spell per party member, can't do it the same round as someone else.

By all means keep fiating up excuses to shut out a player's strengths and abilities because "whoops didn't plan for that".

The only thing stopping would chess masters from joining small town tournaments is that they don't bother with them. Would it be a dick move? Yeah totally. Is it actually in the rules of any small town chess competition and not something you'd make up on the spot like the moron you are? I'll fucking eat my hat if it is.

>Don't tell your players that's how it works
>A character can't use any skill used in the same round by another party member
How do you suggest keeping these two tenets in line?

"I wanna roll nature to dig at common places"
"John did that just a moment ago, try something else"

I'll be honest, this rule always kinda puzzled me when I was reading it in the book, and I never actually got to play a game of 4e so I don't know how this looks in action.

>I want to roll nature to dig in common places
>Well I want to roll nature to dig is uncommon places
Ball's in your court.

bump