Forage question

[GnekroeGnomicon]

So, I have a basic forage question (sorry as I am sure this has been answered but search comes up with just too much):

Does your forage skill have any determining factor on what you can forage? Ie. will an Iksar that is permanently forage(50) be able to forage everything that say a druid with forage(200), though just at a slower rate (due to forage failures)?

[mewkus]

It is my understanding that your foraging skill only determines how often you successfully forage something when you attempt it. I think the item you forage up is purely random.

[Phantron]

I remember there are drops that you can only forage at 100+ skill. However Iksars have the ability to get 100+ forage drops since they need some of those drops for certain quests.

[Elyssanda]

I remember there are drops that you can only forage at 100+ skill. However Iksars have the ability to get 100+ forage drops since they need some of those drops for certain quests.

There used to be things that had a level requirement, but not anymore. Iksars and woodelves and bards can forage anything at any level.. but you just won't forage often. so it will take you TONSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS of time to forage something normally.

[Qualan]

I think they once said that the higher your forage skill is, the better the chance is also to get a special forage

[ChaseFV]

I remember there are drops that you can only forage at 100+ skill. However Iksars have the ability to get 100+ forage drops since they need some of those drops for certain quests.

It did, indeed, used to bet the case that there were some forages you could only get if your foraging was above 100. That was changed by a patch back in 2001 or 2002. Sorry, too lazy to go look up the patch message. Nowadays, you can forage anything at any skill level.

I think they once said that the higher your forage skill is, the better the chance is also to get a special forage

I believe this was debunked back in 2003 by some excellent foraging parses originally linked here. Foraging skill has no bearing whatsoever on *what* you forage. It affects only whether or not you will succesfully find an item when you forage.

While we're actively debunking foraging myths, let's throw the Foraging Machette on the fire too. If your skill is at 200, you don't need one, ever. The same parses I reference above proved that it had no effect on what was foraged. Foraging machettes are primarily for those whose foraging skill is capped (though I wonder now, if foraging uses the same skill-up formula as tradeskills, thereby increasing the chance of skill-up on a successful forage, and therefore making the machette useful to anyone below skill 200).

[Tanker]

Just to re-verify, I visited code-land.

Any forager can forage any forageable, it's true!

A skill of 200 is as high as you need to get the maximum success chance.

Those with skill over 100 get a bonus to their chance of receiving uncommon and rare forages from zones that have them.

[Verdandi]

Thank you, Tanker! It's always nice to get a certified answer.

[GnekroeGnomicon]

Any forager can forage any forageable, it's true!

A skill of 200 is as high as you need to get the maximum success chance.

Those with skill over 100 get a bonus to their chance of receiving uncommon and rare forages from zones that have them.

That is the best answer that I could have asked for! Thank you very much!!

[Druegar]

A skill of 200 is as high as you need to get the maximum success chance.

Does that just refer to the chance to forage something, as opposed to the chance to get a rare/uncommon? (see below)

Those with skill over 100 get a bonus to their chance of receiving uncommon and rare forages from zones that have them.

Does that bonus increase at all past skill-level 100? E.g., if someone has a skill of 150, does that person have a better chance of his successful forage yielding a rare than someone with a skill of 101?

I apologize for the AR nature of these questions, I just want to make sure I'm understanding what you meant.

[mewkus]

yet another question now that this thread's gotten dev attention

How does Nature's Bounty play in this? My guess (pure speculation - nothing to back it up) is that NB 1 is a 2nd forage at foraging skill 50, NB2 at forage 100, and NB3 does another forage at 150. If this is the case, does the NB forage have the same chance of getting a unique/rare item as the initial forage?

[Ixiola]

I don't have an answer to your question, but I thought I'd comment on Nature's Bounty since it came up. I purchased the first rank in this with my ranger even though she's only got a whopping 6 aa, because it was only one point and I forage/farm with her a LOT.

I was pleasantly suprised to see how often my nature's bounty aa fires. Definetly worth 1 AA if you forage a lot.

[Strokker]

Why not???

My question on Foraging is simply ....

Whay cant all races and classes forage or learn to forage, also why racially or class cap them at all???

In real life any, and I do mean any can learn to forage if they care to take the time. There are books aplenty out there for them to learn from and they can as in game travel to otherlocations which afford them the oportunity to forage different things.

On the average I would say that almost every one from early childhood to grave have at one time or another foraged something in their lives that to them may find a use, even if discarded as useless from another.

In Game we all forage from the mobs we kill or others kill and leave to rot...we just call it looting...But a Rose by any other name is still a Rose.

My point here is that Shamans who are naturist simply by the fact that they are in tune with the spirts cannot forage except for Iksars, this does not make sence to me. They have alchemy combines which use forage items, true some items drop from mobs, who I assume they forage themselves for whatever purpose the mob has; but still the only race of shaman I know of that forage are Iksar and it is an inate ability...and stuck at 50???!!!??? If it is inate then they should be masters of forage... The dev teams thingink to me just seems far from realistic on this topic and others...Take mana for instance, yes I know mana is not trade skill nor is it on topic; but here is another pet pieve....Bards who use mana very little from day one get mana...YET...they get meditate of " 1 " and this is maxed at " 1 " Sorry but this just does not make any sense at all...Yes I play a bard and yes we can forage and like Iksars not very well; but we can still forage. We have a AE damage song ( which is another pieve for me the nerf on those lines of songs ) and if I were to play that song my mana pool would be depleted in three ticks...so with a mana regen of skill " 1 " it is never used again that day and wont be till I camp for an hour or more...lol... And we have a mana regen song...lol...

I just do not understand their line of thought on Forage and some other trade skills All can learn to fletch even those who cannot throw or use a bow, what's up with that...and why can not all classes or races throw??? LOL...they just at times seem like they just grab something out of the air and pop it into the game and to me it makes no sence a all...

Well, I shall get off my soap box now and go play with my mental blocks again...have fun all...

Strokker

[Verdandi]

Bards who use mana very little from day one get mana...YET...they get meditate of " 1 " and this is maxed at " 1 " Sorry but this just does not make any sense at all...

I'm pretty sure the point of this is to speed up the scribing of spells. Long ago, bards didn't have any meditation skill, and would take FOREVER to scribe spells. Just adding that little bit of skill was enough to speed things significantly. (I think it was scribing...or maybe memming...no, I think it was scribing.)

As for forage, I think that's seen as a matter of class/race balance more than anything else. Iksar have a lot of little perks (innate regen and ac, special monk tail attack, innate forage, etc) to make up for starting way the heck over in Kunark and being hated everywhere else. (Well, until factionless cities became the norm.) Likewise with class abilities. Personally I agree with you that foraging should be more widely available. But anything that remotely touches on class balance tends to raise a lot of hackles for all concerned, so even if the devs agree with you this might not be something they'd want to touch.

[Neebat]

Rangers die. All the time. I mean, a lot. And as consolation we get forage.

No. That's not the logic...

Imagine for a moment a paladin, a high elf, with shining armor and flaming sword and all that... now, there's a Chameleon Rat... (I know this because I foraged several of them last night) just try to visualize a knight in shining armor picking up a RAT... and eating it.

Try that again with an erudite. Any erudite. Or those haughty dark elves.

Yes, an erudite COULD learn to forage, but they wouldn't do that any more than they would become warriors.

As for shamans, they are in tune with the spirit world, not the natural world. Shamanistic magic arises from barbaric ritual, drawing brute power and physical superiority through mystic connection with the universe, but that still leaves the shaman woefully unaware of the nutritional value of any particular grub.

In reality, all these restrictions are put in place to give your class and race more than a purely superficial impact. There IS a difference between playing a gnome and a halfling, even though neither one can see well enough to pull if there's a speed bump around.

I do think it's incredibly silly that alchemy uses so many foraged components. Ground spawns maybe, after all, the universe provides, but not forage.