Various Noob Questions

[Dragonlady]

Wow, thank you all for the tips. Which leads to more questions....

OK, finished a quest(DL) and got some money for 3 levels of foraging.(Mod)
Started camping out and got a lot of wicks and an" unknown" substance(IJBall). I say its a pot leaf but can not sell it regardless. When she can camp no more because hunger wakes her up rented a room in Everdale for the dinner. Is this a good idea?

@Kreador Freeaxe, no spiders yet and barrels net her a rotton apple and some beef jerky she can not identify or sell. I was hoping wolves gave meat but alas, only pelts. It must be Murphys Law because 10 scrolls of draw water is more than enough

You can right click on the item when in a shop and pay a little bit to id it. If you don't want it, like a potion ingredient, sell it then and use money to buy food. The cost of id'ing is almost always much less than item is to sell you make a small profit. The better you merchant skill the lower cost for id and higher price you get for selling later. Potion ingredients can be sold be sold in some 'food' merchant shops and always in magic shops.

[Mod.]

Yea, food isn't that hard to get if you are willing to eat raw rat meat. You should have a huge stockpile of that. Spiders can be found in the Farrock caves, and a few are in the port Kuudad warehouse. Still, if you aren't trying to hurry the game, you can always buy that create food scroll if you need it.

If necessary, you can always right click an unidentified item while in a shop to have it identified. The will usually make you pay almost what it is worth just to tell you what it is. If you want to sell an unidentified weapon or something, I recommend you stash it somewhere until you can tell what it is. If you really want to sell it, make sure you don't make the shopkeepers identify it, or you will make almost nothing, unless you like to buy mercantile. Oh man, someone posted this info right before me.

Without lore, you cannot identify anything if you have 1 Int. You can't tell your journal apart from other books (even if it is right where you left it), nor can you read strange letters at your door (hey, you shouldn't be leaving your safe home if you are that dumb, even if you are out of food).

[Farwalker]

Wow, thank you all for the tips. Which leads to more questions....

OK, finished a quest(DL) and got some money for 3 levels of foraging.(Mod)
Started camping out and got a lot of wicks and an" unknown" substance(IJBall). I say its a pot leaf but can not sell it regardless. When she can camp no more because hunger wakes her up rented a room in Everdale for the dinner. Is this a good idea?

Yes it's a great idea. I started off my hard core generic character (retaining ability to attempt all challenges and quests) by slowly working up foraging. Because I wanted the choice of going after Pacifist if I ever wanted to, I practiced my foraging just a little ways from the foraging trainer. If I got attacked I ran for help and the trainer pulled out her bow...

I'd forage as much as I could, then go sell in town, rest at the inn, and repeat. If you don't mind wearing rings you can really speed things up by wearing two foraging rings (as you find / can buy them).

[Mod.]

I practiced my foraging just a little ways from the foraging trainer. If I got attacked I ran for help and the trainer pulled out her bow...

I always foraged for cash in port Kuudad, you can't get attacked there. Less xp though...

[obiwan]

Cynvicous, you probably did not realize, but foraging slows your hunger/thirst; it does not make you find food.

This is a bit a silly implementation (as it is nearly unnoticeable for new players), but that is how it is.

The stuff you find is for alchemy, not for food, and is a second benefit of foraging.

[Painted Lady]

I'm on my third play-through, and am doing the Ranger challenge. It has taken me three tries to get a character who looks viable.

The problem has mainly been surviving the first few levels. My ranger has to keep moving to find enough food to eat, but can't always explore new areas because she has run out of arrows. Keebo is a day away from re-stocking, so she has to hang around until new inventory shows up - meanwhile she gets awfully hungry.

I think this has been a hoot! Great fun. I finally threw almost all of my start-up points into Bows and Foraging, and am looking at much more success than before. Whoever knew Meaty Spider Legs could be so wonderful?

[KillingMoon]

Cynvicous, you probably did not realize, but foraging slows your hunger/thirst; it does not make you find food.

This is a bit a silly implementation (as it is nearly unnoticeable for new players), but that is how it is.

When your hunger and thirst bars are slowing because of your foraging skill, you're supposed to imagine this is because your character finds edible and drinkable stuff while moving along.
So foraging is a skill that works automatically. Finding reagents when camping is a slightly strange implementation of foraging, that's true.

With some amusement I followed the discussion about Intelligence and the ability to recognize common items.
Just because something like a potato is common to us doesn't mean that its just as easy to identify for a person who isn't familiar with it. Just think of your character coming across a potato plant for the first time; this is a fruit bearing plant, so what would your character do first; try nibble at those fruits or start digging underneath the soil?

Even if you know it's about the tubors here, you still might struggle to appreciate them. Only very slowly the potato became an appreciated vegetable in Europe. The next quote is from this article: http://www.history-magazine.com/potato.html.

From Spain, potatoes slowly spread to Italy and other European countries during the late 1500s. By 1600, the potato had entered Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Holland, France, Switzerland, England, Germany, Portugal and Ireland. But it did not receive a warm welcome.

Throughout Europe, potatoes were regarded with suspicion, distaste and fear. Generally considered to be unfit for human consumption, they were used only as animal fodder and sustenance for the starving. In northern Europe, potatoes were primarily grown in botanical gardens as an exotic novelty. Even peasants refused to eat from a plant that produced ugly, misshapen tubers and that had come from a heathen civilization. Some felt that the potato plant's resemblance to plants in the nightshade family hinted that it was the creation of witches or devils.