Scavenging Rules

A major reason to explore the Wasteland is for supplies. There are a lot of resources: food, weapons, and raw materials, among other things out there waiting to be found, or to be "liberated" from those who found it before you.

Scavenging is the process of searching a location for useful resources, overcoming any obstacles and competing scavengers. The process of scavenging is centered around a specific location, which defines the kinds of items that can be found, how easy it is to find them and the kinds of obstacles which you may find, and whether the location is inhabited by creatures or characters who might not take kindly to your arrival.

Scavenging Scenes

When you enter a location to scavenge, the main thing you'll want to do is search for loot. Searching requires an Investigation Skill check, with the difficulty determined by the location's Degree, as shown on the table below. This takes an amount of time determined by the location's Scale.

When you are scavenging as a group, this is resolved as a group test with one PC (typically the one with the best Investigation Skill) making the roll and everyone else assisting with a help action. When you take the Help action, the creature you aid gains advantage on the next ability check it makes to perform the task you are helping with, provided that it makes the check before the start of your next turn. In Ultra Max, these instances of advantage stack, providing the person investigating an additional die for each person helping them. If anyone else within the group then performs an additional search, the same rules apply counting as an additional search of the area requiring the additional time to be spent to complete the search.

If the check is failed, you find nothing. That doesn't prevent you searching again, but each new attempt takes the time listed, and may come with the other risks if the location contains hazards or occupants.

For every 5 points you have failed by, a complication occurs at the location.

Complications rolled on this test can have several possible results. The most common complications include:

• There are fewer supplies here than you expected: you cannot search this location gain, until the location has meaningfully changed (such as having new inhabitants arrive).
• It took longer to find supplies than you expected: increase the time taken by half the original amount per complication.
• A group of the location's inhabitants interrupt your search; this might require hiding from them, talking your way out of a situation, or combat.
• You disturb the location in a way that makes it more dangerous, triggering the effects of one of the location's hazards.
• You find that one of the items you found is locked away. The GM chooses one of the item rolls you get to make, and places it behind an obstacle. This requires another check such as lockpicking, Engineering or strength. Or it could mean needing to find a key or some other method of overcoming the obstacle, at the GM's discretion.

If this check is successful, then you find the minimum items for that location; each item category found in the location has a minimum and maximum number of rolls on that category's loot table, with a minimum of 0. The minimum number of rolls for each category is provided on a basic success.

For every 5 points you exceed the DC for the Degree, you may make one additional roll on any one loot table for one of the items categories the location contains, up to the maximum for each category. You may also spend Action Points (AP) to gain additional rolls. Each AP spent allows you to make one additional roll on any one loot table for the item categories the location contains, up to the maximum for each category. Each character participating in the search (as the searcher or helper) can spent AP in this manner.