Natural Healing and Halfling Cooking
by Håvard
Working on the General Skill List revision, I started thinking about uses for the cooking skill. Here are some thoughts. I am starting with my house rules for Natural Healing (Recovery) as the idea is that cooking can help improve recovery of HP through rest.
Natural Healing
| CONDITION | Price/Night | HP Recovered/ night | Spell Recovery (Hours Required) |
| Dungeon/ Poor Campsite | - | 1 HP | 8 |
| Good Campsite | -* | 2 HP per night | 6 |
| Poor Quality Inn | 2sp | 1+ (½ x Level) HP | 6 |
| Common Quality Inn | 5sp | 1 HP/Level | 6 |
| Good Quality Inn | 1 gp | 1 HP/ Level +1d4 HP | 4 |
| Superior Quality Inn | 5 gp | 1 HP/Level +1d6 | 4 |
| Hospital | varies | 1 HP/ Level + 1d8 | 4 |
*=A good campsite requires bedrolls, a tent, a fireplace and probably a good spot for the site. In order to pick the best camsite location, the DM may sometimes require a Survival Skill Roll.
Skills and Natural Healing
- Craft (Cooking)
- Natural Lore (Herbalism)
- Healing (Natural Recovery)
The skills above can be used to augment natural healing. With a successful use of any of the three skills, treat recovery as with one condition level higher. It is possible to use all three skills and have them stack.
Cooking Difficulty Modifiers
The minimum required for cooking to have any effect on recovery is a campfire, a cooking pot and very basic food (such as iron rations) and drinks (water).
| Modifier | Available Goods |
| -3 | Campfire cooking |
| +1 | Fresh foodstuffs rather than iron rations available |
| +1 | Spices or garlic available |
| +1 | Quality drinks available (wineskin or better) |
| +1 | A good pipesmoke after the meal |
| +2 | Cook is a Halfling |
Other uses of the cooking skill.
The main function of the cooking skill is that it makes life a little less miserable when you are travelling through the wilderness. Anyone can scamble together a half-decent meal, but a good cook can make even a few simple scraps help you forget about the rainy and cold conditions an adventurer sometimes has to live under. If the DM permits it, the cooking skill can also improve the moral of retainers and henchmen accompanying the PCs.