Wilderness Lore skills could use minor rebalance

[Former user]

Many of the Wilderness Lore skills apply to very little terrain, and as a result are trap options for new players and wastes of initial skills on certain callings or castes.

I suggest combining Marsh and Field Lores; even combined they cover fewer tiles Canyon Lore.

I also suggest expanding Ruins Lore to cover the Palladium Reef. There are very few ruins on the map, and they are spread thinly and can easily be circumvented. Expanding the definition to cover the Palladium Reef would allow characters that invest in the Lore to more safely reach Yd, and to use it as a departure point for late game exploration.

[JRB]

Just for information, I think these skills are traps for new players in a couple of other ways too.

1. In their description, the third sentence begins with “On the overland map… “. That obscures the fact (as I understand it to be) that the first sentence is also only relevant to travel on the overland map: the skill does not double, or in any way affect, your chance of interesting encounters while travelling on the surface. I used to buy these skills religiously until I realized this.
2. Travelling twice as quickly sounds great, until you realize that there are virtually no time dependencies in the game, except for merchants restocking. An alternative formulation of the third sentence would be, “Merchants will take twice as long to restock while you travel in [terrain]”.

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[Noelle Lavenza]

Re: 1, maybe rephrase it to say it “increases your chance of detecting interesting encounters while traveling on the overland map,” to make it clear that the encounters already exist.

Re: 2, it also affects hunger and thirst, the latter of which can be deadly for those without Fasting Way, but admittedly those cases are rare.

If they really need to be combined, I don't think salt marsh and flower fields would make sense; instead, maybe combine salt marsh and salt desert, as well as hills and canyons. Both pairings are between areas of the same tier.

However, I don't think many builds are limited by skill points. Maybe just making the skills more useful would be more effective than reducing their number; something like informing you if there's an interesting encounter in an adjacent zone while traveling normally, as well. “You think you see [fluff encounter text] to the south,” for example.

[JRB]

Maybe these skills could give a movement bonus while travelling on the surface, as well as on the overland map. (Though that might actually make some of them slightly overpowered, I’m not sure.)

For Wilderness Lore: Ruins (which is currently the least useful, I think), maybe it could increase the chance of detecting ruins in all terrain types, not just in chrome ruins.

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