The wilderness is the overland map of the Drakalor Chain. It is often regarded as a curse by new players, whose PC's are killed in wilderness encounters and have difficulty keeping their PCs fed during treks across the wilderness. Advanced players with PCs who are well equipped to deal with the wilderness regard it as a wonderful resource.
The Survival skill is very important for lengthy stays in the wilderness, since a high Survival skill means no food is required for traversing the wilderness.
1.2.5.1 Why start the game in the Wilderness?
Many players will start the game in the wilderness, at least for the first kill, because the first monster killed can be controlled according to what type of wilderness square generates an encounter.
1.2.5.2 Strategy and problems in the wilderness
In order to avoid wasting too much time in the wilderness (e.g. because of the dreadful 90 day limit), it is good to know how long it actually takes to do things in the wilderness.
All times are approximate since there are slight variations of some minutes. It is also the case that without apparent reason walking times are sometimes doubled. This can happen for any terrain type and might be a bug. Recent reports (September 25th, 2000) indicate that traveling through the wilderness while burdened or strained does not cause this phenomenon. Being burdened or strained has a marginal, if any, effect on movement time in the wilderness.
Time Spent Action nothing changing body armor 60 min changing other parts of equipment 60 min resting 60 min moving onto a plains, road, water, or special (dungeon entrance and the like) square 90 min moving onto a hills square 120 min moving onto a forest square 180 min moving onto a swamp square 300 min moving onto a mountain square (provided you own a climbing set)Note that the swimming skill and water breathing intrinsic have no effect on the time needed to move onto a water square. Likewise, the climbing skill and the blessed/uncursed/cursed staus of a climbing set have no effect on the time needed to move onto a mountain square.
Note that a climbing set is required to move onto mountains. It is important to know the status of a climbing set, in particular making sure it is not cursed. A cursed climbing set will fail at the most inopportune moment. At a minimum, the resulting slip while mountaineering will cause extensive equipment destruction. It is often fatal. The blessed vs uncursed status seems to have little or no effect.