I am planning on building my first ranger ever, and I was wondering about the Natural Explorer feature. One of its benefits when in your favored terrain is:
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
The Outlander background's Wanderer feature (PHB, p. 136) states:
In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.
Would these features stack so that theoretically a Ranger outlander (in their favored terrain) can find enough food and water for more than the 6 people, up to 12? Would the ranger only have to forage every two days?
Best Answer
Rules As Written they probably don't work together, so ask your GM
The rules on "Foraging" (DMG page 111) state:
Certainly the Ranger's Natural Explorer feature would apply here:
But the Outlander Background's Wanderer feature states:
The question now is "Does the Wanderer feature count as foraging?"
Foraging is defined (and only mentioned) in sections talking about things to do while traveling. The Wanderer feature, however, has no such restriction, in fact, it never mentions a time-requirement or anything of the sort. Like many background features, it is not a very defined ability in terms of the game-rules.
Though searching for food is certainly similar to the common English sense of the word "forage" the DMG specifically defines the process of foraging and it does not seem that the Outlander's feature follows these same rules, so I would say it is does not count as foraging.
Ultimately, there aren't rules set forth for how the Wanderer's food finding ability works, it seems like it just happens whereas foraging, as defined in the rules, involves a Wisdom (Survival) check.
The Wanderer feature does not follow the same rules as foraging (or really any rules) so it would be up to your GM to decide whether it counts as foraging