Tracking without the Feat

[kiyoti]

ive seem a few DM's allow non-rangers without the track feat to attempt tracking (a DM can make any call if he thinks is needed to progress the game I know). Im aware that very limited tracking is allowed (DC 10 and below) but letting folks track without the feat kinda takes away from one of a rangers signature gimmicks and also from players that spent one of their precious feats on tracking. Here is what the SRD has to say.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#track

i noticed that there is a retry on this skill after a period of time. nice!

just hoping to hear some thoughts on this.

[johnlewismcleod]

Seems pretty clear tracking can be done with a successful survival check per canon...am I missing something here?

Are you suggesting checks shouldn't be allowed to any but rangers in order to bolster that class?

[kiyoti]

Not at all. Tracking isn’t easy and takes years to perfect in RL. I’m suggesting that tracking be used properly IC.

This is what caught my attention.

d20SRD

Normal
Without this feat, you can use the Survival skill to find tracks, but you can follow them only if the DC for the task is 10 or lower. Alternatively, you can use the Search skill to find a footprint or similar sign of a creature’s passage using the DCs given above, but you can’t use Search to follow tracks, even if someone else has already found them.

So if you look at the conditon modifier table in the srd, than on a moonlight night the DC would be 13 for finding tracks in soft ground. So in that instance if you didn’t have the feat you couldn’t make a check. As it says above you could find a trace of something with search but you can’t follow it. So no, you arent missing anything. You can make a check as long as its an easy one.

[Keryn]

kiyoti is right, track is a feat that works with the survival skill, easy obvious tracks anyone can see, hence the under DC10, for obvious tracks, but anything over that should require the feat, doesn't matter if you have survival 1 or 100.

I have noticed scouts, tracker, rangers, are ignored constantly by players and at times by DMs, they should play a very important role as i see it preventing the party to fall in deadly traps and ambushes etc...

To be able to track can be great and turn the tide on a situation, but since we are at it, maybe both players and DMs should take a look at the scouts and allow them to be what they were meant to be.

What i mean is, maybe... if a scout tries to scout and the group "doesnt" let him, there should be consequences, obviously each DM does what he wishes, this is just a perspective from someone playing a scout for a long time and seeing that at times, it seems folks act completely crazy and dont give the true value to a proper scout, because in the end nothing happens. Sorry for the off topic.

[kiyoti]

in NWN1 before the minimap/radar a group wouldnt leave home without a good scout!

[Kest]

Some of my best memories of ALFA1 were acting as a scout for the people traveling across BG. Man, that place was great.

[NickD]

I think I mentioned it before, but I thought it would be cool if the track feat told you what the little orange dots actually were.

[dergon darkhelm]

I try very hard to play my cleric as appropriately disoriented "in the field" when trying to follow/track.....and always am looking for scouts etc. to join patrols.

But as DM .........what ya gonna do? Stop the quest b/c a couple failed a skill check or lack a feat? Maybe in PnP the DM would let the guys flounder until they realized they needed atracker, went back to town and hired one and then came back and restarted....but in NWN2 that's 2 extra hours of play and a crapload of DM PITA. By then people are already logging off b/c the play window is gone.

[mr duncan]

But as DM .........what ya gonna do? Stop the quest b/c a couple failed a skill check or lack a feat?

Yes. There is no way a DM would think to heal up the party because they couldnt find a cleric, but they are supposed to give your crew something they didnt bring with them (A ranger) because the quest is lost?

Sounds like success has been getting spoon fed to you often enough to where you think you deserve it even if you come upprepared. Sometimes the players fail. A "save the girl/city" storyline shouldnt be run at all unless the city or girl can really be lost. I think this clip from the BG forums should make the point

2) Failure is an option. As a matter of fact, it is probable. You may fail a few times before you succeed a quest, a plot, an idea. If you are fortunate when you fail you'll escape with your life. Being a hero is risky business, and it wouldn't mean anything unless the great bulk of people failed doing it. What does this mean for you? Have a contingency plan in place when your idea doesn't pan out as you hoped.

Sometimes you have to retreat and come back at it. Sometimes the gnolls eat the girl you were trying to save. Sometimes the fighters who didnt bring a bard all fail their lore checks and cant open the rune door. Sometimes the clerics cant even find their enemies because they are such stuffed shirts that none of the rangers like them enough to help out. All these things are possible, so is retreating to get a tracker


J

[johnlewismcleod]

D...uhmm...*winces*...ouch!

Rangers, bards and rogues are scarce IG (at least in BG they are, I haven't been on TSM much for a while). There is doubtless a reason skill based PC's are becoming scarcer, but that is perhaps a topic for another thread

I personally support fully DM's not having their hands tied and doing whatever seems appropriate to move quests forward with the PC's available in their time zone as they see fit...and some of my most memorable and fun RP has been with the "stuffed shirts"

[mr duncan]

D...uhmm...*winces*...ouch!

Rangers, bards and rogues are scarce IG (at least in BG they are, I haven't been on TSM much for a while). There is doubtless a reason skill based PC's are becoming scarcer, but that is perhaps a topic for another thread

They are scarce because of what you say next

I personally support fully DM's not having their hands tied and doing whatever seems appropriate to move quests forward with the PC's available in their time zone as they see fit

With one breath you curse the fading value of skill based PCs, then you counter that with the notion the clerics and fighters should be allowed to ignore those very same PCs you want to see more of.

If the DMs let these PCs just ignore having a variety in their party, all you are going to get is people playing clerics and fighters

Also, you arent "Tying the DMs hands" by your PC failing at a task. A smart PC should know when to run away to try again, this is part of the story not the ruin of it

What i mean is, maybe... if a scout tries to scout and the group "doesnt" let him, there should be consequences, obviously each DM does what he wishes, this is just a perspective from someone playing a scout for a long time and seeing that at times, it seems folks act completely crazy and dont give the true value to a proper scout, because in the end nothing happens. Sorry for the off topic.

Amen


J

[johnlewismcleod]

Points well said and taken, Mr D

...but I still love the Helmites in all their stuffed-shirt, dogmatic glory

[Mulu]

I have to say I really agree with Duncan on this one. Making skill based PC's necessary to complete quests gives them back the value that all the regrettable rule changes took away.

Now, maybe that will just result in fighters taking a level of rogue, as the PW approach to PC's tends to be "jack of all trades + high survivability," but at least they have to take one level of rogue.

[Rotku]

D...uhmm...*winces*...ouch!

Rangers, bards and rogues are scarce IG (at least in BG they are, I haven't been on TSM much for a while). There is doubtless a reason skill based PC's are becoming scarcer, but that is perhaps a topic for another thread

DMing a couple of days ago, had 6 players. 1 was a rogue. 3 were rangers. So they certainly aren't scarce.

[Keryn]

But as DM .........what ya gonna do? Stop the quest b/c a couple failed a skill check or lack a feat?

Yes. There is no way a DM would think to heal up the party because they couldnt find a cleric, but they are supposed to give your crew something they didnt bring with them (A ranger) because the quest is lost?

Sounds like success has been getting spoon fed to you often enough to where you think you deserve it even if you come upprepared. Sometimes the players fail. A "save the girl/city" storyline shouldnt be run at all unless the city or girl can really be lost. I think this clip from the BG forums should make the point

2) Failure is an option. As a matter of fact, it is probable. You may fail a few times before you succeed a quest, a plot, an idea. If you are fortunate when you fail you'll escape with your life. Being a hero is risky business, and it wouldn't mean anything unless the great bulk of people failed doing it. What does this mean for you? Have a contingency plan in place when your idea doesn't pan out as you hoped.

Sometimes you have to retreat and come back at it. Sometimes the gnolls eat the girl you were trying to save. Sometimes the fighters who didnt bring a bard all fail their lore checks and cant open the rune door. Sometimes the clerics cant even find their enemies because they are such stuffed shirts that none of the rangers like them enough to help out. All these things are possible, so is retreating to get a tracker


J

Amen brother amen

i should also add that the guild/group I am part of saw their numbers decrease over time because there was no "action" for them, in the end lack of DMage took its toll, and now Im the only survivor, but that is sort of weird when you have in there the most specialized ranger/scouts that know the wilds inside out, and so many things happen in these lands. Seriously i always thought any group thinking in wandering into the wilds of the marches would contact us for some aid. Because thats what would make sense. I guess....

Also, I bet if the party really needs a scout, rogue or whatever, and attempts to hire one in the nearest village (NPC) Im inclined to think they would have a good result at that, unless maybe that could be done with a PC.