Eliminating the Track feat

[ValhallaGH]

So do you guys still keep the part about using search skill to find tracks?

And then use survival to follow them?

Actually, both skills can be used to locate tracks, survival merely allows you to follow them. These are simply two mechanical approaches for the two different real ways to approach tracks.

Search: Hey! I found some footprints. Looks like hobgoblins. Do you think it was a hobgoblin war band that destroyed the village?

Survival: Hey! I found some hobgoblin tracks. They head towards the mountians. Don't the Green Wolf and Stone Displacer tribes live up there? I wonder which one was behind the destruction of this village.... Well, let's follow these tracks and find out!

You really do need only one skill to locate and follow tracks. If you don't have that skill (survival) then you can still find tracks and learn some information from them but you can't follow them.

What about urban tacking (from unearthed arcana)?

Urban Tracking is all about walking up to people and going "Dude, have you seen a half-orc with a jagged scar on her left cheek and a bright purple mohawk? Which way did she go?" in a fast enough manner to actually catch up to the target. In no way analagous or pertinent to Search and Survival

Or are you asking if I want to remove it too?
It's a variant rule, which means that it doesn't exist unless I say it does. Or I can lift the mechanics out and fold them into the Gather Informaiton skill. Whichever I wish to use.

It actually hasn't come up in my games. I'm not sure which I'd do, though I'd probably fold it into GI, for consistency if nothing else.

 

[Felon]

The issue I have with the Search approach is that if you also delete Trapfinding (which I have) then Rangers are now the best trap finders, which doesn't mesh with the Rogue's archetype.

Come again? How do rangers become better trap finders than rogues once Trapfinding is eliminated? Does the ranger get more skill points to spend on Search? No. Is a ranger more likely to have a high Int mod? Not really.

And then there's the whole business with them having a bit of trouble disarming a trap should they find it...

As I said, Rangers get Skill Focus (Survival) at first level in place of the non-existant Track feat.
Tracking no longer requires a feat.

Rangers are now better in the wilderness than most folk. They are also better trackers than most people of equal training (Barbarians, Druids, Scouts, etc).

And the question remains: why should a ranger be better at Survival than a barbarian (who is even more feral and wild than a ranger), a druid (who is so at one with the wilderness that she can actually speak to nature assume its forms), or a scout (whose training is every bit as oriented around woodcraft as a ranger)? Of any class that has Survival as a class skill, the ranger is among the more civilized, the guy most likely to be spending his down-time living in a proper house in a town or city. The guy least likely to wiping his butt with a leaf...

 

[ValhallaGH]

And the question remains: why should a ranger be better at Survival than a barbarian (who is even more feral and wild than a ranger), a druid (who is so at one with the wilderness that she can actually speak to nature assume its forms), or a scout (whose training is every bit as oriented around woodcraft as a ranger)?

Because I'm taking something away from the Ranger and my players might lynch me if I didn't give something back.

 

[Paraxis]

I had the same thoughts when I started my most recent campain. I tried to keep it simple, I removed both the trapfinding ability of rogues and Track as a feat. I gave both ranger and rogue the Skill focus feat for free at first level and let them pick the skill it applied to.

 

[Sadrik]

Actually, both skills can be used to locate tracks, survival merely allows you to follow them. These are simply two mechanical approaches for the two different real ways to approach tracks.

Search: Hey! I found some footprints. Looks like hobgoblins. Do you think it was a hobgoblin war band that destroyed the village?

Survival: Hey! I found some hobgoblin tracks. They head towards the mountians. Don't the Green Wolf and Stone Displacer tribes live up there? I wonder which one was behind the destruction of this village.... Well, let's follow these tracks and find out!

You really do need only one skill to locate and follow tracks. If you don't have that skill (survival) then you can still find tracks and learn some information from them but you can't follow them.

Yeah but the way that mechanic worked always bothered me. This really highlights the rules wishy washyness:

The searcher points to some tracks on the ground and says, "Look, their are the tracks!"

The non-searcher asks, "Well, which way do they go?"

The searcher says, "I have no idea but they are here," he looks in the next 5' square and searches, "and they are over here too, but I still have no idea which way they go." But then the searcher figures out and says, "I can search in every 5' area and still track without survival skill!"

So does that highlight my opposition to having two skills that track? In fact search is better than survival because you dont have to burn a feat to do it!

Sadrik

 

[ValhallaGH]

So does that highlight my opposition to having two skills that track?

Yes.
Though search is a lousy track, since you have to guess which five foot square the tracks lead into and each check takes a full round action, slowing you down to 5 feet per round, 50 feet per minute, 300 feet per hour if you always guess right about which square the tracks are in.

In fact search is better than survival because you dont have to burn a feat to do it!

A) I'm an advocate of removing the feat requirement.
B) See the time and speed issues above.

I agree that hunters (survival skill) would be the ones most likely to want to track.

So why force them to invest in two skills to do the things they care about, especially when only one is required by the RAW?

But does that mean that every person who has survival can track?

Survival is an untrained skill. With luck, anyone can track. I'm cool with that.

 

[Sadrik]

Yes. Though search is a lousy track, since you have to guess which five foot square the tracks lead into and each check takes a full round action, slowing you down to 5 feet per round, 50 feet per minute, 300 feet per hour if you always guess right about which square the tracks are in.

Mechanically you are right but it still does not address the issue. That someone who is searching for tracks can find them but can only make a best guess about where to go next.

Survival: Hey! I found some hobgoblin tracks. They head towards the mountains. Don't the Green Wolf and Stone Displacer tribes live up there? I wonder which one was behind the destruction of this village.... Well, let's follow these tracks and find out!

I think you are giving a track check too much here. They also need to make a knowledge nature and a knowledge dungeoneering roll for the creature info. The only real difference is that a track roll allows faster movement than simply searching for the tracks.

The issue I have with the Search approach is that if you also delete Trapfinding (which I have) then Rangers are now the best trap finders, which doesn't mesh with the Rogue's archetype.

I agree, I think I am because of this discussion tweak my house rule of rangers getting skill focus search to rangers get the track feat which gives +4 to search when searching for tracks. Remember I also have a rule that gives a blanket +5 to the DC's of track checks.

If you don't have that skill (survival) then you can still find tracks and learn some information from them but you can't follow them.

Dont you think it is kind of weird that the person who is searching cannot tell the direction the tracks are headed. I just keep thinking in my head- a group of adventurers are standing around in a dusty room and there are some faint muddy footprints clearly going from one side of the room to the other. They are all standing around scratching their heads though because no one has the track feat! Then the rogue says, "Hey, I'll search!" he looks in the entrance of the room and discovers some tracks but he cannot figure out that the clearly defined tracks are headed towards the other side of the room. So, he randomly guesses the direction of the track, "Hey I'm right they go this way." Eventually he gets to the other side of the room but never once could he put 2 and 2 together. He just couldnt figure out the direction they were headed because that would be survival skill.

You really do need only one skill to locate and follow tracks.

I Couldnt agree more the distinction between survival and search is too convoluted.

Sadrik

 

[ValhallaGH]

I think you are giving a track check too much here. They also need to make a knowledge nature and a knowledge dungeoneering roll for the creature info.

Actually, it would be Knowledge Geography and Local for the extra information. Hobgoblins are a type of humanoid. Though most GMs I've seen in action, including myself, tend to hand out such a information on a very successful tracking check.

Dont you think it is kind of weird that the person who is searching cannot tell the direction the tracks are headed.

Not really. Before I introduced a lot of houserules, I had the party track some escaping bandits (that I wanted them to track) by using Search to locate tracks and if they did well enough then I told them the direction they thought the tracks went in. Because it fit my plot.
As has been said, tracking is usually a plot device and DMs make it happen irregardless of the rules.

I just keep thinking in my head- a group of adventurers are standing around in a dusty room and there are some faint muddy footprints clearly going from one side of the room to the other. They are all standing around scratching their heads though because no one has the track feat! Then the rogue says, "Hey, I'll search!" he looks in the entrance of the room and discovers some tracks but he cannot figure out that the clearly defined tracks

Clearly defined? After the wizard's long skirt, the warrior's muddy boots and the cleric's 290 pounds of armor and magical paraphanalia have all entered the room over the tracks and the rogue in question has crossed over them twice? Wow, those are some solid tracks you have there on you random stone floor.
Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill? Maybe. But is my point legitimate? Yes.

As a side note, I would like to point out that neither of us is happy with how the basic d20 track feat works so we changed the rules. We chose different paths, and are basically happy with our choices, so what is really going on is that we are debating the merits of our various methods.

One solution that just occurred to me is to allow tracking with either the Search or the Survival skill. That eliminates your "But... He can find the tracks. Why can't he follow them!?" and my "Why do wilderness folks have to be good at finding traps and treasure when all they want is to hunt things?" complaint. Seems like a very elegant compromise that increases ease of play and restores suspension of disbelief.

P.S. I still disagree with increasing tracking DCs for all the reasons I've already mentioned.