New Feat: Undersea tracking

[trentonjoe]

This is for undersea rangers and others.

Track [General]
You can follow the trails of others underwater.

Prerequisite: Must be a native water inhabitant.

Benefit: To find tracks or to follow them for one mile requires a Wilderness Lore check. The character must make another Wilderness Lore check every time the tracks become difficult to follow, such as when other tracks cross them or when the tracks backtrack and diverge.

The character moves at half normal speed (or at normal speed with a -5 penalty on the check). The DC depends on many different factors. The base DC is 15 modified by the conditions below:
Condition DC Modifier
--------- -----------
Every three creatures in the group being tracked -1
Size of creature or creatures being tracked:*
Fine +8
Diminutive +4
Tiny +2
Small +1
Medium-size 0
Large -1
Huge -2
Gargantuan -4
Colossal -8
Every 1 hours since the trail was made +1
If the creature being tracked has touched the ocean floor or similar area -4
If creature is not a natural inhabitant of water -4

*For a group of mixed sizes, apply only the modifier for the largest
size category.

If the character fails a Wilderness Lore check, the character can retry after 10 minutes of searching.

Normal: A character without this feat can use the Search skill to find tracks, but can only follow tracks if the DC is 10 or less.

SPecial: An waterbrewathing Rangers gets this for free instead of the PHB Track.

A character with the Scent feat gets a +2 bonus on their tracking check.

A character with 5 or more ranks in Listen gets a +2 on their tracking check.

A character with the Alertness feat gets a +2 on their tracking check.

 

[Witness]

Several problems I have with this feat:

It requires that one be a native water inhabitant which makes it practically useless to almost everyone.

It is physically impossible and thus should be a spell-like ability or supernatural ability.

My suggestion would be to make the scent feat/ability a prerequisite as creatures in the wild that do this do so through smell/taste (Sharks). Personally though, I can't really see a use for this feat. In a typical campaign, track is already a very powerful ability and allowing one to do so in water makes it too powerful in my opnion. In an aquatic campaign, I think it is better represented by the scent ability.

 

[trentonjoe]

THis feat is for an underwater campaign. It just seemed silly to me that advanced civilizations under the sea wouldn't have developed an effective way to track.

Also, certain races/classes could find this attractive in a land campaign. THe Marinelord PrC form Masters of the wIld comes to mind, water genasi, and a NPC sahugin ranger are a few.

I didn't want to make scent a prereq because that would exclude to many races from ever getting it. I don't think PC's get the option to take it. Right? I did, however, give a synergy bonus to the Wilderless lore check for having scent.

I never thought track was powerful (useful but not powerful) and thought this would be a logical step for an undersea campaign.

thanks for the comments though!

 

[Witness]

In Masters of the Wild, their is a feat that grants you the scent ability. I think the main requirement is that you be able to Wildshape into a Wolf so you pretty much have to be a Druid to take it. I suggest that you make a feat based on the Scent ability that has no Wildhape requirement and only allows one to use it underwater. In the real world, Sharks can scent blood in the water miles away from its source. I think an ability based on scent better reflects what could be and would be done in an underwater civilization.

Please describe your underwater kingdom. Do the people and creatures move about mostly on the ocean floor (like Sponge Bob Square Pants) or do they swim around like most underwater people in popular entertainment media. If its on the ocean floor, I see no problem with being able to track. If it is the other way, I don't think it would be possible without magic as tracking a creature through water should be almost as impossible as tracking acreature through the air. If you are intent on using your feat the way it is written, I suggest that you indicate somewhere that it is a Supernatural ability. Since Rangers already get magic abililities through their spell casting at later levels, that little change preserves their "flavor."

 

[Crothian]

Please describe your underwater kingdom.

If you look through Plots, House Rules, Rogues gallery, and Hamebrew creatures in the Creature Catolog forum you'll see a few threads called Shark world. This is our world and we are slowly developing it.

 

[Tonguez]

I don't think it would be possible without magic as tracking a creature through water should be almost as impossible as tracking acreature through the air.

However Objects moving through water create RIPPLEs and it is possible that a underwater ranger could train themselves to detect these ripples and similar disturbances in the water and thus be able to track them accordingly (making adjustments for currents etc).

As I stated elsewhere Micronesian and Polynesian Navigators (Sea Ranger?) were able to detect ocean swells and use these to determine direction. I'd assume an underwater ranger would be even more attuned to ocean swells and currents then a surface based 'sea ranger'

Sponge Bob Squarepants

Now this would be a cool addition to Shark World - what are the stats for Sponge-men (Bob being an Expert Burger flipper (pun intended))

 

[The Iron Mark]

Well in the ELH you need to make a Track DC of 80 to track creatures through the water, IIRC.

 

[Crothian]

Well in the ELH you need to make a Track DC of 80 to track creatures through the water, IIRC.

Ya, that was talked about that in a different thread. The difference here is that this feat is for underwater natives. It was felt that underwater creatures could learn (by selecting the feat) to track in their envirment. Otherwise tracking in the water would be next to impossible. Since this is being created for a world where underwater adventures are the norm, it was felt to make underwater tracking easier.

 

[Witness]

Originally Posted by Tonguez
As I stated elsewhere Micronesian and Polynesian Navigators (Sea Ranger?) were able to detect ocean swells and use these to determine direction. I'd assume an underwater ranger would be even more attuned to ocean swells and currents then a surface based 'sea ranger'

Tracking a single creature underwater is very different from determinig direction by currents and ocean swells. The scent ability is, I think a far better real world representation of "Tracking" a creature underwater.