Review
Unfortunately the real review option is not working right now, so I will post this here.
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Review of Silven Publishing’s ‘Tracking” by Josh Benton.
This is my first review.. so bear with me.
The author of this review did not receive a comp-copy.
I gave it two stars in the Enworld Store.
First Impressions: The sales pitch for this PDF looks great. Tracking has a lot of potential to be exploited in most game scenarios but is crippled by the mechanics and player knowledge. It is about time someone expanded on the Tracking skill. The prose is good, with very few typo’s or grammar problems. The artwork is..well, its there. I am not particular about artwork normally. Jaeks’ work is simplistic lines and my main complaint is the proportions of some of the faces. 34 pages total, minus 6 pages for the cover, credits, content and licensing.
In short: Lots of ground covered. The additional mechanics come with a slew of skill modifiers, presented twice for your consideration in a slew of tables. Detailed examples would have been very useful. The ideas presented felt only partially built and ill-connected to each other.
I doubt I will use this PDF in play, given the complexity of the situational modifiers.
In Detail:
Chapter 1: Covers what tracking is, or at least that’s what the title says. This single page covers such topics as typical lifestyles and touches on a new Stat called “Competence” that can affect how readily you are hired and how much money you can earn from tracking as a job. Notice I said “touches on”, there are no guidelines or examples of this.
Chapter 2: Woodland tracking. Regurgitates the SRD Survival modifiers and adds a slew more. Talks shortly on the topic of reading ‘signs’ using the Survival skill which provides a character information on the quarry such as how long ago they were here, how many in the party, and whether the Bard needs to change his socks. Okay, I added the bit about the Bard
Good concept, but no DC’s or examples. Voluntarily reading signs could actually be bad as if you fail a reading you may lose the trail!
A new skill, Profession (Hunter) makes its appearance here, albeit in the half baked appearance as the rest of the book. Upon rereading the text I see that you can use this skill to build natural traps. something not mentioned in the ‘new skill’ sidebar.
There is a section here that is interesting covering pursuits. A battle of opposed Survival checks are used to determine who catches who, with options like ambushing, or setting traps. A bit of weirdness.... the section states the pursued can stop and make a natural trap of no higher than CR 1. Then goes on to state they can spend more points to built a higher CR trap?
I like the additions of using animals as part of a search, altho the stacking of modifiers makes it a piece of cake to track anyone. With 5 trained wolves you get a -20 to the DC..
At least I think so. The modifiers here, as elsewhere, are a bit confusing.
Chapter 3: Urban Tracking: Provides a good system, with lots of modifiers, for tracking in an urban environment. A nice gem is the “Crowd Level Effects” which impact combat and pursuit based on how many people are in the area. There is also a mention of ‘Skirmishers’.. a mechanic to emulate the famous bar-room brawl.
The chapter rounds out with 2 pages worth of 100 urban encounter area window dressings. A combination of people and places that can be sprinkled into your scene.. and if fleshed out with mini-encounter ideas would have been a great addition to the PDF.
Chapter 4: Apparently not good enough for public consumption. Like the recent postings, chapter 4 is missing. But its not in the table of contents so life must be good.
Chapter 5: New Class!! Every PDF needs a new class!!
Actually this PDF would do better with expanding the skills and feats. The new class is an alternate fighter type {Full BAB, D10 HD, 6 skill points} with a really weird picture.
The Streetfighter class ability really should be two… scratch that. It should be one, ditching the attack and damage bonuses it gains, up to +6 at 11th level. The use of the crowd as a dodge bonus is a nice ability.
“City Sidewalks” is a cool ability, but really needs to be defined. ‘ignores penalties for moving through crowds, garbage strewn allies, and other urban impairments’ is well.. what is the penalty for moving through a garbage strewn alley?..and have you ever seen a garbage strewn ally?
The other abilities seem to be a hodge-podge, Evasion, Hide in Shadows.
Chapter 6: New Items.
Just like every PDF needs a new class…
Bloodletter arrows, nice idea, but since Hunting is abstracted this weapon, which makes the target slowly bleed out, making it easier to track, would be a better fit into the modifiers for tracking.
Portable Door.. talk about an illegal item! The city watch would be all over this stuff.
Chapter 7: New spells and Feats
..Just like…
The spells are all low level, I like ‘Hither and Yon’, a spell that creates a stampede of illusionary feet to create a confusing mess of trails leading away from the group. Unfortunately the spell does not mention how far those feet go before winking out of existence.
The Feats. Hmm. Footslogger, a good idea, should be written better. It removes all non-magical movement penalties. Meaning this feat allows you to charge through thick underbrush that is littered with logs. ‘Pack Mule’ is nice, altho I don’t see many characters taking it. And ‘Turtle’, a Fighter feat that reduces the armor check penalty for light or medium armor, seems out of place.
Chapter 9: Random encounters. A couple more tables of randomly encounters. Two pages worth. The urban table seems to be combinations of fumble results from tracking mixed in with some local flavor encounters.
This portion could very well have been built into something much better. As is, it’s a waste of space.
Appendixes: A regurgitation of the tables from the previous chapters, with two exceptions.
App III has common huntable animals and a GP value for the pelt, meat, and other byproducts.
App V details the Skirmish. Should have been done as the template it is meant to be. Some of the rules are before the sample Brawl, others within the Brawl stat-block, and still more afterwards.
Rounding it all up:
Tightening up, and ..quite honestly, finishing, this book would make it well worth the price.
It will be interesting to see Silven’s future expeditions into expanding niche skill sets.
What I would do if I were Josh:
> Use Profession (Hunter) for all the hunting, skinning, and profit making. Flesh this out to match current Profession rules
> Reduce the tracking modifiers while expanding the event. Split up the checks into stages of a pursuit like "Find the Trail", "Follow from afar", "Follow from close", and "Contact". This would allow for more detail added to the game without having to reference tables after table.
> Revisit random encounters. How they work, when they should be used. Instead of a package table of specific encounters something that works more on general situations.
> Drop the new class and convert to a more skills and feats approach.
Of course, I am not Josh and didn't spend a fair amount of effort penning this product.
Hopefully Silven will take this as the constructive criticism it is meant to be and get a better polished product on the next go around.
Typos:"Garbage strewn allies” should be “alleys”. Page 18 in City Sidewalks ability block
