Tracking over rock. Is it too easy?

[MerakSpielman]

How about the tracking scenes in The Princess Bride? Done kind of silly-y, but still fun:

The Prince: There was a mighty duel. It ranged all over. They were both masters...

The Prince: Someone has beaten a giant...

 

[Tom McCafferty]

Thanks for the contributions everyone.

It has been enlightening to read what you have to say on the subject.

Having read the arguments from those who feel a skill should not be "nerfed" and those who feel a DC of 20 as a base is too unrealistic, I think I will plough a middle furrow and compromise between the two.

Modifiers definately need to be agreed because those in the PHB and DMG mainly refer to outdoor tracking. I liked the ideas suggested about the team of pherensic scientists tracking down the trail over a long period and the native trackers with their practiced competition.

So I will make the length of time it takes to track indoors dependent on the difficulty of the modified DC. This DC will have additions for cleanliness and frequency of use.

I honestly believe first level rangers should not be able to track with no error someone who has just walked over a stone floor, so I think raising the DC to 25 would not be unreasonable. (Many game mechanic players just take one level of ranger just to get track.)

There should be rechecks at crossroads and doorways, and I am even tempted to say every round under such circumstances.

 

[Diirk]

I guess that all depends, you could take a 20 and automatically succeed. Sure it will take some time, but you really have no chance of failure. But even if you rule that it is impossible to take 20 (debateable, but maybe I just missed something somewhere about that, not important) Then anyone who has taken the feat and has some ranks in survival can track just about anyone just about anywhere from level 1 on.

You couldn't take 20 because a failure in tracking gives you no option for retry until 10 minutes (indoors) or 1 hour (outdoors) later. Well I guess you could take 20, but it would take 3 and a bit hours (indoors) or 20 hours (outdoors) - taking 20 takes 20x as long and assumes many failures before a success.

Following someone is relatively easy, sure. Most of the difficulty in tracking, is when the party you're chasing after is trying to hide their trail... that makes it +5 harder right there, plus they (I think, I can't remember) get opposed survival rolls. However none of that applies as undoutedly the BBEG was in far too much of a hurry.

Its the same sort of thing with a lot of skills, DCs aren't listed for much over 20... but there are opposed rolls. Tracking is really designed to be a long terms means of following someone, using it to find out which door someone went through SHOULD be a piece of cake.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

They didn't portray it as a psychic ability at all. They showed Aragorn bending down and picking up the hobbits belt, then studying. Then they show him finding foot prints and indentations in the ground. And they show him following those marks towards Fangorn forest. To say it seemed like a psychic ability would mean he was just standing there concentrating and envisioning what happened.

If it's the split screen thing that confused you, they only showed that to show Aragorn was right. He didn't actually see or picture the hobbits escaping, they just showed that for the audiences benefit.

what a time for them to have gotten rid of the eyerolling emoticon....

I was not confused about anything, dear, I understood the scene and the split screen, and I didn't like what he was saying. It wasn't just "look, hobbit tracks goign this way" he recreated things happening at the same time which could just as easily have been juxtaposed tracks, laid down minutes apart. In fact, the whole point of what I responded to was the fact that he hadn't just seen that they left the area, but described the course of the battle. I found it unrealistic. Unrealistic enough that I made a psychic ability comment.

On the other hand,

The Prince: There was a mighty duel. It ranged all over. They were both masters...

The Prince: Someone has beaten a giant...

contained just enough informations to show that he was right while being completely realistic. The twin tracks moved all over, on dusty ground, and in many areas would have shown matched long scuffs as two accomplished fighters did their silly little scooting back and forth of fencing. The giant prints, giant kneeprints and drool marks showed easily that two men of very different sizes fought and the smaller one won.

A similar scene was used in the Stargate episode where they first introduced the ancients. Looking at some tracks, Bratac didn't just follow them but saw that most were serpent gaurds, one was a woman, and the woman was being taken against her will.

of course none of those scenes took place in an area which was churned over by scores of horses and subsequently had a lot of big men dragging orc corpses across it get them into the pyre. but more to the point, conveying information about the tracks rather than just following them is one of the uses that the PHB doesn't give but that I use liberally in my games when I have a tracker, while the effect of unrelated traffic before or after the tracks were made is a circumstance ignored by the PHB but which I enforce. Somehow I don't feel the need, as some have suggested, to 'warn the players beforehand that I'm nerfing the ability'.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Saeviomagy]

I guess that all depends, you could take a 20 and automatically succeed. Sure it will take some time, but you really have no chance of failure. But even if you rule that it is impossible to take 20 (debateable, but maybe I just missed something somewhere about that, not important) Then anyone who has taken the feat and has some ranks in survival can track just about anyone just about anywhere from level 1 on.

As long as they don't care that they're moving 1/40th their speed.

Level 1, 4 ranks, +2 from wisdom, track feat. +6 to your check, retry outdoors every hour or indoors every 10 minutes. You cannot fail at this check given enough time. Each time you have a 35% chance of succeeding. At level 2 you get +5 ranks, +4 synergy, +2 wisdom, maybe even a +1 item. That is a +12, you could track a flea across that stone floor 4 days after it made its way across.

Retry every 10 minutes? So it's taking 200 minutes to do one track roll, or 400 minutes to move your normal movement.
7 hours to go 30 feet.
How on earth is this a problem?

They really should toss in a list of modifiers onto this skill. It desperately, desperately needs them. After all, according to the last poster it is folly for us to think about such things, so maybe they could get people with actual skill in this area to help a little I would have no problem with an avid d&d gamer who knows so many ins and outs of tracking that they would be considered godly to give a few hints here and there, anyone know of anyone like that?

I mean come on, there isnt even a modifier for, 'the area you are tracking over was destroyed by ____' or 'for every X number of people who have trampled all over the tracks you get this penalty'

Yeah there is - you need to make more track rolls.

Thinking of the building I am currently in, if someone walked through the building in a wandering course and 10 minutes later I had a full survice forensics team speed the area then there is a very small, but possible, possibility of being able to track at lease some of their movements. By a lot of very technical tricks and incredibly dedicated people. That sort of skill would be represented by many, many ranks, good stats, and synergy. Plus some competence modifiers.

Because we all know the average forensic team is 10th level.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I am with Hong.

I think of +10 skill as the benchmark. It is about the skill level you would expect from an extremely skilled, well trained specialized professional we might meet in the Real World. +10 = 6 (ranks from level 3 character maxxed out) + 3 (Skill Focus/special training) + 1 (stat mod for a natural aptitude).

20 is the appropriate DC for something that clearly could be done but is "almost impossible" for a normal person. A normal person could conceivably luck upon one or two telltale footprints or scuffmarks on hard ground of a hastily fleeing foe at an intersection. In D&D that translates into rolling a natural 20.

When you have a +10 skill you can do "almost impossible" things consistently under good conditions (Take 10) or over half the time under real pressure.

Skills higher than +10 are "heroic" or "epic" in the common sense of the word. People with that level of skill can consistently accomplish some tasks that are absolutely impossible for normal people, or do what we consider nearly impossible flawlessly without hesistation.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I am not sure if you are trying to be insulting or not by putting words in my mouth, but I do wish you would avoid it if possible.

Out of the realm of possibilities of level one characters is NOT, I repeat NOT, the same as making it impossible in any way, shape, or form. Those 10th level characters have some skill bonus (probably up to around +20), changing the dc to be 35 (dc 20 base, plus whatever modifiers are there. well traveled, lack of blah, other blahs, etc) is appropriate, not nerfing.

Yeah it is. It's making it impossible for level one characters. What are you, incapable of speaking english?

Furthermore, changing it so you need a roll of 15, when you've got a skill of 20 is basically saying "you cannot track at full speed, you cannot track in the dark, or in unusually difficult conditions, or ..."

You basically remove the worth of the skill, and with little to no good reason beyond "wah wah wah, I hate track".

In my opinion, that's nerfing.

Again, who cares about the bbeg? I have asked this several times, look at it from the pc's point of view. If they were trying to escape in such a way what would they expect? Would they expect to not have any chance what-so-ever? or not? They do happen to have skills too.. sometimes the badguys have skills! gasp! or even a contigency plan. If there are 30 doors and 7 of them lead outside more or less guessing isnt helpful.

If they're against a 10th level ranger, I'd expect some serious efforts to hide their trail would be in order, up to and including spells which can totally defeat said tracker (which, IMHO sucks hard).

Finally, I would never, ever want my PCs just to run away from a BBEG, and have him, although determined, never ever catch them. What's the point??

The spell references were unnecissary because they do not address the issue at all.

Yeah they do. They provide the metric for what is and isn't possible at that level.

If track is in every way inferior to spells, then why bother with track?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I honestly believe first level rangers should not be able to track with no error someone who has just walked over a stone floor, so I think raising the DC to 25 would not be unreasonable. (Many game mechanic players just take one level of ranger just to get track.)

There should be rechecks at crossroads and doorways, and I am even tempted to say every round under such circumstances.

No disrespect intended, but if you are going to put one skill under the microscope, perhaps you should be consistent and do it for every skill?

Let's try these on for size: "I do not think that someone with a few ranks in Spot should be able to automatically notice an invisible opponent present." "I do not think that someone with 10 ranks in Tumble and a good Dex should automatically be able to evade the AoOs of orcs." "I do not think that someone with 15 ranks in Diplomacy should automatically be able to make a good impression on an angry mob."

In the real world, there are people (and creatures using scent) who can track flawlessly under difficult conditions. The only variables in the equation are how much time it takes, and whether the tracker is closing in or the quarry is extending the lead. All that means is the tracker sometimes can Take 10 and sometimes has to Take 20 (although in the particular case of tracking, Take 20 is a virtual impossibility as written).

 

[Scion]

Retry every 10 minutes? So it's taking 200 minutes to do one track roll, or 400 minutes to move your normal movement.
7 hours to go 30 feet.
How on earth is this a problem?

umm.. +12 at level 2, easy. Take 10, get a 22, never fail. That sounds like finding anyone, anywhere so long as they are not hiding their trail. If they are then just need a couple of aid another or something similar ::shrugs::

Point is, it should be harder than dc 20 because there are other modifiers that accrue. This would in effect cause lower level character to be unable to do it.

Yeah there is - you need to make more track rolls.

When? Against a guy walking or hurrying through a stone corridor 2 days ago the character can track him without difficulty. No rerolls. No rolls even.

Because we all know the average forensic team is 10th level.

And this means what exactly? Are you trying to say that 10th level characters cannot have the same profieciency as a forensic team for tracking? Well since I highly doubt they could determine the exact path with 100% accuracy in most cases then the 10th level party shouldnt either. Thanks for saying my point is correct, cool.

 

[Scion]

Skills higher than +10 are "heroic" or "epic" in the common sense of the word. People with that level of skill can consistently accomplish some tasks that are absolutely impossible for normal people, or do what we consider nearly impossible flawlessly without hesistation.

Of course a level one noob can succeed pretty easily. 3 checks (20 minutes roughly, the first check and then 10 minutes between the next two) and he is up to 75% chance of success almost. First level. What was this heroic or epic stuff? This guy just walked out of training, is practically made of green.

3rd level is so far from epic levels it isnt even funny. These sort of characters have been useing their abilities, but are exceedingly far from their potential.

Some things should be very hard. This is not to say that 'it should always be hard for any character', nor is that what I have said in previous posts.

If the 1st level noob who barely succeeds at not drooling on himself can track just about anyone just about anywhere there is something wrong. If people here cannot see the problem.. well.. I dont know.

If the guy is covering his tracks then you need to be 2nd level in order to be able to beat it with regularity. Oh wow.. we are hitting the power levels now.


I would have to say that something here is seriously wrong. Even under the hardest conditions characters with just a few levels and some minor amounts of planning cannot fail. Again, there is something wrong.

DC 20 is not outside the realm of possibilities as has been shown repeatidly. Even characters with nearly no training have a chance. This demonstrates a problem.

Same sort of thing as I said earlier. It is the same as the fighter vs an opponent, all opponents AC's are naked:10, leather:15, and metal:20. No other modifiers. This is effectively exactly the same as what is going on here. Now do you see the problem?