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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 1356995" data-attributes="member: 707">All right, fair enough.I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with this paragraph.  My point was that to gain a high level of tracking ability, you're sacrificing your ability to be proficient in other abilities, such as Listen, Balance, Tumble, or Knowledge (Nature).  Even more so if you're going to pick up Search and Knowledge (Dungeoneering).Saying "any good tracker would have search anyway" is flawed.  Opportunity cost is opportunity cost, even if there are other compelling reasons to take a particular skill.  You are still paying for your tracking proficiency.Incidentally, now that tracking revolves around Survival instead of Search, I don't think it's entirely necessary that a ranger or tracker take search.  There are a lot of nice skills on the ranger skill list...Tracking does not depend on Search in 3.5.  They're completely independent.  The only connection would be trying to find a secret door the villain fled through, if it came to that.  Basically, you no longer need Search to be a good tracker.  So a ranger could very easily ignore search (leaving that for the rogue to pick up for finding traps,) and take other skills instead.  Unless he wants that synergy bonus, at which point he sacrifices 5 ranks for +2 to his Survival while tracking.Sure.Let's assume the BBEG rushes down a stone corridor, through a door (it closes behind him).  Then two minutes later the PCs enter the corridor looking for the BBEG's trail.Base DC 20 (indoor floor).+1 (poor lighting: there are only a couple of flickering torches in the room).Final DC: 21.  Or 20 if there's plenty of light, but I tend to think of castles as being poorly lit.If the BBEG takes a minute to try and obscure his trail, +5 to the DC.  If time passes, +1 per day the trail gets old.Pretty much I'd rule it by the book.  Also note that every time the trail becomes difficult to follow, the tracker has to make a new check.Indoors, I'd rule that the tracks become difficult to follow each time the prey enters a new room with more than one door.  So for each door closed, that's another chance to blow the Tracking check and lose the trail.  And once you've lost the trail, that's another 10 minutes (indoors) before you can retry.Now, as far as circumstance modifiers I might use?If the BBEG runs through a hall where several guards are practicing their swordfighting: +2 (more scuffling over the stone means a harder check.)If the BBEG runs through a hall where there is a Grand Ball taking place, rushes through the dancers, and slips out a side entrance: +10 (if he's close on the BBEG's heels, the tracker might note the disturbance in the dancers, see a bit of spilt wine where one dancer was jostled, etc. but it's going to be an extremely tough check.)If the BBEG runs across a floor recently mopped by a cleaning wench: -2 (the wet stone would hold tracks better.)If the BBEG runs through a dusty room that hasn't been used in decades: -10 (the inch-thick dust...or absence thereof...would be a dead giveaway.)</blockquote>

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