Tracking (sage ability)
Tracking is an amateur-status sage ability in the study of Scouting.
This page is placeholder for rules that need to be written on this subject. I have never had an effective, practical and reliable rule for this, not for lack of trying. The skill is so non-specific (being affected by a wide variety of imprecise conditions such as weather, size of creature being tracked, amount of time having passed, etc) that it seems to demand a complicated system for determining whether or not the ranger can effectively follow the created trail — and complicated systems always fail to account for something or produce irrational results. The rules below are a disappointing, simplistic method meant to take the place of actual rules that would be nice to have, if they existed.
The practice of observing, stalking and following a trail left by a creature or animal, in order to ultimately locate them or their lair.
To determine the base level of success, treat the tracked creature's intelligence as an ability check that is modified by the ranger's level. For example, if we presume that a 1st level ranger is attempting to follow the trail of an elf with an 11 intelligence, the elf needs to roll a 10 or less in order to avoid being tracked (even if the elf isn't actually aware of the tracker). If the elf succeeds in
Base chance of success is determined by an intelligence check made by the creature being trailed (called the 'target'). In effect, if the target succeeds in the check, the creature is 'smarter' than the ranger.
This roll is then modified as follows:
- for every level of the ranger, reduce the target's intelligence by 1 point.
- for every hour since the target left the trail the ranger is following, increase the target's intelligence by 1 point.
- if the target is small in size, increase the target's intelligence by 4.
- if the target is large in size, reduce the target's intelligence by 4.
I haven't tested this system yet; if it seems to work, I may create modifiers for rain and other factors not included in the above.
