Survival

Description

Ability Score Used:	Wisdom
Usable Untrained?	Yes
Armor Check Penalty Applies?	No

You are skilled at surviving in inclement conditions and settings. Massive storms in a dark forest, lava falls in the City of Brass, sandstorms scouring through cave systems, hard-living on the mean, muddy streets, whiteout conditions atop an iceberg, color storms in the Plane of Shadow, all these and many more are the sort of inclement conditions that Survival lets you deal with. This includes surviving in the wild, navigating in the wilderness with or without landmarks, and surviving in any hostile environments such as in hostile cityscapes, cave complexes, vast sewer systems, ancient buried temples, vast universes of crates, other Planes, etc. You also excel at following trails and tracks left by others in any an all such environments.

Several modifiers may apply to the Survival check, as given on Table: Survival DC Modifiers.

Common Uses

You can use the Survival skill to avoid getting lost or avoid natural hazards and you make a Survival check whenever the situation calls for one. The base DC for these sorts of Survival checks are DC15, which can be modified extensively by circumstances as below.
Action Required:	Varies. Using Survival to avoid hazards in combat is usually a free action combined with your normal activities for the round. Outside of combat, these rolls may be nigh-instant (don't step on that, it's poisonous) to hours-long (the sunward slope collects light darts).
DC of Check:	Base DC 10
Modifiers to Check	Familiar Territory: +5 to the roll. Your homeland: +10 to the roll. Inside a city, temperate forest, verdant jungle, or otherwise resource-rich territory: +5 to the roll Unusual or rare terrain: Atop a fresh lava flow, inside a titanic beast, the Unterwelt, etc. +10 to the DC Stormy Conditions: Rain and wind, rain and lightning, similar inclement conditions such as a dust storm, +5 to the DC Violent Conditions: A tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, riding an avalanche,etc. +10 to the DC Massive Hail: Massive hail or similar, rains of gravel, outbursts of clotted blood, spiders and toads, etc. +10 to the DC Unable to Sense: Being effectively Blind to a major sense, such as total darkness, whiteout, loud sound, overwhelming stench, etc. +5 to DC. On a different but similar plane of existence: The Ether, the Plane of Shadow, The First World, etc. +20 to the DC On a different but non-hostile plane of existence: The Plane of Air, Elysium, The Silver Fields, etc. +30 to the DC On a wildly different plane of Existence: The Azure Sea, The Plane of Earth, the Plane of Water, etc. +40 to the DC On a wildly different and hostile plane of existence: The Plane of Fire, the Nine Hells, the Abyss, etc +50 to the DC Very Bad Places: The Sunward Reaches, The Infinite Well, Temperest, Hellcore, Lavarna, etc. +60 to the DC The Edge of Reality: Apocolyptica, The Outer Dark, The Fount of Reality, The Nascent Seed, etc. +75 to the DC
Take 10? / Take 20?	No in-combat, yes out of combat.
Allows Assists?	Yes, up to five allies may assist you in making Survival checks
Results of Success	You retain your bearings and know where you are and how to get to where you want to go. You also successfully avoid harmful and deleterious effects from your surroundings and generally maintain your current state of well-being.
Consequences of Failure	You get lost and no longer know where you are or how to get to where you want to go. You fail to avoid harmful and deleterious effects from your surroundings and may suffer damage, maladies, and conditions due to your environment. In most cases, your state of well-being is degraded.
Retry Allowed?	To avoid getting lost or avoid natural hazards, you make a Survival check whenever the situation calls for one. Retries to avoid getting lost in a specific situation or to avoid a specific natural hazard are not allowed. You generally may attempt a Survival roll to re-orient yourself out of combat, usually after an hour as passed. To avoid harm, no.
Provokes AOO?	No

Action Required:
DC of Check:
Modifiers to Check
Take 10? / Take 20?
Allows Assists?
Results of Success
Consequences of Failure
Retry Allowed?
Provokes AOO?

Avoid Encounters

Survival can also be used to make it harder for random encounters to find you. The DC of this check is 10 + double the CR of the encounter. However, if you make the check by just double the CR, while the random encounter notices you, you are able to evade it by using the terrain to make chasing you more difficult. You are assumed to be moving at full speed (double moves) while performing this action. Taking actions which draw attention to yourself can inflict a circumstance penalty to the check to move unnoticed (at GM discretion, generally between -2 and -10), but not to the base evade pursuit check.

Modifiers

• Feat: If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. This bonus increases as you put more ranks in the skill.
• Familiar Territory: +5 to the roll.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try this Survival check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Action Required:
DC of Check:
Modifiers to Check
Take 10? / Take 20?
Allows Assists?
Results of Success
Consequences of Failure
Retry Allowed?
Provokes AOO?

Conceal Campsite

Survival can be used to make a campsite which is more difficult to discover by random encounters. You make a survival check when you set up your campsite, and any random encounters must make a perception check against this DC discover it. (This is an opposed check.) Setting up an obscured campsite takes an additional hour of preparation.

Modifiers

• Feat: If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. This bonus increases as you put more ranks in the skill.
• Familiar Territory: +5 to the roll.
• Your homeland: +10 to the roll.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try this Survival check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Action Required:
DC of Check:
Modifiers to Check
Take 10? / Take 20?
Allows Assists?
Results of Success
Consequences of Failure
Retry Allowed?
Provokes AOO?

Provoke Encounters

Survival can also be used to make it easier for random encounters to find you, if your party is feeling particularly pugnacious. The DC of this check is 10 + double the CR of the encounter you wish to provoke. You are assumed to be moving at full speed (double moves) while performing this action. Taking actions which draw attention to yourself can inflict a circumstance bonus to the check to provoke encounters (at GM discretion, generally between +2 and +10). If you fail by one to five, you fail to provoke an encounter at all. If you fail by five or more, you provoke an encounter which is one CR higher than the one you were looking for. Ooops....

Modifiers

• Feat: If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. This bonus increases as you put more ranks in the skill.
• Familiar Territory: +5 to the roll.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try this Survival check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Action Required:
DC of Check:
Modifiers to Check
Take 10? / Take 20?
Allows Assists?
Results of Success
Consequences of Failure
Retry Allowed?
Provokes AOO?

Follow Tracks

To find tracks or to follow them for 1 mile requires a successful Survival check. The DC of this check is the Maneuver Defense of the lowest CR creature in the group you are attempting to follow. Higher level creatures are just better and scarier in general, and if you can't follow them, you probably don't want to catch them, either. You must make another Survival check every time the tracks become difficult to follow, such as a change of terrain (soft ground to stone, for example) or if the pursued group makes deliberate moves to throw you off (such as wading into a river for a mile or two).

• If you are not trained in this skill, you can make untrained checks to find tracks, but you can follow them only if the DC for the task is 10 or lower.

• You can use the Perception skill to find a footprint or similar sign of a creature's passage using the same DCs, but you can't use Perception to follow tracks, even if someone else has already found them.

• You move at half your normal speed while following tracks (or at your normal speed with a -5 penalty on the check, or at up to twice your normal speed with a -20 penalty on the check). The DC depends on the surface and the prevailing conditions, as given on table.

• Action A Survival check made to find tracks is at least a full-round action, and it may take even longer.

• Retry? For finding tracks, you can retry a failed check after 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes (indoors) of searching.

Modifiers

• Class: A ranger gains a bonus on Survival checks when using this skill to find or follow the tracks of a quarry.
• Feats: If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in Survival, the bonus increases to +4.
• Size and Number of Creatures being Tracked: See Table: Modifiers to Survival Checks when Tracking below.
• Terrain:
  • Very Soft Ground: Any surface (fresh snow, thick dust, wet mud) that holds deep, clear impressions of footprints.
  • Soft Ground: Any surface soft enough to yield to pressure, but firmer than wet mud or fresh snow, in which a creature leaves frequent but shallow footprints.
  • Firm Ground: Most normal outdoor surfaces (such as lawns, fields, woods, and the like) or exceptionally soft or dirty indoor surfaces (thick rugs and very dirty or dusty floors). The creature might leave some traces (broken branches or tufts of hair), but it leaves only occasional or partial footprints.
  • Hard Ground: Any surface that doesn't hold footprints at all, such as bare rock or an indoor floor. Most streambeds fall into this category, since any footprints left behind are obscured or washed away. The creature leaves only traces (scuff marks or displaced pebbles).
• Familiar Territory: +5 to the roll.
• Your homeland: +10 to the roll.
• Inside a city, temperate forest, verdant jungle, or otherwise 'dense' territory: +5 to the roll
• Unusual or rare terrain: Atop a fresh lava flow, inside a titanic beast, the Unterwelt, etc. +10 to the DC
• Stormy Conditions: Rain and wind, rain and lightning, similar inclement conditions such as a dust storm, +5 to the DC
• Violent Conditions: A tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, riding an avalanche,etc. +10 to the DC
• Massive Hail: Massive hail or similar, rains of gravel, outbursts of clotted blood, spiders and toads, etc. +10 to the DC
• Unable to Sense: Being effectively Blind to a major sense, such as total darkness, whiteout, loud sound, overwhelming stench, etc. +5 to DC.

Table: Base Survival DC's to Track by Ground Condition

Surface	Survival DC Modifier
Very soft ground	-5
Soft ground	-2
Firm ground	0
Hard ground	+5

Table: Modifiers to Survival Checks when Tracking

Condition	Survival DC Modifier
Each creature above 1 in the group being tracked	-1 to DC
Size of creature or creatures being tracked:1
Fine	+8 to DC
Diminutive	+4 to DC
Tiny	+2 to DC
Small	+1 to DC
Medium	+0 to DC
Large	-1 to DC
Huge	-2 to DC
Gargantuan	-4 to DC
Colossal	-8 to DC
Titanic	-12 to DC
Titanic Plus	-4 more to DC for each Plus
Every 24 hours since the trail was made	+1
Every hour of rain or equivalent since the trail was made	+1
Fresh snow, dust storm, etc, since the trail was made	+5
Poor visibility:2
Overcast or moonless night	+3
Moonlight	+2
Fog, dust, whiteout, colors, etc	+3
Tracked party hides trail (and moves at half speed)	+5

• ¹ For a group of mixed sizes, apply only the modifier for the largest size category.
• ² Apply only the largest modifier from this category.

Action Required:
DC of Check:
Modifiers to Check
Take 10? / Take 20?
Allows Assists?
Results of Success
Consequences of Failure
Retry Allowed?
Provokes AOO?

Survive in the Wilderness

You can keep yourself and others safe and fed in the wild. See Table: Survival DCs by Task for DCs for various tasks that require Survival checks.

• Action Varies. A single Survival check may represent activity over the course of hours or a full day.

• Retry? For getting along in the wild or for gaining the Fortitude save bonus noted in Table: Survival DCs by Task, you make a Survival check once every 24 hours. The result of that check applies until the next check is made.

Table: Survival DCs by Task

Survival DC	Task
10	Get along in the wild. Move up to half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10.
15	Gain a +2 bonus on all Fortitude saves against severe weather while moving up to half your overland speed, or gain a +4 bonus if you remain stationary. You may grant the same bonus to one other character for every 1 point by which your Survival check result exceeds 15.
15	Keep from getting lost or avoid natural hazards, such as quicksand.
15	Predict the weather up to 24 hours in advance. For every 5 points by which your Survival check result exceeds 15, you can predict the weather for one additional day in advance.

Modifiers

• Training: If you are trained in Survival, you can automatically determine where true north lies in relation to yourself.
• Feat: If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. This bonus increases as you put more ranks in the skill.
• Familiar Territory: +5 to the roll.
• Your homeland: +10 to the roll.
• Inside a city, temperate forest, verdant jungle, or otherwise resource-rich territory: +5 to the roll
• Unusual or rare terrain: Atop a fresh lava flow, inside a titanic beast, the Unterwelt, etc. +10 to the DC
• Stormy Conditions: Rain and wind, rain and lightning, similar inclement conditions such as a dust storm, +5 to the DC
• Violent Conditions: A tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, riding an avalanche,etc. +10 to the DC
• Massive Hail: Massive hail or similar, rains of gravel, outbursts of clotted blood, spiders and toads, etc. +10 to the DC
• Unable to Sense: Being effectively Blind to a major sense, such as total darkness, whiteout, loud sound, overwhelming stench, etc. +5 to DC.
• On a different but similar plane of existence: The Ether, the Plane of Shadow, The First World, etc. +20 to the DC
• On a different but non-hostile plane of existence: The Plane of Air, Elysium, The Silver Fields, etc. +30 to the DC
• On a wildly different plane of Existence: The Azure Sea, The Plane of Earth, the Plane of Water, etc. +40 to the DC
• On a wildly different and hostile plane of existence: The Plane of Fire, the Nine Hells, the Abyss, etc +50 to the DC
• Very Bad Places: The Sunward Reaches, The Infinite Well, Temperest, Hellcore, Lavarna, etc. +60 to the DC
• The Edge of Reality: Apocolyptica, The Outer Dark, The Fount of Reality, The Nascent Seed, etc. +75 to the DC

Epic Skill Uses

Note: All uses below require a minimum of 21 Ranks in the skill to use.

Action Required:
DC of Check:
Modifiers to Check
Take 10? / Take 20?
Allows Assists?
Results of Success
Consequences of Failure
Retry Allowed?
Provokes AOO?

Trailblazer

You intuitively know how to get to any non-unique destination you can uniquely visualize. This can take you to the nearest spring, for example, but not to the villain's bedroom. The nearest spring is not a unique location, because there are lots of springs in the world, but the villains bedroom is unique, because there's only one villain.

The base DC of this check is a DC 15 Survival check. This is extensively modified, as below:

Modifiers

• Feat: If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. This bonus increases as you put more ranks in the skill.
• Familiar Destination: +5 to the roll.
• Very Familiar Destination: +10 to the roll.
• Inside a city, temperate forest, verdant jungle, or otherwise resource-rich territory: +5 to the roll
• Never seen but carefully studied destination: +5 to the DC
• Casually seen or somewhat known of destination: +10 to the DC
• Seen once or scryed destination: +15 to DC
• Only described to you destination: +20 to DC
• Never seen, no available information, destination: +30 to DC
• Unusual or rare terrain: Atop a fresh lava flow, inside a titanic beast, the Unterwelt, etc. +10 to the DC
• Stormy Conditions: Rain and wind, rain and lightning, similar inclement conditions such as a dust storm, +5 to the DC
• Violent Conditions: A tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, riding an avalanche,etc. +10 to the DC
• Massive Hail: Massive hail or similar, rains of gravel, outbursts of clotted blood, spiders and toads, etc. +10 to the DC
• Unable to Sense: Being effectively Blind to a major sense, such as total darkness, whiteout, loud sound, overwhelming stench, etc. +5 to DC.
• On a different but similar plane of existence: The Ether, the Plane of Shadow, The First World, etc. +20 to the DC
• On a different but non-hostile plane of existence: The Plane of Air, Elysium, The Silver Fields, etc. +30 to the DC
• On a wildly different plane of Existence: The Azure Sea, The Plane of Earth, the Plane of Water, etc. +40 to the DC
• On a wildly different and hostile plane of existence: The Plane of Fire, the Nine Hells, the Abyss, etc +50 to the DC
• Very Bad Places: The Sunward Reaches, The Infinite Well, Temperest, Hellcore, Lavarna, etc. +60 to the DC
• The Edge of Reality: Apocolyptica, The Outer Dark, The Fount of Reality, The Nascent Seed, etc. +75 to the DC

Action Required:
DC of Check:
Modifiers to Check
Take 10? / Take 20?
Allows Assists?
Results of Success
Consequences of Failure
Retry Allowed?
Provokes AOO?

Forage at full speed

(DC 20, +2 per additional person you want to feed). Allows full speed overland travel, while hunting and foraging.

Modifiers

• Feat: If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. This bonus increases as you put more ranks in the skill.
• Familiar Territory: +5 to the roll.
• Your homeland: +10 to the roll.
• Inside a city, temperate forest, verdant jungle, or otherwise resource-rich territory: +5 to the roll
• Unusual or rare terrain: Atop a fresh lava flow, inside a titanic beast, the Unterwelt, etc. +10 to the DC
• Stormy Conditions: Rain and wind, rain and lightning, similar inclement conditions such as a dust storm, +5 to the DC
• Violent Conditions: A tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, riding an avalanche,etc. +10 to the DC
• Massive Hail: Massive hail or similar, rains of gravel, outbursts of clotted blood, spiders and toads, etc. +10 to the DC
• Unable to Sense: Being effectively Blind to a major sense, such as total darkness, whiteout, loud sound, overwhelming stench, etc. +5 to DC.
• On a different but similar plane of existence: The Ether, the Plane of Shadow, The First World, etc. +20 to the DC
• On a different but non-hostile plane of existence: The Plane of Air, Elysium, The Silver Fields, etc. +30 to the DC
• On a wildly different plane of Existence: The Azure Sea, The Plane of Earth, the Plane of Water, etc. +40 to the DC
• On a wildly different and hostile plane of existence: The Plane of Fire, the Nine Hells, the Abyss, etc +50 to the DC
• Very Bad Places: The Sunward Reaches, The Infinite Well, Temperest, Hellcore, Lavarna, etc. +60 to the DC
• The Edge of Reality: Apocolyptica, The Outer Dark, The Fount of Reality, The Nascent Seed, etc. +75 to the DC