Survival
Survival (Wis)
You are skilled at surviving in the wild and at navigating in the wilderness. You also excel at following trails and tracks left by others.
Several modifiers may apply to the Survival check, as given on Table: Survival DC Modifiers.
Common Uses
Avoid Getting Lost/Avoid Natural Hazards
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.
- Retry? 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. For finding tracks, you can retry a failed check after 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes (indoors) of searching.
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 -20), but not to the base evade pursuit check.
This ability can also 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.
- Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try this Survival check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.
Follow Tracks
To find tracks or to follow them for 1 mile requires a successful Survival check. You must make another Survival check every time the tracks become difficult to follow. 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. Alternatively, 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.
Tracking Modifiers
- Class A ranger gains a bonus on Survival checks when using this skill to find or follow the tracks of a favored enemy.
- 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).
Table: Base Survival DC's to Track by Ground Condition
| Surface | Survival DC |
|---|---|
| Very soft ground | 5 |
| Soft ground | 10 |
| Firm ground | 15 |
| Hard ground | 20 |
Table: Modifiers to Survival Checks when Tracking
| Condition | Survival DC Modifier |
|---|---|
| Every three creatures in the group being tracked | -1 |
| Size of creature or creatures being tracked:1 | |
| Fine | +8 |
| Diminutive | +4 |
| Tiny | +2 |
| Small | +1 |
| Medium | +0 |
| Large | -1 |
| Huge | -2 |
| Gargantuan | -4 |
| Colossal | -8 |
| Every 24 hours since the trail was made | +1 |
| Every hour of rain since the trail was made | +1 |
| Fresh snow since the trail was made | +10 |
| Poor visibility:2 | |
| Overcast or moonless night | +6 |
| Moonlight | +3 |
| Fog or precipitation | +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.
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.
Epic Skill Uses
Note: All uses below require a minimum of 21 Ranks in the skill to use.
Trailblazer
You intuitively know how to get to any destination. (DC 40 if very familiar with destination; DC 60 if you've studied the destination carefully; DC 80 if you've seen the destination casually at some point; DC 100 you've viewed the location once, or scryed it; DC 120 if you only have a description of the destination; DC +30 more if the destination isn't on the same plane).
Forage at full speed
(DC 50 +2 per additional person you want to feed). Allows full speed overland travel, while hunting and foraging.