Tracking

   Thanks to his keen senses and thorough understanding of animal behavior, the ranger is an expert tracker. He reads an impression in the mud or a bend in a twig like words on a printed page. He can determine the identity of his quarry and how fast it was traveling by the depth of a footprint. He can tell the size of a slug from the trail of slime it left behind. He can track an orc in the darkest forest, a rabbit though the thickest jungle, an escaped convict across the most desolate mountain range.

  A ranger's tracking skills apply to characters as well as creatures, and to underground and interior settings as well as all types of outdoor environments. His tracking skills are inherent; that is, he receives the Tracking nonweapon proficiency automatically at the outset of his career, expending no proficiency slots.

Pre-Conditions

   A ranger can't just track anything, any time he likes. In order to track a particular quarry, the following conditions must be met:

   1. The quarry must be capable of leaving a physical trail. Elements of a trail may include footprints, bent twigs, waste matter, or any other physical signs that a ranger can follow. Certain categories of creatures--including swimming and flying creatures, small insects, and ghosts and other non-corporeal creatures--seldom leave physical evidence of their passage. In most cases, such creatures can't be tracked. However, since tracking involves all the senses, not just sight, it's possible that the aroma of burning metal might linger after the passage of a particular spectre, or a ghost might reveal itself by its eerie voice, heard faintly in the distance. Still, only the most skilled rangers are capable of following trails devoid of physical evidence, and the DM should allow such tracking in only the rarest of circumstances.

   2. The ranger must be able to find the trail. If the trail is outdoors, the ranger must actually see the creature (he spots a fox darting into the brush), notice obvious signs of his quarry (such as footprints or droppings), or hear reliable reports of the quarry's whereabouts ("Looking for that old silver dragon? She likes to drink from the pond by the twin palm trees."). If the trail is indoors, the ranger himself must have seen the quarry within the last 30 minutes, and begin tracking from the location where the quarry was last seen. As always, the DM is the final arbiter as to whether the ranger has enough evidence to enable him to track the quarry.

Tracking Check

If the above conditions are met, the ranger can attempt to trail the quarry by making a Tracking check, using his Tracking score. The base Tracking score is equivalent to the ranger's Wisdom. Consult Tables 15-17 for other relevant modifiers; these tables may be used in place of Table 39 in Chapter 5 of the Player's Handbook. In non-natural surroundings, the Tracking chances are halved.

Table 15: Terrain Tracking Modifiers

Terrain (use only one)	Modifier
Fresh snow (clearly outlined footprints)	+6
Soft or muddy ground, loose dirt floor
(good impressions of prints, but not
as defined as fresh snow)	+4
Thick brush, dense jungle (broken branches,
crushed weeds)	+3
Forests, fields, dusty indoor area
(occasional marks of passage)	+2
Normal ground, wood floor, plains with sparse
vegetation (infrequent marks of passage)	0
Desert, dry sand	-2
Swamp (spongy surface but little mud
for prints, much vegetation)	-5
Rocky terrain, solid ice, stone floors,
shallow water (prohibits all but the
most minute signs of passage)	-10
Table 16: Illumination Modifiers
Illumination (use only one)	Modifier
Good illumination, sunny day;
continual light or equivalent indoors	0
Twilight, light fog, snow, single torch in
dark interior of building	-3
Night with full moon, day with moderate fog	-6
Overcast night with no moon, dense fog,
blizzard, blowing sand	-10
Table 17: Special Tracking Modifiers
Situation (use all applicable)	Modifier
Every two creatures in group being tracked	+1
Every three experience levels (round
down) of the ranger	+1
Each additional tracker assisting ranger
(use the score of the best tracker)*	+1
Animal follower assists in tracking**	+1
Trail is in specialized ranger's primary terrain	+2
Every 12 hours since trail was made	-1
Every hour of rain, snow, or sleet since
trail was made	-5
Creature being tracked attempts to hide trail
(covering footprints, detouring into stream,
passing through secret door)	-5
Specialized ranger being tracked in his
primary terrain attempts to hide trail	-2

* Total bonus for assistance is limited to ranger level bonus; i.e. +1 per 3 levels.

** See Chapter 3. The animal follower does not count as an additional tracker for purposes of the previous bonus.

If the modified Tracking score is zero or less, the ranger is unable to track the quarry in question.

  If the modified Tracking score is greater than zero, the ranger makes a Tracking check by rolling 1d20. If the roll exceeds the ranger's tracking score, or if the roll is 20, the check fails and no trail has been found, If the roll less than or equal to the ranger's Tracking score, the ranger has found the quarry's trail and may begin to follow it.

Interrupted Tracking

   Once a ranger has found the trail, he may track the quarry indefinitely until any of the following situations occur:

   The ranger moves too fast. The ranger must move slower than his normal movement rate in order to stay alert for signs of the trail. His movement rate limit depends on his modified Tracking score, as shown in Table 18.

Table 18: Movement While Tracking

Modified Tracking Score	Movement Rate Limit
1-6	1/4 normal
7-14	1/2 normal
15+	3/4 normal

   Should the ranger exceed the movement rate in Table 18--for instance, if a monster abruptly ambushes him and he's forced to run--he loses the trail.

   The modifiers change. If the trail leads to a new terrain type, night falls, or any other change occurs that requires a new Tracking modifier (as described in Tables 15-17), the ranger loses the trail. The new conditions may dictate the use of modifiers reflecting a trail that is easier to follow, not more difficult, and DMs should consider applying a bonus in such conditions. Nevertheless, the new roll must still be made.

   A second track crosses the first. Crossed trails mingle the physical signs of each, making tracking difficult. The DM determines if such a situation exists. If so, the ranger's efforts fail. (If the ranger wishes to continue tracking, as described below, he must decide which of the crossed trails to follow.)

   The ranger becomes distracted. An attack from a monster may interrupt the ranger's progress. Further, the ranger may intentionally choose to stop if he needs to rest, eat, or hold a discussion with his companions. Any of these interruptions qualifies as a distraction.

   When any of these conditions occur, the ranger loses the trail. To continue tracking the quarry, he must spend at least an hour exploring the immediate area for new signs of the trail. After an hour of searching, he makes a new Tracking check, based on a Tracking score calculated from the new conditions (if the illumination has changed from daylight to twilight, he must now modify his Tracking score by -3). If other trackers assist the ranger, modify the tracking check by +1 per assistant; add the bonus to the Tracking score of the most adept tracker. This bonus is limited to +1 per 3 levels of the ranger (round up). If the check succeeds, the ranger may continue following the trail as before. If he fails the check, he has lost the trail for good.

Identification Check

By noticing details that other characters might overlook--the depth of a footprint, the thickness of a snapped branch, a hair caught in barbed bush--the ranger can deduce a sizeable amount of information about his quarry. The more skilled the ranger, the more information he deduces.

   Whenever a ranger makes a successful Tracking check, he may then attempt an Identification check. The Identification check uses the same score and modifiers as the Tracking check; essentially, the Identification check is a second Tracking check.

   If the Identification check is successful, the DM provides the ranger with some information about the quarry based on the guidelines in Table 19. The ranger's experience level determines the type of information he receives. The information is cumulative; that is, a 6th-level ranger who makes a successful Identification check receives all types of information available to rangers of level 6 and below.

   The DM provides only general information, not exact details. At his discretion, the DM may give more precise or less specific information than suggested in Table 19. The information may be ambiguous ("The tracks resemble those of a large bird, though they could have been made by some sort of reptilian creature.") but the DM shouldn't intentionally mislead the ranger (for instance, by telling him the tracks were definitely made by a bird when in fact they were made by a reptile). The parenthetical comments in Table 19 indicate how a DM might respond to a ranger studying tracks that were made by a pair of juvenile red dragons, each with a human rider.

Table 19: Identification Check Results

Ranger

Level	Information Received
1-2	General type of creature
	("A dragon or other large reptilian creature.")
3-4	Specific type of creature and where it was heading
	("Some kind of dragon, probably red. It appears to have been headed to the mountains to the north.")
5-6	Probable number of creatures
	("Looks like two of them.")
7	Approximate size and/or age
	("From the length of the prints, the dragons were probably juveniles.")
8	Pace of creatures
	("There's no indication of haste; they were probably taking their time.")
9	How recently the trail was made
	("The tracks were made within the last three or four hours.")
10+	Special conditions of creatures: wounded or healthy, mounts, etc.
	("The unusual depth of the prints and the space between steps indicates the dragons had riders. A tiny scrap of cloth is similar to the material worn by soldiers in this area. The riders were probably human.")

Covering Movement

   Not only is the ranger able to track the movement of others, he's also adept at concealing his own trail. If a ranger moves at half his normal movement rate, he may cover his footprints, avoid snapping twigs, and execute similar actions necessary to conceal his trail. When other characters, rangers included, attempt to track a ranger who has concealed his trail, they do so at a -5 penalty to their Tracking scores. (If a terrain-specialized ranger concealed his trail while moving through his primary terrain, others suffer a -7 penalty to their Tracking scores.)

Table of Contents