Survival

Table: Survival DCs by Task

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

Table: Modifiers to Survival Checks when Tracking

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.
Surface	Survival DC
Very soft ground	5
Soft ground	10
Firm ground	15
Hard ground	20
Condition	Survival DC Modifier
Every three creatures in the group being tracked	–1
Size of creature or creatures being tracked
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:
Overcast or moonless night	+6
Moonlight	+3
Fog or precipitation	+3
Tracked party hides trail (and moves at half speed)	+5

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.

Check

This skill can be used for multi different types of checks:

1. 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.
2. Navigate successfully across large distances.
3. Avoid Natural Hazards
4. If lost finding your way back on track.

Navigate / Avoid Hazards Check

Make a Navigate check when a character is trying to find his or her way to a distant location without directions or other specific guidance. Generally, a character does not need to make a check to find a local street or other common urban site, or to follow an accurate map. However, the character might make a check to wend his or her way through a dense forest or a labyrinth of underground storm drains. For movement over a great distance, make a Navigate check. The DC depends on the length of the trip. If the character succeeds, he or she moves via the best reasonable course toward his or her goal. If the character fails, he or she still reaches the goal, but it takes the character twice as long (the character loses time backtracking and correcting his or her path). If the character fails by more than 5, the or she travels the expected time, but only gets halfway to his or her destination, at which point the character becomes lost. A character may make a second Navigate check (DC 20) to regain his or her path. If the character succeeds, he or she continues on to his or her destination; the total time for the trip is twice the normal time. If the character fails, he or she loses half a day before the character can try again. The character keeps trying until he or she succeeds, losing half a day for each failure.

Length of Trip	DC
Short (a few hours)	15
Moderate (a day or two)	18
Long (up to a week)	22
Extreme (more than a week)	24
Intergalactic	26
Avoid Unwanted Company (Police/Bandits)(Short Trip)	26
Avoid Unwanted Company (Police/Bandits)(Long Trip)	30

When faced with multiple choices, such as at a branch in a tunnel, a character can make a Navigate check (DC 20) to intuit the choice that takes the character toward a known destination. If unsuccessful, the character chooses the wrong path, but at the next juncture, with a successful check, the character realizes his or her mistake. A character cannot use this function of Navigate to find a path to a site if the character has no idea where the site is located. The GM may choose to make the Navigate check for the character in secret, so he or she doesn’t know from the result whether the character is following the right or wrong path. A character can use Navigate to determine his or her position on earth without the use of any high-tech equipment by checking the constellations or other natural landmarks. The character must have a clear view of the night sky to make this check. The DC is 15.

Aboard a starship, you need a functional Class II sensor array (or better) to plot a course through space. You don’t need to make a Navigate check when traveling along a pre-established space route or passing through a dimension gate with a pre-calibrated destination.

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.

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).

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

Action

Varies. A single Survival check may represent activity over the course of hours or a full day. A Survival check made to find tracks is at least a full-round action, and it may take even longer.

Try Again

Varies. 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. 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.

Special

• If you are trained in Survival, you can automatically determine where true north lies in relation to yourself.
• 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.