Tracking and Barbarians?

[MrGrendel]

In PnP, rangers get tracking for free. Anyone else can take the Track feat, but it operates off of the survival skill. Three classes get the survival skill as a class skill,

1. The Ranger (though they get tracking for free anyhow)

2 + 3. The druid... and the barbarian.

In PnP both of these classes can take the track feat and enjoy the benefits of having access to Survival as a class skill. Although I know that survival is not implemented here, tracking is, and it would be nice if higher level barbarians, like druids, received the tracking ability, and their levels (assuming tracking here checks class levels) are factored into tracking.

Edit: Looking at the survival skill, now that we have weather, and possibly more treacherous terrain with quicksand, there might be some ideas there that could be put in... predicting the weather patterns? Hmm...

[Snoteye]

I was against tracking for druids, too. >.>

[MrGrendel]

I hear ya, it just seems odd (to me) that a "mundane" barbarian, who is already a bit of a one trick pony, shouldn't get track, but the magical druids do. Well, technically speaking, everyone should have access to tracking, but not everyone would want to spend a feat and put points in the survival skill.

Hm. So how about this-

- Use one of the craft armor/craft weapon skills for "survival"
- Take into account non-survival-skill classes have the skill bonus cut in half, this only needs to be done in the formulas that check the skill
- Use this skill and check for either ranger levels or "skill focus: craft etc" feats for tracking

Thus you have pnp tracking enabled by a feat, a use for another craft skill (which can already be linked to tracking), a use for a feat that was previously unused, and perhaps we can come up with a number of ideas that would make having survival skill interesting beyond tracking.* :)

*Just off hand, I think the whole planting/harvesting thing could probably make use of a skill that's all about surviving in the wilds, for instance. Go out, kill a deer, pick some berries on the way home...

[Mort]

I'm more in favour of making everyone special in some 'instance' instead of making everyone the same. One way that I have been trying to do is come up with interesting ideas for each class that makes it both interesting and gives lots of replay value to the early levels which can seem repetitive after some time.

Any ideas for a class that doesnt require enormous amounts of balancing, coding or design would be interesting to me and I am curious what people can come up with.

 A few of these have been already been implanted, or are under-way...


Just to give an example of this kind of flavor, Different bard songs. It may or may not be possible at this point in time to customize your bard song through some 'secret' way <_< >_> . Nothing hugely imbalancing, I am looking for style more than power.

[MrGrendel]

I'm more in favour of making everyone special in some 'instance' instead of making everyone the same.

I really don't think many more people would end up tracking, since per the pnp rules, you would have to take a feat, and also put points in a skill, and even then if you don't have ranger/druid/barb levels, you won't be nearly as effective, as it's a crossclassed skill.

It's always seemed silly to me that even though they're nature types, you can't make an effective barbarian hunter without ranger levels... what do they do, flounder around in the mud, enter rage and start hitting rocks with clubs to make stone-bread? X)



Edit:

And what about the part of having a skill devoted to emulate the Survival skill? Just off-hand, it could:

-Allow prediction of the weather (I believe someone said weather might actually have some neat effects now)
-Allow you to set up camps in the wild with foraged materials; ie no bedrolls etc needed
-Reduce any possible effects of severe weather (if implemented)
-Help avoid any possible effects of treacherous terrain (if implemented)
-Affect cooking food
-Affect gathering/planting herbs

Edit 2!

...and since the sea is nature, too, help you navigate boats? ;) It is actually supposed to be used to avoid getting lost, as well.