Ranger Tracking FAQ

[Arkov]

Ranger Tracking FAQ

What is tracking?

"Tracking in hunting is the science and art of observing a place through animal footprints and other signs, including: tracks, beds, chews, scat, hair, etc. ... So called, 'master trackers', are able to know an animal through its tracks and trails, also known as spoor. These include not only identification and interpretation of tracks, but also scat (or feces), feathers, kills, scratching posts, trails, drag marks, sounds, marking posts, and more. There is a story in most of these marks to be found. The skilled tracker is able to discern these markings and recreate what transpired."

-- Wikipedia, on Tracking[/list]One of the extra benefits that we provide for rangers and other wilderness oriented characters is a scripted Tracking ability. Rangers get this ability at ranger level two, and druids get it at druid level six. Tracking allows a character to use their keen observation skills to collect information on nearby animals, monsters, and characters without directly observing them.

How does tracking work on EFU?

To perform tracking, you can use either the Tracking option in the crafting menu, or the "/c track" voice command. They both do the same thing: your character will stoop for four seconds, and tracking information will be displayed in the combat window.

Successful tracking will yield a list of results. The amount of information conveyed in these results depends on the degree to which the tracker's roll to track exceeds the prey's roll to avoid being detected. The following are sample results, in increasing order of success:

(nothing)
Other undistinguishable tracks here.
Creature tracks to the N.
Small creature tracks to the N.
Small creature tracks to the NNW.
Small creature tracks to the NNW, nearby.
Small animal tracks to the NNW, nearby.
Small animal tracks roughly 5 meters to the NNW.
Small animal tracks (of the Rabbit of Caerbannog) roughly 5 meters to the NNW.[/list]Tracking is done in EFU using opposed rolls. A tracker's ability to track his prey is a combination of the following:

• The tracker's ranger levels.
• The tracker's spot and search skills.
• The tracker's lore skill, capped by his ranger levels.
• The distance between the tracker and his prey.
• Whether the prey is the tracker's favored enemy.
• Whether the tracker has special vision (low-light vision or darkvision).

The prey's ability to confound a tracker is a combination of the following:

• The prey's size.
• The weight the prey is carrying.
• Whether the prey is flying/levitating.
• The prey's hide and move silently skills.
• Whether the prey is moving in Stealth Mode.
• Whether the prey has the Trackless Step feat.

What environmental factors can affect tracking?

Tracking is easiest in outdoor natural environments. Attempting to track in an indoors environment, or in an artificial environment, will incur a small penalty, due to the decreased number of visible cues (no rocks to displace, no lichen to trample, no mushrooms to brush aside).

What counts as "outdoor" or "artificial" in the Underdark? A mushroom grove is an outdoor natural environment. The streets of Traensyr are an outdoor artificial environment. The interior of the Sanctuary Town Hall is an artificial indoor environment.

Certain areas also impose spot and listen modifiers, due to low amounts of light, constant echoing, or other environmental factors. These modifiers will factor into tracking by changing the effective spot and listen skills of the tracker.

How does Favored Enemy factor into tracking?

Good question! Rangers study their favored enemies and develop a keen understanding of their weaknesses; this understanding allows them to more skillfully track these foes. When attempting to decipher the tracks of a favored enemy, a ranger gets a bonus to their tracking roll.

Furthermore, certain racial types which an ordinary tracker might not be able to tell apart simply by virtue of their tracks (aberration tracks and outsider tracks are both "strange", magical beast tracks don't look that different from regular beast tracks, half-elf tracks look very similar to human tracks, et cetera) can be distinguished by a tracker for whom such creatures are favored enemies.

This emphasizes the favored enemy choice. A tracker with Favored Enemy: Aberrations isn't just a tracker: he is an aberration hunter, who can track aberrations better than his peers and identify the fine distinctions between an ordinary vrock's talon scratches and a hated hook horror's claw marks.

Does tracking properly identify the racial types of subrace PCs?

Yes! If you are attempting to track a goblin or kobold PC, they will show up as goblinoid or reptilian, not halfling (the base racial type which those subraces are built upon in our subrace system). Everything will work as expected, when it comes to tracking subrace characters.

How does filtering work for the "/c track" command?

You can use filtering to reduce the number of results shown when performing tracking. For example, consider a tracker searching a crypt for a drow necromancer. The crypt contains sixteen skeletons, the drow necromancer, and a stealthy drow assassin. Regular tracking results might look like:

Other undistinguishable tracks here.
Medium-sized elf tracks to the WSW, very distant.
Medium-sized undead tracks to the WSW, distant.
Medium-sized undead tracks to the SSW, distant.
Medium-sized undead tracks to the SSW, distant.
Medium-sized undead tracks to the SSW, distant.
Medium-sized undead tracks to the SSW, distant.
Medium-sized undead tracks to the SSW, distant.
(...repeated ten more times...)[/list]But the tracker doesn't care about the list of skeletons! Is there a way to get tracking results about the drow whom you care about, without having the flood of results about the skeletons, whom you don't?

Yes. Use "/c track -race elf", and the only result you get is "Medium-sized elf tracks to the WSW, very distant." This removes all of the undesirable information about the skeletons. Notice that it also removes the first result about undistinguishable tracks, coming from the stealthy drow assassin -- despite the fact that he is actually drow, your tracking results weren't accurate enough to determine that he was drow, and so he got filtered out.

You can do the same trick to filter out creatures by size category, or by name, using "/c track -size" and "/c track -name". Filters can also be combined, so to get only results about medium-sized goblinoids, you can do "/c track -size medium -race goblinoid".

Can I identify a specific individual via tracking?

No. Our current policy on this is stated here.

This may change in the future as we improve the tracking system, but currently tracking does not let you identify specific individuals or see through disguises.

What about the listen skill? I heard that was used in tracking.

The listen skill is not used for tracking.

A long time ago, listen used to be included along with spot and search as a skill used in tracking. However, it was removed and currently tracking relies only on the spot and search skills, along with a small bonus from lore.