Stealth vs Tracking


Rules Questions


I had a scenario where a ranger was tracking someone who was trying to get away. But at some point during the "hunt", he decided to rest and hide (he didn't know if someone was after him, but he had committed a crime so didn't want to take any chances).

So the question is; can the ranger be able to track him to his location? Why couldn't a ranger track him to the tree he is hiding in? Or the barrel he is currently hiding in?.

Kind Regards
Søren

Sovereign Court

Ranger can still track the person hiding. If said person wanted to hide their tracks, They would need survival rolls to divert/distract the ranger from the path or be a druid, pass without trace, leaves no tracks.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Anyone can try to hide there tracks, no skills are needed.

The key to eluding trackers is to make the tracking as difficult as possible as often as possible, thus forcing the tracker to make multiple tracking checks.

Every time tracking becomes difficult = tracking check.

Every failed tracking check outdoors = 1 hour wait to retry.

Once you're sure you've tracked your quarry to a location, and haven't been mislead somewhere else, you need to use Perception to find where they are hiding.

The quarry can use Stealth to hide, so you can track them to the general location they are hiding, but still never actually find them.


Yeah, unfortunately stealth does not interact with the tracking part of the survival skill. So the ranger does not need to make rolls against stealth. Stealth opposes perception checks to actively see the creature, if stealth has come into play the ranger has already found his quarry.

The quarry can attempt to hide his trail, but actually forces him to move at half speed to do so.

Liberty's Edge

As previously stated, the tracking party is rolling against static DCs based on conditions, terrain, and if the quarry is actively trying to hide tracks. That being said, I wouldn't consider it unreasonable to determine success or failure based upon opposed Survival rolls (and maybe give the quarry some of the modifiers based on conditions).


Its true that it doesn't take a roll to hide ones tracks. But I would also make an opposed check if it had come to it. It makes it more interesting instead of flatly increasing the DC.

But to the main point: it just seems odd to us that you can't find the person with tracking. Isn't basically what it means, to find out where someone is? But we can see mechanically why it shouldn't work like this since it would be going over Perceptions thing.

But could it be argued that its because you know there is someone and have already found his trail?

Sovereign Court

You can track and basically knows their whereabouts but well, stealth wise there are too many stuffs to take into account, like if it is someone with hide in plain sight. He could literally just be sitting in front of a tree, as far as you know, he jumped up the tree and left.

Or as soon as you get near, he could activate his ring of invisibility or use other abilities to help with stealth which must be opposed with perception.

But well for a ranger there are many ways to track people even the hiding ones. If you are a ranger with an animal companion, its very easy since a lot of animals have scent, so your creature could tell you if someone is hiding nearby easily.

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