Deadeye's Lore and speed

[Pabor]

Hello everyone! Here's my doubt.

When one follows tracks, his speed is normally halved. In order to keep her normal speed, one has to take a -5 penalty to her Survival checks. If one wants to double his speed while following tracks, the penalty becomes -20. Deadeye's Lore spell allows its caster to follow tracks at her normal speed without the normal -5 penalty.

So, I was wondering: if one casts Deadeye's Lore and wants to follow tracks at double her speed, does the penalty remain -20 or is it reduced?

By raw I'd say it doesn't change, allowing only to walk the normal speed without penalties, but it would make the spell a lot less valuable than allowing a reduced penalty while following tracks at double speed. To me, the flavour of this spell is the chance to cast it and say "You cannot escape from me!", then following the prey running like a mad hound! Just sayin'...

(not a native speaker here, so please tell me whether I made mistakes - I'm willing to improve!)

[Claxon]

Technically the penalty remains. The spell only allow you to track without having to move at half speed. It does nothing to the other penalty.

For what it's worth, the only time you're probably going to need to move at double speed while tracking your prey is if you know they're only a little ahead of you. And that's not usually going to be the case.

And while your interpretation of the flavor is "You cannot escape me" and running off like a madman, that is not the flavor that I believe most people would get. Tracking usually doesn't involve wildly running off or chasing a target. That would be a chase.

[DM_Blake]

(Your gender changed from "her" to "his" and then back to "her", but other than that, your English looks better than many native speakers).

Your own answer is the correct one. By RAW, the spell only removes the penalty for following tracks at your normal speed and has no effect on doubling your speed.

Frankly, I think that is such a tiny benefit to a corner case (I cannot remember the last time I played or ran a game in which tracking at higher speeds was necessary) that this spell will never be used by most players. Improving it to, say, cut the penalty from -20 to -10 wouldn't hurt at all as a houserule, even eliminating the penalty entirely wouldn't hurt. At least then, somebody might think the spell is worth taking, if only for the "mad hound" flavor...

[Pabor]

I hoped to find an errata or something, but I guess I'll have to stick to walking towards my prey hoping she won't have the time to play tricks on me... Damn it!

Thank you guys for answering!

DM_Blake wrote:

(Your gender changed from "her" to "his" and then back to "her", but other than that, your English looks better than many native speakers).

(I long as I know, English uses the feminine when the gender is not specified, while in Italian we use the masculine - that's why, from time to time, I still tend to spontaneously cast Inflict Male Pronoun)

[DM_Blake]

Pabor wrote:

(I long as I know, English uses the feminine when the gender is not specified, while in Italian we use the masculine - that's why, from time to time, I still tend to spontaneously cast Inflict Male Pronoun)

Nope, we're just like Italy; we generally use the male pronouns when not specified.

English lesson; don't read unless you care:

At least, that's the way it's been for many, many centuries of English literature. Probably because for most of that time, men were more likely to be educated authors and readers while women were expected to be simple wives and mothers (This is not a value judgment, simply remarking on history). So, basically, men wrote for male audiences and preferred the male pronouns.

Obviously, modern society has evolved to a much more gender-equal footing, but even so, the momentum of male pronouns has continued into modern times.

Very recently, say, in the last couple decades, it's become common to alternate gender pronouns in cases where you're not talking about the same thing. For example, the Pathfinder Core Rulebook might have one rule where they use "he" and on the same page a different rule where they say "she". This is mainly to give the appearance that the authors are not chauvinistically favoring one gender (yes, some people in modern society actually make that accusation if one gender is used more often than the other). But even when authors do this, they make sure to consistently use one gender throughout the entirety of a full concept (a full story, a full rule, a full section of information, etc.) and then switch genders for the next full concept.

It is, however, still fully permissible to use one single gender throughout a whole work and, usually when this is done in English, that gender is male, if for no other reason than "Well, that's how we've always done it before.". The exceptions usually being if a female author is making a statement, or if the work is targeted to a predominately female audience, in which cases, the female gender might be used throughout the work.

[N N 959]

If we want to get technical, the spell doesn't remove any penalty. It states this:

Deadeye's Lore wrote:

....you do not have to move at half your speed while traveling through the wilderness or while tracking.

Guess what? You can already move at normal speed while tracking...it just means you suffer a penalty. So to make sense of the spell, it must reduce the penalty for tracking by 5 based on speed.

It would be reasonable for a GM to reduce the -20 to -15. However, there are a large segment of GMs who treat the world in a discontinuous fashion and have trouble applying spells/rules in a logical manner if it's not spelled out.

That having been said, I will parrot the others and say this spell is kind of worthless for simply tracking, though it does provide a nice movement bonus for low level characters in the wilderness. However, it's not much use to you if your party can't keep up. So that puts us back at nearly worthless outside of combat in difficult wilderness terrain.

[deadboy]

The way I read this spell it seems to be more useful to use as the person being pursued and using survival to obscure your tracks.

[N N 959]

deadboy wrote:

The way I read this spell it seems to be more useful to use as the person being pursued and using survival to obscure your tracks.

Whether that's true or not, the spell says this:

Deadeye's Lore wrote:

While subject to this spell, you take upon yourself the mantle of the hunter, channeling the insights of the spirits of the wild.

So I think the intent is you use it while pursing something in the wild.

[Pabor]

Regarding DM_Blake's lesson:

Thank you pal, it was interesting. Now I feel a lot more freedom! From now on, if someone complains about the gender I use, I'll just say I don't care about HIS damn opinion! Buahahahahaha...

Back on the spell. What I hoped for was a "slide" of the penalties: none to move normally and the -5 penalty for moving twice the speed. But I guess that would have been too much since, as N N 959 and deadboy noticed, it also allows to move at normal speed in the wilderness. I didn't consider this. That might be prove useful (although situational) as a defensive speel too, or as an advantage during fights in the wilderness.

N N 959 wrote:

Guess what? You can already move at normal speed while tracking...it just means you suffer a penalty. So to make sense of the spell, it must reduce the penalty for tracking by 5 based on speed

Oh, come on, man... I'll have to hide this from my DM. But, you know what? Being this the case, maybe I can still hope for an errata!

[N N 959]

Pabor wrote:

N N 959 wrote:

Guess what? You can already move at normal speed while tracking...it just means you suffer a penalty. So to make sense of the spell, it must reduce the penalty for tracking by 5 based on speed

Oh, come on, man... I'll have to hide this from my DM. But, you know what? Being this the case, maybe I can still hope for an errata!

I use this perspective to counter the flawed logic that the spell only removes the penalty if you move at normal speed. As written, the spell doesn't make a lot of sense. That's because it's assuming the players and GM understand the context of the spell. That same rationale allows one to argue the spell simply reduces the penalty by -5 and there's no reason not to apply that to whatever speed you're moving.