So my AP is shortly going to move into the blighted Fangwod of Nirmathas. The ever changing alien landscape crossed into First World territory, so this should be a good point for a Master or Legend of Survival to shine. Oddly enough, the AP instead gives the party a magic compass and doesn't require rolling a single survival check to navigate. This seems... Wrong.
At the same time, this isn't a sandbox AP and I don't want it to become one, so the party needs to arrive at their destinations and encounters regardless of what is rolled. So this seems like a time for Fail Forward mechanics.
I'm thinking a DC 40 Survival check between every encounter seems appropriate for the context and their level (14.) What I need to do is settle on the results of the check. The Ranger also has just about every relevant Survival fear you can name, including Swift Tracker, Survey Wildlife, and Planar Survival. So that can be factored into whatever rolls get made. I'm thinking something along the lines of:
Critical Success: you identify the next encounter and have opportunity to prepare for it. You also identify a way to bypass the encounter if you so choose.
Success: You identify the next encounter ahead of time and can prepare for it, but there is no way around it.
Failure: you fail to see the next encounter coming and have to deal with it as normal.
Critical Failure: As a failure, but you also get exposed to the Darkblight disease and need to make a save against it.
What do you all think?
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At level 14, your ranger can't be Legendary yet, so that leaves a base proficiency of +14+6=+20. Throw in an 19 Wisdom and you end up at +24 at best (plus any item bonus, of course), which means the Ranger needs to roll a 16 just to succeed and is more likely to critically fail than succeed.
So, on average, this seems more likely to hurt the party than help (assuming the Crit Failure is worse than the AP Default)...
This is why the Survival/Tracking/Naturey aspects of a Ranger always feel lame to me. In order for the Adventure to continue, especially in an AP, where you can't guarantee there will even be a Ranger, you have to provide alternate methods of accomplishing the goal, which means all the Nature/Survival stuff is ultimately pointless, because you can just get around it another way.
On top of that, Nature and Survival have relatively niche and extremely meh Skill Feats, which disincentivizes getting anything higher than Trained in those skills, as there are much more broadly useful Skills and Skill Feats to invest in.
I really wish each class had a "Key Skill" that auto leveled, so that you could be great at Nature or Survival for RP reasons, but without sacrificing actual game play power.
That one time you actually get to use your Legendary Survival skills, the Wizard goes "I got this" and casts any number of relatively low level spells to do the exact same thing, while you just go "Aww...".
You're not entirely wrong. There are ways to make those checks matter without requiring them though. Age of Ashes book 2 has a hexploration section that does an ok job of calling for survival checks that don't need to succeed to advance the plot. I'm trying to come up with something here without involving hexploration.
At level 14, your ranger can't be Legendary yet, so that leaves a base proficiency of +14+6=+20. Throw in an 19 Wisdom and you end up at +24 at best (plus any item bonus, of course), which means the Ranger needs to roll a 16 just to succeed and is more likely to critically fail than succeed.
So, on average, this seems more likely to hurt the party than help (assuming the Crit Failure is worse than the AP Default)...
I think I'm ok with that. "Failure" is really just running the AP as written, and a success is giving you an advantage you wouldn't have otherwise. The threat of critical Failure is real, but it is also just exposing you to something that is supposed to be a present danger in the story but isn't entirely as written. They will have the tools to deal with a disease should they contract it.
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You're not entirely wrong. There are ways to make those checks matter without requiring them though. Age of Ashes book 2 has a hexploration section that does an ok job of calling for survival checks that don't need to succeed to advance the plot. I'm trying to come up with something here without involving hexploration.
I think I'm ok with that. "Failure" is really just running the AP as written, and a success is giving you an advantage you wouldn't have otherwise. The threat of critical Failure is real, but it is also just exposing you to something that is supposed to be a present danger in the story but isn't entirely as written. They will have the tools to deal with a disease should they contract it.At level 14, your ranger can't be Legendary yet, so that leaves a base proficiency of +14+6=+20. Throw in an 19 Wisdom and you end up at +24 at best (plus any item bonus, of course), which means the Ranger needs to roll a 16 just to succeed and is more likely to critically fail than succeed.
So, on average, this seems more likely to hurt the party than help (assuming the Crit Failure is worse than the AP Default)...
So, your 'good point for a Master or Legend of Survival to shine' is 75% likely (or worse if not maxed out) to result in a failure or worse?
So, your 'good point for a Master or Legend of Survival to shine' is 75% likely (or worse if not maxed out) to result in a failure or worse?You're not entirely wrong. There are ways to make those checks matter without requiring them though. Age of Ashes book 2 has a hexploration section that does an ok job of calling for survival checks that don't need to succeed to advance the plot. I'm trying to come up with something here without involving hexploration.
I think I'm ok with that. "Failure" is really just running the AP as written, and a success is giving you an advantage you wouldn't have otherwise. The threat of critical Failure is real, but it is also just exposing you to something that is supposed to be a present danger in the story but isn't entirely as written. They will have the tools to deal with a disease should they contract it.At level 14, your ranger can't be Legendary yet, so that leaves a base proficiency of +14+6=+20. Throw in an 19 Wisdom and you end up at +24 at best (plus any item bonus, of course), which means the Ranger needs to roll a 16 just to succeed and is more likely to critically fail than succeed.
So, on average, this seems more likely to hurt the party than help (assuming the Crit Failure is worse than the AP Default)...
I suppose I should clarify that my goal isn't just to make the Ranger look good, or even primarily that, but making an alien and ever-changing realm actually feel difficult to navigate. Without the ranger, their odds of avoiding critical failures would be significantly worse. There are plenty of easy survival DCs to crush out there. Challenging a specialist requires actual challenge, and this would be a prime case to use a simple DC-- and the description of the legendary Sense Direction task fits this story to a T.
Also, in practice we are probably looking at a +27 on the check between item bonuses and an aid circumstance bonus. I'm ok with having only a 40% chance of success. Well, assuming the penalties for failure aren't too obnoxious (and I don't think these are, as it just running the book as written) and the results of a success are strong enough. Getting to prepare for an encounter using buff spells, picking out hunted targets, entering stances, and setting snares is a really strong advantage.
I think you should probably lower your DC down to about a 35 from a 40, giving a roughly 50% chance to succeed, 5% chance of critical success and 5% chance of critical failure.
Sure, that might feel lame as a GM...but if I were the player and knew that my odds on this thing my character had invested as much as they could into...was a 75% chance of failure...well I'd be unhappy.
And actually that is about where I'm at with a lot of PF2 because it seems like players can only expect a 45-25% chance of success at anything that has been deemed "level appropriate".
Which is actually pretty lame in my opinion.
I think you should probably lower your DC down to about a 35 from a 40, giving a roughly 50% chance to succeed, 5% chance of critical success and 5% chance of critical failure.
Sure, that might feel lame as a GM...but if I were the player and knew that my odds on this thing my character had invested as much as they could into...was a 75% chance of failure...well I'd be unhappy.
And actually that is about where I'm at with a lot of PF2 because it seems like players can only expect a 45-25% chance of success at anything that has been deemed "level appropriate".
Which is actually pretty lame in my opinion.
Well I don't think this is a level appropriate challenge. A level appropriate challenge would be drawn from the level by DC table, and would only be 32. (80% chance of success.) This task doesn't have a level easily associated it though, and calls for a legendary simple DC. That's equivalent to the level 20 level appropriate DC.
Now, I could lower that DC or grant a bonus on the save using that magic compass plot device. But if I did I think I'd also need to lower how useful a success is, because going into encounters fully prepped and buffed is a huge edge. I'm not sure what advantage a success should add in that case. I could bump the tiers of success each down a peg so a success puts you in the fight as normal and a failure gets you a disease roll, but that seems worse for the players and lazy.
I hadn't made up my mind over whether I should share this activity (both description and DC) with my players. I think this conversation is making me realize I shouldn't, because if I set the odds to align with my narrative expectations they may get discouraged. Plus, Sense Direction is a secret roll anyway. So this has already been a useful conversation for me, even without mailing down the final details. Thanks y'all.
Setting aside the DC, anyone have suggestions for tiers of success results?
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imo, you're doing things right by setting the DC high. This area is dangerous and always going for "fair" challenges with the same success% vs your players is a good way to make them feel like their progression doesn't mean anything.
I think your tiers of success are fine, though I'd make it so that different areas have different tiers depending on the local flora and fauna. Perhaps different hexes have different tiers (and maybe even different DCs) if you go for hex exploration?
imo, you're doing things right by setting the DC high. This area is dangerous and always going for "fair" challenges with the same success% vs your players is a good way to make them feel like their progression doesn't mean anything.
I think your tiers of success are fine, though I'd make it so that different areas have different tiers depending on the local flora and fauna. Perhaps different hexes have different tiers (and maybe even different DCs) if you go for hex exploration?
While I probably won't use hexes, some areas are certainly more dangerous than others. Not every "point of interest" is a combat encounter and I should probably think about whether survival checks should even be rolled for the non-fights, because my checks as written don't really work for them.
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One thing I've done in the past with scouting when the party was trying to ambush a superior-strength prisoner convoy, was to give the scouting player three flipmats to choose from to decide on which one the battle would be fought.
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Regarding the setting of "the right" DC - you have to be careful not to fall into the trap of escalating the DC along the skill of the player who's trying to be good at it. Because then the players will at some point start to feel bad for even trying. "If we had never taken Survival then this would have been a lot easier."
The ranger is really good at this. In fact, this is exactly what the CRB means when it says:
Note that PCs who invest in a skill become more likely
to succeed at a DC of their level as they increase in level,
and the listed DCs eventually become very easy for them.
So then how do you make the really hard forest feel really hard, if the player who's making the rolls is really good at it? By not challenging only one player at a time. Don't just require rolls for finding the route (which is a one-person job), but for crossing areas with weird shrubbbery, sentient quicksand and whatnot - all things that the whole party has to make checks for.
You can model this nicely with the victory point mechanics from the GMG - make each obstacle into a check that the party has to overcome, using a choice of about two skills, many of which will be skills in the ranger's wheelhouse. Critical successes (coming often from the ranger) count for double.
You can model it roughly in three ways:
1) There's an obstacle, everyone has to make a check, and then the party is past it. On an individual failure there's a downside and on a critical failure there's a big downside. On a critical success you can mitigate one other player's result from critical to regular failure or from failure to success.
2) There's an obstacle, everyone has to make a check, and then the party is past it. If the party achieves enough successes, they pass without incident. With insufficient successes, the party as a whole takes a downside. Critical successes count for 2, and critical failures for -1.
3) There's an obstacle, and it takes a certain amount of successes to pass. Critical successes count for 2 and critical failures for -1. The challenge is done in rounds, and in each round everyone can do something. As soon as the party has enough successes to clear an obstacle, they all move on. So if the cleric and the wizard use their mystical skills to pass the faerie glamours the whole party moves on, and the ranger and bard still have their turn left to try to get the party past the sentient quicksand.
Methods 1 and 2 ensure a consistent rate of progress and the penalty for doing poorly is taking some kind of damage to get past an obstacle the rough way. It's "fail forward" in the sense that the party is always making progress, but at some cost.
Method 3 on the other way tells you how fast the party is going, without necessarily taking damage. Method 3 is good when the party is chasing someone (who's moving away at a consistent speed), or when they're in an unpleasant area that does some kind of damage over time. It's not strictly forward, but it involves more tactical choices for the players. When it's the players' turn, they can pick who's going to deal with the obstacle (who's good at dealing with this thing?) and who's going to go later in the round and take point on the next obstacle. I think method 3 shines a more intense spotlight on people who have the right skills.
Note also that none of these models have the weakness of the classic 1E chase where everyone is doing the race individually, perhaps getting stuck at an impassable obstacle.
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I really did a poor job of highlighting my goals in the opening post, probably because I was still figuring them out and didn't realize them until questioned. But my goal isn't to make a level appropriate challenge here, it is to present the dangers of the First World.
Group challenges using victory points is a very interesting idea though. There are a lot of things I could do with that, and spell casters could probably burn some spell slots to get a few automatic successes in certain things, which makes it useful as a resource drain.
The biggest downside is that it is more work to come up with an entire sequence than just a single exploration activity. But that might be a fun challenge to come up with area appropriate obstacles to overcome. Also, I might be able to pivot between multiple approaches depending on the specific areas that walk into.
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This is an interesting situation. I was an extremely strong proponent during the playtest of including DCs that weren't level-appropriate-challenge based. Now I find myself referring to them a lot though.
I think the "objective" DCs that aren't level-based, probably work the best when you run into the same task at different levels, and discover that what was once way above you is now within your grasp. It's probably a bit late for it now, but ideally if you have a legendary difficulty faerie forest, you'd want to set an early mini excursion in there, where the players realize they're in over their head, and quickly run out (perhaps with a MacGuffin that they've been able to snatch, or a civilian that they've been able to rescue). Then much later on when they have to go deep into the woods, they'll be noticing that it's still hard going but at least now they have a shot.
I do think though, that even when you're setting DCs by referring to the static DCs, that you should be careful just how high you let them go compared to the PCs. It just isn't very fun to be failing most of the time. Remember that if you have a less than 50% success rate, you start to have a high critical failure rate.
Now, maybe the original AP you had to walk through the woods for a few days, and every day you have to make a save vs. the blight. That's a bit oppressive but okay, bad forest, what can you say. But in your rework, the players are being exposed because the ranger messed up. Instead of it being kind of a circumstance that just happens, it's pointing fingers. While the ranger can't really help that you set the DCs very high. So that's got a risk of being very unpleasant gaming.
I do think though, that even when you're setting DCs by referring to the static DCs, that you should be careful just how high you let them go compared to the PCs. It just isn't very fun to be failing most of the time. Remember that if you have a less than 50% success rate, you start to have a high critical failure rate.
True, I suppose the perception that you failed is bad even if the actual results of said failure aren't. How much do you think this would need to be obscured to remove this perception? I was already leaning towards not sharing the specific mechanics of the activity with the player, and it is a secret check by default... but I could also just record the relevant survival score and not even tell the players I'm rolling. (Easier to do now that all gaming is virtual.)
Now, maybe the original AP you had to walk through the woods for a few days, and every day you have to make a save vs. the blight. That's a bit oppressive but okay, bad forest, what can you say. But in your rework, the players are being exposed because the ranger messed up. Instead of it being kind of a circumstance that just happens, it's pointing fingers. While the ranger can't really help that you set the DCs very high. So that's got a risk of being very unpleasant gaming.
This is a very good point. Being able to pin this on the ranger is bad news. My critical failure condition is probably not right, perhaps regardless of what the DC is. Well, let's review goals here.
--Convey dangers of alien landscape and how difficult it is to navigate.
--Reward specialization in Survival without trivializing the above difficulty.
--Avoid turning the ranger into a scapegoat for the party or bumming the player out with feelings of failure.
Random idea. The player has Assurance in Survival. I wonder if there is a way to tweak the activity so using Assurance would achieve a satisfactory outcome, but the player could choose to roll and accept a risk of a natural 1 consequence in order to hopefully achieve a better result on a critical success? Would being able to choose to gamble in the first place make the risk of critical failure more palatable? This does mean I'd be using 30 as a limiting point for my DC, and the player will beat that on a 5 without Aid and potentially as low as a 3 with Aid. Maybe if I shifted the degrees of success up a row? So a success would just get you to the encounter as written, and a critical success would get you time to prepare. Failure would need to carry a pretty dangerous risk, since it only happens 10% of the time. And a critical failure only happens on a natural 1.
I dunno, I'm spitballing here.
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Success being the most likely and giving the 'standard' result is a lot better feeling than failure granting the standard result and being the norm.
Which is to say I think the version in your most recent post is quite reasonable.
I think failure should be a mirror of a crit success, which is to say give the enemy awareness of the PCs and time to prepare. Crit failure I'm less sure of.
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Success being the most likely and giving the 'standard' result is a lot better feeling than failure granting the standard result and being the norm.
Which is to say I think the version in your most recent post is quite reasonable.
I think failure should be a mirror of a crit success, which is to say give the enemy awareness of the PCs and time to prepare. Crit failure I'm less sure of.
I'm not sure that's a meaningful advantage for the enemy's here, as many are plants or other fairly mindless ambush predators. They are basically already in their best possible position as written. I suppose I could use a penalty to initiative rolls as a failure condition, but that seems a little lazy.
I really like your approach here and think it would be a lot of fun to play through. This is essentially being drawn into another plane, but the super specialized character has ways of significantly mitigating the negativity of those effects. I like that you are using 4 tiers of success in an interesting way rather than having a mirror at success/failure. A “failure” in this model is simply no effect. Having a 50 % chance of getting to prebuff and essentially crush an encounter would be way too much of a boost.
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I'm not sure that's a meaningful advantage for the enemy's here, as many are plants or other fairly mindless ambush predators. They are basically already in their best possible position as written. I suppose I could use a penalty to initiative rolls as a failure condition, but that seems a little lazy.
Fair. If they're already lying in wait and using Stealth for initiative by default, then that sort of foe can't make use of the prep time.
Maybe on a failure you are in its favored hunting grounds and the enemy gets to ignore difficult terrain (which I'd assume there'd be a lot of)?
I really like your approach here and think it would be a lot of fun to play through. This is essentially being drawn into another plane, but the super specialized character has ways of significantly mitigating the negativity of those effects. I like that you are using 4 tiers of success in an interesting way rather than having a mirror at success/failure. A “failure” in this model is simply no effect.
Glad you like it. :) Hopefully my players agree with you.
Having a 50 % chance of getting to prebuff and essentially crush an encounter would be way too much of a boost.
Yeah, (I think) we all agree on this. I think what is up in the air is how it is framed. The players thinking they failed might be disheartening even if doesn't hurt them. Either way, getting the big advantage wouldn't be the norm.
The only mechanical difference between making success the norm with DC 30 and failure the norm at DC 40 is that it the chance of critical failing (and thus achieving the worst possible outcome) is just on a natural 1 at DC 30, and could be a on a 2 or 3 at DC 40. I think if the chance of a critical failure is only 5%, it should probably be pretty nasty.
I suppose the other big difference is that DC 30 requires me to come up with a failure and a critical failure condition, where DC 40 calls for critical success condition better than getting to go into an encounter prepared. And honestly, if I went to the work of converting creatures for an encounter I maybe shouldn't build in a way to avoid them entirely. On the other hand, I'm not sure what what differentiates a failure from a critical at DC 30. Maybe there isn't a difference, and there's no true critical failure condition?
So this raises a question of player/GM transparency, and that can be solved pretty easily by not making it a secret check and not telling players what their tier of success was, just the narrative effect. I dunno if the players would have more fun rolling their own dice here, but the fact is this IS a secret check by default.
One other thing to figure out is how to narratively describe it. I think using Assurance would be described as trying to follow the path of the magic compass as directly as possible with minimal chance of getting lost or sidetracked. But deviating from the path, ie, rolling for it, would allow for the possibility of a broader understanding of your surroundings and opportunity to Survey Wildlife and see threats coming. It also comes with additional risks, of course.
Now, maybe the original AP you had to walk through the woods for a few days, and every day you have to make a save vs. the blight. That's a bit oppressive but okay, bad forest, what can you say. But in your rework, the players are being exposed because the ranger messed up. Instead of it being kind of a circumstance that just happens, it's pointing fingers. While the ranger can't really help that you set the DCs very high. So that's got a risk of being very unpleasant gaming.
Circling back to this point, maybe this is something that can be fixed by how the saves are framed? Perhaps making it clear that these checks would always be rolled at regular intervals, but with the Ranger's Planar Survival feat you might be able to avoid them on a success/critical success? It still sort of puts pressure on the ranger, but at least if they know the Ranger needs to roll high and they wouldn't be able to pull this off without the Ranger, they might be more understanding?
This can also tie in with the making the choice to deviate from the path-- the straight line that the compass takes you in is less likely to bypass a clump of fauna that carries infection.
I'm not sure that's a meaningful advantage for the enemy's here, as many are plants or other fairly mindless ambush predators. They are basically already in their best possible position as written. I suppose I could use a penalty to initiative rolls as a failure condition, but that seems a little lazy.Fair. If they're already lying in wait and using Stealth for initiative by default, then that sort of foe can't make use of the prep time.
Maybe on a failure you are in its favored hunting grounds and the enemy gets to ignore difficult terrain (which I'd assume there'd be a lot of)?
I think most of the enemies are in their favored hunting grounds already, unfortunately, and plants don't tend to deviate from their favored position much anyway.
Tying this back into making the choice to deviate from the path, maybe a failure leads to another monster hunting you? I feel like adding extra encounters might get tedious, but many of the written PF1 encounters are 40-60 XP. That leaves some wiggle room. Having another creature join a fight might be a pretty solid wrinkle without going into severe territory, and I bet there are fey that could invisibly trail the party until they are vulnerable and engaged elsewhere.
Honestly, I think I'm maybe trying to cram too many things into one activity. Choosing to deviate from the path makes a lot more sense if it is too avoid a hazard than to go snoop for signs of possible encounters. So let's try this:
Critical Success: The PCs leave the most direct path pointed out by the runestone and find a way to circumvent any hazardous terrain between them and the next point of interest.
Success: Following the tug of the runestone requires cutting through hazardous terrain with no apparent alternative. The party must make a save or a skill check when passing through said terrain, but otherwise arrives at the next point of interest unmolested.
Failure: Staying from the runestone's path leads to stumbling into the sights of another creature. The results are TBD but the creature will probably try to strike when the party is already occupied with other dangers.
I'm not really satisfied with this yet, but the idea is that moving some elements out of this activity frees up room for other activities that can be performed concurrently. So for example getting the drop on the next encounter might be determined by another party member using a stealth check to scout ahead, while another character could be working to stave off potential infections with a medicine check. Not sure how to make sure there are roles for 4-5 PCs though, and I'm wandering dangerously close to "just make them overcome chase style obstacles."
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You mentioned that the ranger has Assurance. I think it's good to consider what Assurance is for. Let's compare the table of level-based DCs on page 503 with the result you'd have with Assurance using the highest proficiency possible at a given level.
Most of the time Assurance doesn't beat that DC. It falls short by 1 to 3 points. In fact there are only three spots where it meets the DC: if you're Expert at level 2 (rogue), or Master at level 7 or 8.
That's just for facing level-based DCs of your own level. The main challenge of any scene in an adventure will often be on-level or above it. So we have to conclude what Assurance is not for: for beating main stage DCs.
So what is it for? For tuning out background noise. Tasks that you can perform pretty reliably already, that aren't the main event in any skill challenge, but that aren't yet so easy that you couldn't fail. Assurance basically lets you automatically succeed at level-based DCs that are roughly 2 levels below you.
It also lets you auto-succeed at tasks whose DC is set lower because it's not just supposed to challenge the specialist, but the whole party. A challenge that's reasonable for the whole party might have it's DC point set with a Trained character in mind, rather than a Master character. The Master with Assurance can automatically succeed at that check.
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What does that mean for you?
Let's say that you instituted a recurring skill check, for example a Survival to pass through spiky underbrush without getting cut and being exposed to Blight. Exposure requires a Fortitude save and does a bit of damage. This is something the party has to do several times per day, perhaps every 2 hours, or once per significant area in your forest. That's a lot of skill checks. However, you set the DC low enough that the Trained PCs can succeed with a greater than even chance. Also, on a critical success, you can undo one failure of a friend. So that has some consequences:
- PCs without proficiency in Survival can Follow the Expert to get the ranger's level as a bonus to their check, and a circumstance bonus based on his proficiency (+2 for Expert, so that's as good as if they were Trained themselves). However, that does mean they can't pick another Exploration Tactic. They're out of their comfort zone.
- The ranger can automatically succeed with Assurance or risk the roll to try for a critical success to protect a PC. The ranger's chance of failure is probably smaller than that of a critical success.
- If the ranger goes to do a bit of scouting ahead alone, he doesn't have to roll because his Assurance is good enough. So here the "noise cancelling" effect of Assurance comes into play.
- The ranger's high skill is clearly a positive thing for the party. The DC isn't higher because of him; you aimed the DC at what is reasonable for when the whole party has to make repeated checks.
You're onto something there. Follow the Expert would make a lot of sense here for avoiding environmental damage, especially when the Ranger is the only one with Planar Survival. All the other PCs have +4 wisdom, and I think most of them them are trained to boot, so they'd be rolling at +20-+23. A DC 30 check to bypass the hazards would give them all w reasonable chance to over come it, and on a failure they certainly couldn't point fingers at the Ranger if they are the only one saving. It makes the threat of getting the disease feel constant and real but not inevitable.
DC 30 feels a little arbitrary in relation to the simple DC chart for an area like this, but I could say the DC would have been much higher if the Ranger didn't have Planar Survival and the runestone. I find skill feats often seem to result in lowering a DC in APs anyway, probably as it is hard to build in more thorough contingencies for every possible build.
Separately, I could set a check for the encounters themselves which I secretly roll for the Ranger to represent them Surveying Wildlife. Getting the warning of what they are walking into could require hitting a DC 40 due to how throuhly ravaged the ecosystem is with fungus and magic. That creates a real (30%) chance that the Ranger can get them into the next fight with a warning. Once she finds evidence of a nearby monster, she can do a few things: attempt a Recall Knowledge check to identify what they will be fighting and/or Track jt to know when and where they will fight it. If she had legendary proficiency to go with her Swift Tracker this would easier to do, but I think as written she can't use another tactic the same time. But she does have Hazard Finder, so she ought to be able to at least remain alert to the Blighted plants around her while she Tracks or Sneaks. I wonder if the party could still Follow her for any Expertise while she uses other tactics.
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One way to model that "forewarning" of the ranger would be to use a scale somewhat like this:
Critical Failure: a dangerously mistaken assumption results in a -2 initiative penalty for the whole party in the next encounter.
Failure: The encounter happens without modifications.
Success: The party has some forewarning of what they're going to run into, which gives them a numerical benefit. This could be a bonus on saves or skill checks to cope with a hazard or monster special attack for example, reflecting preparations the party has taken (without having to go into detail). Or it could be an initiative bonus.
Critical success: The party identifies the threat well before running into it which allows them a choice of (1) skill challenge to avoid encounter (2) better initial placement of the party on the map (3) start the encounter with one or two rounds of prebuffing already active.
On a success or better you could also give some basic idea of what they might be running into - "something that makes webs", "something really big and clearly no a normal biped or quadruped, maybe some kind of slug or plant", or "something that leaves acidic burn marks on the environment".
One way to model that "forewarning" of the ranger would be to use a scale somewhat like this:
Critical Failure: a dangerously mistaken assumption results in a -2 initiative penalty for the whole party in the next encounter.
Failure: The encounter happens without modifications.
Success: The party has some forewarning of what they're going to run into, which gives them a numerical benefit. This could be a bonus on saves or skill checks to cope with a hazard or monster special attack for example, reflecting preparations the party has taken (without having to go into detail). Or it could be an initiative bonus.
Critical success: The party identifies the threat well before running into it which allows them a choice of (1) skill challenge to avoid encounter (2) better initial placement of the party on the map (3) start the encounter with one or two rounds of prebuffing already active.
On a success or better you could also give some basic idea of what they might be running into - "something that makes webs", "something really big and clearly no a normal biped or quadruped, maybe some kind of slug or plant", or "something that leaves acidic burn marks on the environment".
See, this would be a great mechanic if the Ranger didn't have Survey Wildlife, but the Survey Wildlife feat she has already has pretty specific language:
You can study details in the wilderness to determine the presence of nearby creatures. You can spend 10 minutes assessing the area around you to find out what creatures are nearby, based on nests, scat, and marks on vegetation. Attempt a Survival check against a DC determined by the GM based on how obvious the signs are. On a success, you can attempt a Recall Knowledge check with a –2 penalty to learn more about the creatures just from these signs. If you’re a master in Survival, you don’t take the penalty.
A success on the check gets you the opportunity to Recall Knowledge about the creature, and without penalty at her proficiency.
So using this feat as a written (and why wouldn't I?) I have authority to define two factors: what constitutes "nearby" and what the DC is. I think that if the characters are moving cautiously through a dangerous environment, it is safe to assume they'd use this feat as often as they might be stumbling into a new encounter, so she should get an opportunity to make this check as often as there encounters.My gut says 40 is a fair DC for the this, as the environment is both volatile and hostile-- it is harder to hang out in bushes looking for scat if every bush can kill you. This also conveniently aligns with the critical success number for navigating the blighted plants, so for conservation of rolls I can say that when the Ranger gets a 40+ on her navigation check, it also triggers Survey Wildlife.
At that point, I will roll her Recall Knowledge check to see if she identifies the creature(s) in the next encounter. Even if she fails this check, I might give her the basic idea as you describe it-- those sorts of clues you listed are exactly the sort of thing she'd have Surveyed. And I'd have to think that a creature that wasn't Covering Tracks (plants aren't even trained in Survival, for example) could be Tracked from there, and probably quite easily, allowing for Assurance to be used.
At the point that she's Tracking something leading into combat, she's already getting some bonuses like you describe in your two proposed success tiers: Hunt Prey gives her a +2 bonus to the initiative check, she gets to use her Tracker's Goggles item bonus, and she gets a free Stride toward her target with Swift Tracker.
The question would be if this would offer advantages to her teammates beyond the results of the Recall Knowledge checks. They aren't as kitted out avoid the hazardous terrain, and presumably there would still be some of that between them and the encounter, and they don't have things like Planar Survival or Hazard Finder. Would they still be able to Follow the Expert if the Ranger is Tracking? Could they choose to forgo their Survival checks in leiu of using another tactic, exposing themselves to the darkblight in exchange for Avoiding Notice through the undergrowth or keeping their shield raised with Defend?
This is good stuff, I'm getting pretty close to a perfect solution.