This issue came up last night in game play. The party (9th level) was ambushed by a bunch of redcaps (nasty little b*stards). They got a surprise round on us and whacked us pretty good, and THEN they proceeded to get initiative over us as well. Essentially they each got to attack us twice before we got to react at all, and we were all flatfooted the whole time. Lovely. Basically from that point on it became a game of survival and avoidance, with each character trying to stay alive and protect their precious few remaining HP's (aside from our fighter who is a BEAST) utilizing their own unique skill sets.
For my sorcerer it was easy: Flight of the Dragon, 100ft straight up, and then rain down sonic death via Sound Lance.
For the fighter, just start chopping with the greatsword and let the Combat Focus healing keep you in the fight.
The Hexblade failed at throwing out two curses and a Tasha's Hideous laughter, then got knocked down to -7HP.
Then we come to the rogue/cleric. There are two on her. She blinds one and puts it out of the fight. Next round she successfully bluffs the second redcap and dives into the bushes to hide from it.
There is no one else threatening the redcap, and he has the track feat. He follows the footprints the rogue/cleric leaves straight to the bush she's hiding in. We discussed this and agreed that perhaps the redcap should get up to a +4 bonus on his spot check to see her, since the footrpints lead right to where she's hiding .
Any rules that address this that I may not be aware of? Anyone else have a similar situation arise?
I think you hit it on the head - the redcap certainly knows what space she is in if nothing else ... which can be Bad News when we're talking about redcaps.
I'd probably disallow it. Tracking someone can be a difficult thing in itself, but seperating someones tracks from their allies, your allies, and even possibly yourself can be difficult, especiallyin the middle of a fight.
Remember, tracking isn't simply looking at footprints on the ground, you need to be able to filter out other tracks, such as those that would have been left by animals, or even minor movements that might take place such as very small rock slides. This is also why I like that it requires a feat to do properly.
Even with training, those things would be difficult to acheive, in the heat of combat and in the sapce of a few seconds seems like pushing it to me.
If I did allow it, I might add a huge penalty to the check, enough to make most people fail normally, but maybe not enough to allow a slim chance if the person is particularly good.
DC 40 is meant to represent task's normally impossible right? Something like a -20 penalty may fit then. I'd add other penalties as normal too (like the normal penalties if rain is present and washing the tracks away). If it can still spot her after that, then it doesn't sound unreasonable at all to me.
I was running the campaign that this happened in. The creature that was trying to track the pc was a redcap. They have the track feat and a +16 to their survival skill. This also happened away from the rest of the fight so neither the monster or the Pc was threatened by anyone else. Using the rules as written under the track feat the redcap was under no negatives for tracking the Pc. Perhaps their is another place in one of the books where this kind of situation is brought up, if their is i would really appreciate anyone one telling me
I was running the campaign that this happened in. The creature that was trying to track the pc was a redcap. They have the track feat and a +16 to their survival skill. This also happened away from the rest of the fight so neither the monster or the Pc was threatened by anyone else. Using the rules as written under the track feat the redcap was under no negatives for tracking the Pc. Perhaps their is another place in one of the books where this kind of situation is brought up, if their is i would really appreciate anyone one telling me
I am presuming the PRPG core rules on this reply.
A check made to find tracks is at least a full-round action.
The DC to do so is based on a number of factors that are currently unknown - the ground surface sets the base difficulty (from 5 to 20). The character is presumably Medium size, so no modifiers there. If a gnome or halfling, the DC increases by 1. There is nothing about the lighting in your scene/encounter which can have a significant impact on the difficulty (+3 to the DC in moonlight or during precipitation/in fog; +6 to the DC on an overcast or moonless night - neither seem applicable based on current information).
However, as the rules are vague on precise timing, you will need to keep in mind the rate of movement restrictions while so following tracks: half speed for that full-round, full speed at a -5 (net +11) or double speed at a -20 (net -4). The best-case end result possible would be locating the rogue/cleric's square after spending a full-round action. One can always keep in mind the rules relating to invisibility in that the terrain underfoot can often provide that "square" location as well, such as sand, mud, snow, and so on. Leaves underfoot would presumably make tracking more difficult - say, another +3 to the DC. In the undergrowth the character's passage could have been given away by broken branches that are still swishing back and forth, pine needles still falling to the forest floor, tiny swatches of cloth caught on briars and so on (these are probably subsumed into the base tracking DC at a guess) in addition to leaving footprints in the ground surface.
So, base DC 20 or 21, redcap spends a full-round action to track at half speed; DC 25 or 26 to do so at full speed; DC 40 or 41 to double move while attempting to track. If they have scent, locating the character becomes much easier ... Given the trade off of a full-round action for the attempt, permitting a tracking attempt to locate a square is pretty reasonable. At that point, the rogue/cleric is presumably going to continue stealthily moving away - and will likely outpace the redcap at least in the short term.
Sounds like it is an exciting encounter though!
here are more of the factors to try and help
- the Pc is a medium creature
- the redcap has low light vision so he was not at a negative for lighting
- the ground was classified as soft earth
- the Pc moved while sneaking so could only move 15 feet
- the redcap used a full round action to track
- i rolled a 16 for his survival check for a total of 32
here are more of the factors to try and help
- the Pc is a medium creature
- the redcap has low light vision so he was not at a negative for lighting
- the ground was classified as soft earth
- the Pc moved while sneaking so could only move 15 feet
- the redcap used a full round action to track
- i rolled a 16 for his survival check for a total of 32
Sounds like your redcap spent his full-round to move to right next to the rogue to find said character's space. Now the rogue/cleric needs to decide ... sneak attack, or not to sneak attack? ^_^
I think it's a creative use of the skill.
It opens up a whole new possibility for using it. I would reward a player for coming up with it if he wanted to do it.
It's a little different when the DM comes up with it against the players, but fun.