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So I was looking at the Dandy archetype for ranger in ultimate intrigue, and I noticed that they lose survival as a class skill, but they don't trade out track. This seems like an obvious mistake. Having a class feature adding to survival, but survival not being a class skill makes no sense. I'm assuming that track is supposed to be traded out for something.
I was thinking of giving +1/2 level to diplomacy checks made to gather information as a stand in, unless there is an actual correction of this mistake somewhere?
Why would it be a mistake? They can track, just not as well as a regular ranger.
Edit: Rereading the archetype, it is weird that they didn't trade out track for something else or limit it to urban settings or something. Maybe it's an oversight. I don't know of any errata, though.
Barring any official errata, one option could be to modify the Dandy's Track ability to be the equivalent of either:
- the Perceptive Tracking investigator talent or;
- the Follow Clues rogue talent
Both of these options allow the character to use Perception for tracking instead of Survival, which fits the preferred setting and flavor of the Dandy quite nicely.
As always, just my humble 2cp :)
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
The only thing you get from a skill being a class skill is a +3 bonus if you have at least one rank in the skill. You can still put ranks into a skill even if it is not a class skill. So while a Dandy does not get the +3 bonus there is no reason they cannot put ranks into in to it.
Survival can also be used untrained.
A Dandy also gets favored terrain urban, and it still scales up. Survival is one of the skills that the bonus applies to. The Favored Nation bonus also applies to survival vs targets from that nation. Between the two of them the ranger can still get significant bonuses to survival. Add the bonus for tracking in and a Dandy trying to follow someone from one of his favored nation in a city environment has a good chance without even putting any ranks into survival. A 10th level Dandy who maxed out a specific nation gets a +15 bonus to track them in a city just from class abilities.
The base Ranger does not get sense motive as a class skill, but his favored enemy bonus applies to it. So having the Dandy lack survival even though two of his class abilities apply to it is not that strange.