Getting lost in a blizzard?


Rules Questions


Hi all,

Simple question; is there any penalty to the Survival to avoid getting lost if you are doing it in a blizard? I kinda feel like there should be, but I cannot find any. Am I missing something?

_
glass.


I think you're looking at it backwards. The blizzard is what's causing you to make the check in the 1st place. That being said, if visibility is severely reduced it does provide an additional -4 to the survival check to keep from getting lost.


Well a Blizzard causes the lack of visibility needed for PCs to BECOME lost and reduces Perception checks; it also slows speed. Finally, the rules on the page I linked to suggest that the wind lowers the area temp by 20 degrees which might be enough for PCs to start making checks every 10 minutes or 1 minute versus non-lethal damage, but I'm not seeing any penalties to the Survival skill.

Consider though that getting lost takes 1 hour. If the PCs are silly enough to travel for an hour in Blizzard conditions, at this point at least 4 inches of snow has accumulated around them; at 2 inches everything is Difficult Terrain so there's that. They might also have suffered anywhere from 1 to 60 Survival checks against Cold to deal non-lethal damage, unless they're "protected" against the weather. Since there aren't super-great rules on this except for specific spells or gear that call out that they count as "protection" against Cold, that's at the GM's discretion.

Now that they've endured getting lost for 1 hour they will try to realize they're lost. Now all characters can try to make a Survival check, -4 due to Poor Visibility; -1 per hour they've traveled lost, to see if they understand they're off track. I'd guess that in whiteout conditions it would be very hard to spot a landmark to get that +4 bonus for getting your bearings.

So 4 PCs, possibly not protected against the elements and potentially suffering non-lethal damage, have to pick a random direction and try to become not lost anymore. Even going right back the way they came isn't a surefire option since their footprints may have filled back in from snowdrifts and such. The rules suggest the GM make the Survival check(s) in secret and if multiple PCs say they'd like to attempt it the characters might have to choose from multiple courses of action... eating up more time that they're shivering in the cold.

Now there's also wind to look at. Wind might be holding them back or slowing their progress further. As I said above, this is also making the air temp around the PCs feel colder, leading to more frequent Cold checks. Of course if the characters and anyone/thing traveling with them are Large or larger this may not be any sort of real deterrent.

A lot of this is moot if the PCs just cast Endure Elements or the communal version. At that point it's just Survival checks, which are unaffected by weather curiously, except for the -4 for poor visibility. However under Blizzard it suggests there's a -8 Perception check penalty; you might choose to apply that -8 to Survival because of severe weather conditions as well.


Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
A lot of this is moot if the PCs just cast Endure Elements or the communal version. At that point it's just Survival checks, which are unaffected by weather curiously, except for the -4 for poor visibility. However under Blizzard it suggests there's a -8 Perception check penalty; you might choose to apply that -8 to Survival because of severe weather conditions as well.

They all had Endure Elements up so that was not a factor. I think I will go with the -8 if it comes up again (which it will because they need to get back from where they were going). Interesting that the Survival skill gives a flat DC of 15 for avoiding getting lost whereas the link LordKailas gave above gives different DCs for different terrains. I am going to go with the latter.

EDIT: Even with the -8, I do not think the party's Ranger can fail. But so be it. I'm not afriad to let high-level characters be high level.

_
glass.


Yeah, the reality is that in PF1 it's really hard to get lost and stay lost. With Endure Elements running it's also impossible to enforce any heat/cold consequences. I'm guessing the devs were like "is it fun wandering around lost in the wilds, making a mini-game out of finding food and surviving?" and decided no.

Think about it: REGARDLESS of the environment, by RAW any PC with a +5 on Survival and the ability to reasonably take 10 on the check can stave off hunger and thirst indefinitely, or until they have to roll their check instead of taking 10.

If you want to make the environment more dangerous you have to add something to make it more dangerous. One thing I did for an underwater scene was to add water elementals, but not just to have them attack the PCs. Said elementals used their size and swim speeds to work in tandem so 5 were able to generate a kind of Control Water effect by moving around the PCs underwater.

Perhaps you could have the very blizzard be somehow sentient, infused with elemental fury, and thus introduce Hazzards, direct attacks, Hallucinatory Terrain, etc., without necessarily giving the PCs a monster to fight. On the other hand, you COULD give them a monster to fight. Perhaps a unique, advanced winter wolf that only goes out hunting during winter storms. The creature has a special ability to ignore the penalties of moving in deep snow, it tracks by wind at double the distances of the Scent ability, and it's "dogging" the party's trail (pardon the pun). If, however, the PCs can make it to a specific location before *X* happens (you decide what that is and find a way to reveal it to the players), then they don't have to face the beast of legend. Thus, you write in a Chase scene that moves the threat beyond getting lost.

Just a thought.


Blizzard? We all know what that means...

Wendigo!


I was DM for a party that got lost in the woods. Getting out required a roll of 15 or something. One player had a borrowed set of dice with a d20 that went from 0-9 twice, once painted as the rest of the set, and the other painted silver to indicate adding 10. That player didn't know this, and so never get 'un-lost'. After being the last and only one still 'lost' did we realize the die issue. Woops! DM fiat: no longer lost, and use a different d20 from that point on.

/cevah, owner of some old dice

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Getting lost in a blizzard? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.