Niche D20Associated Ability Modifier: Focus
Survival is the representation of your ability to survive in the wild, navigate the wilderness, follow tracks, and endure against harsh environments.
Common Uses
Avoid Getting Lost/Avoid Natural Hazards
You may make a DC 15 survival check to avoid getting lost or avoid a natural hazard such as quicksand. You cannot retry a survival check to avoid getting lost or avoid a natural hazard.
Follow Tracks
When searching or following tracks you must make a successful survival check. A single survival check allows following of tracks for one mile, with additional checks needed for each subsequent mile, or when the conditions to continue following the tracks change.
You travel at half speed when following tracks, though may move at normal speed at a -5 penalty to the check.
A Survival check made to find tracks and begin to follow them is at least a 4 AP action. Time to follow them thereafter is determined by your traveling speed, and how far away the source of the tracks are.
If you fail to find or follow tracks you may try again after searching for one hour when outdoors; for indoors locations you only need to spend 10 minutes searching to try again.
Tracking Modifiers
Survival has various modifiers used when tracking a creature based on the surface and the condition to determine base DC and modifiers.
Base DC:
| Surface | Survival DC |
|---|---|
| Very soft ground (mud or snow) | 5 |
| Soft ground (damp ground or sand) | 10 |
| Firm ground (normal dirt or road) | 15 |
| Hard ground (rocks or arid landscape) | 20 |
When tracking a group of creatures, for every 3 creatures in the group, reduce the DC of the survival check by 1 as their presence becomes more noticeable.
For every 24 hours that have passed since the creature left the trail behind has passed the DC increases by an additional 1, with rain increasing the DC by 1 for each hour that has passed that the trail was exposed to rain. Fresh snow makes a trail far harder to notice adding a +10 if the trail was made before or during snowfall.
The size of the creature modifies the ease of tracking a creature:
- Fine: +8
- Diminutive: +4
- Tiny: +2
- Small: +1
- Medium: +0
- Large: -1
- Huge: -2
- Gargantuan: -4
- Colossal: -8
Creatures may attempt to hide the tracks, raising the DC to track them by 5, but requires them to move at half speed.
Survive in the Wilderness
You can keep yourself and others safe and fed in the wild. This check represents an activity, usually over the course of hours or an entire day. You cannot retry a failed survival for that day, but may try again the next day.
| Survival DC | Task |
|---|---|
| 10 | You can move up to half your speed to find food and water for yourself. For every degree of success you can provide food and water for an additional person. |
| 15 | You can prepare yourself against a severe weather condition, granting yourself a +2 bonus to all survival checks made against such weather when moving overland; or a +4 bonus when moving at only half your overland speed. For every degree of success you can provide this bonus to one additional creature. |
| 15 | Predict the weather conditions up to 24 hours in advance with 70% accuracy. If you succeed, roll a d100 to determine if your check was accurate; for every degree of success you may choose to predict an additional day in advance or improve the accuracy of your prediction by an additional 5% (maximum 100%). |