Use this skill to follow tracks, hunt wild game, guide a party safely through frozen wastelands, identify signs that owlbears live nearby, predict the weather or avoid quicksand and other natural hazards.
The Survival skill is not only important in the wilderness, but can be the difference between life and death on the mean streets of the city. In huge cities, the poor and destitute must scrounge for food, find places to sleep and avoid dangerous animals that call the streets home.
Check: You can keep yourself and others safe and fed in the wild. The table below gives the DCs for various tasks that require Survival checks.
Survival does not allow you to follow difficult tracks unless you are a Ranger or have the Track feat (see the Restriction section below).
| Survival DC | Task |
|---|---|
| 10 | Get along in the wild. Move up to one-half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10. |
| 10 | Get along in an urban setting without paying for food or services. You can provide relatively clean water and fresh food for one other person for every 2 points by which your check results exceeds 10. |
| 15 | Gain a +2 bonus on all Fortitude saves against severe weather while moving up to one-half your overland speed, or gain a +4 bonus if you remain stationary. You may grant the same bonus to one other character for every 1 point by which your Survival check result exceeds 15. |
| 15 | Locate a relatively warm and dry place to stay in for a 24-hour period. You must reroll this check every day. |
| 15 | Keep from getting lost or avoid natural hazards, such as quicksand. |
| 15 | Keep from getting lost in confusing streets with which you are not familiar. |
| 15 | Predict the weather up to 24 hours in advance. For every 5 points by which your Survival check result exceeds 15, you can predict the weather for one additional day in advance. |
| 20 | Get along on the sea without provisions. Provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 20. |
| Varies | Follow tracks (see the Track feat). Most streets in urban settings are a mix of soft (mud) and hard (cobblestones) surfaces. |
| 40 | Get along in the wild while moving at full speed. You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which the check result exceeds 40. |
| 60 | Automatically succeed on all Fortitude saves against severe weather. You can extend this benefit to one other person for every 2 points by which the check result exceeds 60. |
| 60 | Ignore overland movement penalties of terrain. You and your mount can move at full overland speed regardless of terrain. You can extend this benefit to one other person for every 5 points by which the check result exceeds 60. |
| 60 | Identify race/kind of creature(s) by tracks. Requires the Track feat. |
Trailblazing: When travelling in poor conditions or difficult terrain, you can attempt a Survival check to hasten your group’s progress.
On a check result of 15 or better, you increase the movement modifier for overland movement by 1/4, to a maximum of ×1 (see Terrain and Overland Movement). With a result of 25 or higher, you can increase the movement modifier by 1/2. In either case the ×1 maximum still applies — that is, you can improve up to but not exceed your normal movement rate by this means.
You can guide a group of up to four individuals (including yourself) at no penalty. However, for each three additional people (rounded up) in the group being guided, apply a -2 penalty to the trailblazing attempt.
This ability applies only to long-distance overland movement — it has no effect on tactical movement.
Create Trail Signs: You can leave brief messages for anyone following you or using your route after you pass by. To create a message, you make marks in the ground, pile up rocks or twigs, bend plants into unusual shapes or perform some other fairly subtle alteration of the landscape. Halflings make use of simple drawings, which they scratch into the ground or on some object with a sharp implement or draw with a piece of chalk or charcoal.
Very simple messages, such as “Go this way” or “Don’t go this way”, are fairly easy to convey (DC 10). More complex messages, such as “Walk west three days, then turn left at the bluff”, have a DC of 15. In general, a message that could be written in four words or less has a DC of 10, and messages of five to ten words have a DC of 15. Failure by 4 or less means the signs you leave don’t get the message across. Failure by 5 or more means that the signs convey some false information (see below).
Finding Trail Signs: Once trail signs are in place, anyone passing through the area where you left them can find them with a DC 10 Survival or Spot check. You can make them easier or more difficult to find. Making the signs big or putting them in an obvious place sets the DC lower (DC 5 or DC 0). Similarly, you can make the signs difficult to find by hiding them. In this case, make a Survival check to set the DC for finding the signs, but the minimum DC remains 10. Older signs are harder to find, and poor visibility can make trail signs more difficult to locate, as indicated below.
| Survival Condition | DC Modifier |
|---|---|
| Every 24 hours since the signs were made | +1 |
| Every hour of rain since the signs were made | +1 |
| Fresh snow cover since the signs were made | +10 |
| Poor visibility 1 | |
| Overcast or moonless night | +6 |
| Moonlight | +3 |
| Fog or precipitation | +3 |
1 Apply only the largest modifier from this category.
Reading Trail Signs: If the character who placed trail signs created them correctly, the Survival check DC to read them is the same as that it took to create them. If the check fails by 4 or less, the reader cannot make any sense of the signs. If the check fails by 5 or more, the reader perceives an incorrect message.
If the character who placed trail signs failed his or her check and created meaningless signs, you can still try to read them. The DC is the same as the DC to create the signs; if you succeed, you know the signs are meaningless. If you fail by 4 or less, you cannot make sense of the signs. If you fail by 5 or more, you perceive an incorrect message.
Intuit Direction: Wherever you are, you can determine the direction to a location on the same plane.
| Familiarity with Location | DC |
|---|---|
| Very familiar | 40 |
| Studied carefully | 60 |
| Seen casually | 80 |
| Viewed once | 100 |
| Description only | 120 |
With a successful check, you know the direction to the desired location. This merely points you in the direction of the location; it doesn’t provide you with information on how to get there, nor does it take into account any obstacles in the path. “Very familiar” represents a place where you have been very often and where you feel at home. “Studied carefully” represents a place you know well, either because you have been there often or have used other means to study the place. “Seen casually” is a place that you have viewed more than once, but which you have not studied. “Viewed once” is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic. “Description only” is a place whose location and appearance you know through someone else’s description.
Action: Varies. A single Survival check may represent activity over the course of hours or a full day. A Survival check made to find tracks is at least a full-round action, and it may take even longer.
Creating trail signs requires a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity.
Locating trail signs usually is reactive; when you have a chance to notice trail signs, you can make a Survival or Spot check without using an action. However, if you know or suspect someone has left trail signs in a certain area, you can use a full-round action to search a 5-foot-by-5-foot area; this requires you to use the Search skill, with the same DC as the Survival DC to locate the signs.
Reading trail signs requires a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Try Again: Varies. For getting along in the wild or for gaining the Fortitude save bonus noted in the table above, you make a Survival check once every 24 hours. The result of that check applies until the next check is made. To avoid getting lost or avoid natural hazards, you make a Survival check whenever the situation calls for one. Retries to avoid getting lost in a specific situation or to avoid a specific natural hazard are not allowed. For finding tracks, you can retry a failed check after 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes(indoors) of searching.
If you fail to create or read trail signs, you cannot try again. If you fail a reactive check to find trail signs someone else has left, you cannot try again (you simply pass by the signs). When using the Search skill to locate signs that you know or suspect are present, you can try again.
Restriction: While anyone can use Survival to find tracks (regardless of the DC), or to follow tracks when the DC for the task is 10 or lower, only a Ranger (or a character with the Track feat) can use Survival to follow tracks when the task has a higher DC.
Special: If you have 5 or more ranks in Survival, you can automatically determine where true north lies in relation to yourself.
A Ranger gains a bonus on Survival checks when using this skill to find or follow the tracks of a favoured enemy.
If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on Survival checks.
Synergy:
If you have 5 or more ranks in Survival, you get a +2 bonus on Knowledge (Nature) checks.
If you have 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (Dungeoneering), you get a +2 bonus on Survival checks made while underground.
If you have 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (Local), you gain a +2 bonus on Survival checks within urban areas covered by your expertise in that skill.
If you have 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (Nature), you get a +2 bonus on Survival checks in above-ground natural environments (aquatic, desert, forest, hill, marsh, mountains and plains).
If you have 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (Geography), you get a +2 bonus on Survival checks made to keep from getting lost or to avoid natural hazards.
If you have 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (The Planes), you get a +2 bonus on Survival checks made while on other planes.
If you have 5 or more ranks in Search, you get a +2 bonus on Survival checks to find or follow tracks.
Source: Player’s Handbook (Page 83), Complete Adventurer (Page 103), Epic Level Handbook (Page 42), Races of Stone (Page 133), Races of Destiny (Page 149)