Wandering around trying to accidently find the destination

[Jon_Dahl]

PCs are wandering around in an 400 square mile area in order to find 30 people who live somewhere around that area. The whole area is warm hills (kind of semi-desert).

PCs are on foot.
They will wander around until they find the NPCs (few guys living in tents). The NPCs are actively trying avoid discovery but they have no unusual means to do that.

What would be your suggestion how to resolve this?

[limejuicepowder]

Both sides have literally no way to find the other, even something basic like track?

Depending on the visibility, they theoretically could be 300 (or less) yards from each other and not know it. 400 square miles is a square 20 miles by 20 miles, so the chance of them just bumping together is low - especially if the large group is actively trying to stay away.

Sounds like the PC's are wasting their time. At the very least they should go back to town and hire a ranger, or buy some divination scrolls. I would have no idea how to actually determine it randomly.

[Ranting Fool]

If the people they are looking for do not move then it could be done... though they would need SOME survival skill not to get lost. I agree that they should go to a town and work out a better way to do it.

Though you could work out odds for a random chance, make a grid and just cross off what they searched. Would take a LONG time on foot, Mage familiar that can fly might help stretch their search.

I just see them getting a bunch of random encounters but not what they want.

[FearlessGnome]

The PCs need to think up a better plan.

Alternatively, each week, roll 2d100. If you roll snake eyes, the PCs miraculously find the NPCs. That's being fairly generous with the odds, if they don't even have track.

Flight, of course, would drastically up the odds of finding the NPCs. It still wouldn't be fast, but the odds would shift in the PCs' favour.

[Garwain]

First of all, they can't get lost. If they are lost, they will turn in circles and never being able to do any actual searching. There are rules for getting lost.

Since the detection range in hills is quite low (100 feet radius on average), they will need like 300 days to cover the whole area....

[Dimers]

Locate creature significantly broadens the search area -- not enough for a 20-mile-by-20-mile area, but it helps. And locate object could help the PCs find traces left behind by moving NPCs. If the PCs have met any member of their quarry, circle dance will track them down in no time. Other various divinations can help. And if anyone can polymorph or wild shape, there are lots of forms with flight and racial bonuses to Spot.

Lacking any special abilities that might be relevant at all, or any useful plan to increase search range ... dunno. I'd just declare The Plot So Demandeth at some point. But if you want random, I'd say a one or two percent chance per day to get them a usable clue to get closer. After two or three clues, it could become a slow chase scene instead of random wandering.

[Slipperychicken]

Sounds like they should be getting a tracker to help them, or Gather Info at a town for the NPCs location.

[Coidzor]

...What exactly were you intending the PCs to do if you set up this kind of boring and tedious scenario?

Knowledge Nature or Knowledge Geography would be good places to assign values to figure out where good places for getting water would be, vastly narrowing down the possible places they'd intersect with the NPCs.

[Jon_Dahl]

...What exactly were you intending the PCs to do if you set up this kind of boring and tedious scenario?



That's a good question.
Originally I had arranged native guides for them but since PCs brutalized them they were left to their own devices. I can't arrange new guides for them because encountering the natives again so quickly would inconsistent with the campaign world.

[Greyfeld85]

It might help if you gave us at least the classes of the characters in the game, so we know what they're working with.

[Jon_Dahl]

It might help if you gave us at least the classes of the characters in the game, so we know what they're working with.

Barbarian 1/Scount 7
Wizard 7/Ranger 1
Fighter 7/Sorcerer 1
Fighter 7

[Coidzor]

Neither the Scout nor the Wizard have enough ranks in survival to do this thing as a set of skill checks of the various knowledges and survival?

If they succeed, find 'em no problem after a while.

If they get mixed successes, have them deal with some more monster encounters on the way.

If they fail completely, have them accidentally follow their own tracks back to the town they left.

Somewhere between those, have a fairly strenuous fight and then have them come upon the people they want to find in the middle of fending off an encounter that would be a challenge to the party with no chance to recharge spells between.

[Curmudgeon]

Wander around and survive enough random encounters until the PCs level up.
At level advancement have the Scout maximize Survival and take the Track feat (assuming they don't have that already).
Have the Wizard learn some new divination spells.
Learn a valuable lesson about min-maxing.

[Metahuman1]

Suggest to the wizard he should buy a scroll of Claraudiance/Clarvoyance and then learn it and cast as needed.

[Coidzor]

Wander around and survive enough random encounters until the PCs level up.
At level advancement have the Scout maximize Survival and take the Track feat (assuming they don't have that already).
Have the Wizard learn some new divination spells.
Learn a valuable lesson about min-maxing.


Better yet, roll Track into being part of survival and have learned a valuable lesson about things that shouldn't have been made into special abilities that were made into special abilities. :smalltongue:


Did the wizard/ranger trade out track for trapfinding or what?

[Jon_Dahl]

Better yet, roll Track into being part of survival and have learned a valuable lesson about things that shouldn't have been made into special abilities that were made into special abilities. :smalltongue:


Did the wizard/ranger trade out track for trapfinding or what?

They don't want to track because that would slow them down. None them are high-level enough to track full speed without considerable penalties. Scout does survival checks to find food and water, but his base speed is 50 ft. so they are not slowed down. However the ranger/wizard's base speed is 30 ft. so if he did some tracking, their group speed would 15 ft. So they have ruled out tracking and anything that would slow them down.

They are absolutely unwilling to slow down their speed from what it is now.

[Fatebreaker]

They don't want to track because that would slow them down. None them are high-level enough to track full speed without considerable penalties. Scout does survival checks to find food and water, but his base speed is 50 ft. so they are not slowed down. However the ranger/wizard's base speed is 30 ft. so if he did some tracking, their group speed would 15 ft. So they have ruled out tracking and anything that would slow them down.

They are absolutely unwilling to slow down their speed from what it is now.

Remind them that a slow speed which gets them to their objective is faster than a quick speed which gets them nowhere.

[Palanan]

I suppose one question would be how exactly the targets (the NPCs living in tents) are surviving out in the hilly scrublands. Is there water readily available? Are they living on small game caught in snares? Do they send out hunters for larger prey? Are they at home in these hills, roaming more or less at will and staying out of sight? Or are they desperate and lost, hunkered down by a wet gully, surviving on rodents, grasshoppers and the occasional frog?

If you haven't already, you should establish how the NPCs are surviving and what their operating radius will be. Once you know that, you'll have a much better idea of how likely it is that the PCs will run across them. If the NPCs are fairly at home in the hills, and not aware they're being pursued, they might not take so much care with their tracks, and might develop a network of traces if they've been out there a while. A little sloppiness on their part might help resolve the issue, if the PCs stumble across a careless footprint or two.

[JonRG]

I don't really get why they're not willing to move 5ft/round slower, so they can reach their goal in a much shorter timeframe. Let the scout do the tracking, or at least figure out where the NPCs are likely to find resources (as Palanan suggested).

[Greyfeld85]

They don't want to track because that would slow them down. None them are high-level enough to track full speed without considerable penalties. Scout does survival checks to find food and water, but his base speed is 50 ft. so they are not slowed down. However the ranger/wizard's base speed is 30 ft. so if he did some tracking, their group speed would 15 ft. So they have ruled out tracking and anything that would slow them down.

They are absolutely unwilling to slow down their speed from what it is now.

Not to be rude, but it kinda sounds like your players are morons. The special type of moron that only plays DPS in MMOs, refuses to use any threat-reducers because big numbers mean "I R WINNING!!!" and doesn't understand why he dies all the time.

On Survival, I've always found it odd that it didn't include tracking unless you're a Ranger. It seems to me that tracking prey would be part of wilderness survival.

[Palanan]

I'm tempted to agree with Greyfeld85's assessment of the party. You provided them the resources they needed to do this efficiently, but they abused those resources and now won't adapt to deal with the consequences. The party has essentially auto-borked itself.

Given that, I think there's something to be said for Curmudgeon's approach. Let them wander in the wilderness, and let them eat random encounters. Hopefully they'll put some ranks in Clue and start behaving a little more sensibly.



Originally Posted by Greyfeld85
On Survival, I've always found it odd that it didn't include tracking unless you're a Ranger. It seems to me that tracking prey would be part of wilderness survival.

I agree completely with this, and I usually houserule some version of tracking for druids. Tracking is difficult, but if you spend all your time in the wilderness, it becomes essential.

[Coidzor]

Given that, I think there's something to be said for Curmudgeon's approach. Let them wander in the wilderness, and let them eat random encounters. Hopefully they'll put some ranks in Clue and start behaving a little more sensibly.

The problem here is that, at least half the time, much like in love, hints don't work.

Either the DM needs to have a good chat with the players or he needs to handwave things somewhere so that they do track but don't know it or something to get out of this round and round situation of pigheadedness that seems ready to devolve further and further.


I agree completely with this, and I usually houserule some version of tracking for druids. Tracking is difficult, but if you spend all your time in the wilderness, it becomes essential.

Picking a lock is difficult, but you can do it with skill points. Deactivating a complex mechanical device without breaking it and actually learning how to take control of it in less than 5 minutes is difficult but you can do it with skill points. So, yeah.

[Greyfeld85]

Picking a lock is difficult, but you can do it with skill points. Deactivating a complex mechanical device without breaking it and actually learning how to take control of it in less than 5 minutes is difficult but you can do it with skill points. So, yeah.

That's kind of the point. The player has dumped points into Survival, tracking is part of wilderness survival, thus tracking should be included in the Survival skill. As it stands, the only way you can actually track using that skill is if you're a Ranger, or you have the Track feat, which is just silly.

[Palanan]

Amen to that. Tracking is essential to anyone who wants to survive on their own in the wilderness, so it really should be considered part of Survival per se.

Just one more dab of evidence that the folks at WoTC don't get outside that often. The rules for tracking...urf. Just urf.

[Coidzor]

Indeed, though I've always liked how Talya's signature put it.


"A ranger is never late. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when the DM wants him to." - making a tracking roll to speed up how quickly you chase down your target is ultimately useless in D&D, as you will always arrive whenever the DM means for you to arrive. Tracking is a railroading tool designed to look like a class feature. And all us rangers fell for it.