Ultimate Tracker

[BowStreetRunner]

For those of you who remember the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there was a renowned tracker called "Lord Baltimore" who made life miserable for the title characters because it seemed that no matter what they did, they could not shake the posse following them as the tracker was never fooled by any of their attempts to throw him off their trail.

So in a world with magic how would you build a Lord Baltimore? Someone who could track so well that the people he was following would constantly look over their shoulders at his figure in the distance and ask "who is this guy?" - much as Butch and Sundance did in the movie. He would have to be able to track in any environment, and overcome such effects as pass without trace, teleportation, and nondetection.

I've already looked into Ranger for tracking and swift tracking, Urban Ranger for Urban Tracking, and the Bloodhound and Consecrated Harrier prestige classes for their abilities. I realize that things like Track the Trackless, Locate Creature, Scent, Find the Path, and Implacable Hunt would all be invaluable, but some of the prestige class abilities have severe limitations too (they only work on a specific Mark or against a Church-Assigned target). Psionic abilities like Trace Teleport would be key as well.

Anyone want to take a crack at a starting build for something like this? I'm not even sure where to begin, as the abilities needed seem to be all over the place.

[nedz]

The best tracker is, no surprise, a Cleric or Wizard.
Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/discernLocation.htm) is the gold standard spell, but there are others of a lower level which can do the job.
Simply follow this spell with a Teleport, or maybe Scry first. In fact Scrying can do this all by itself, though they do get a will save and it can be blocked.

[BowStreetRunner]

The best tracker is, no surprise, a Cleric or Wizard.
Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/discernLocation.htm) is the gold standard spell, but there are others of a lower level which can do the job.
Simply follow this spell with a Teleport, or maybe Scry first. In fact Scrying can do this all by itself, though they do get a will save and it can be blocked.

Fair enough. But just assume for a moment the target has Mind Blank up 24x7. Now what?

[nedz]

Then there's this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commune.htm) spell, or others like it, though they can be hit or miss.

Maxing out your Survival skill and taking the Track feat do work and you can use this (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/communeWithNature.htm) spell to help should you lose the trail. Again Druids (or Spirit Shaman) are better at this than Rangers since their caster level is higher and they have more spell slots available — sad but true.

[BowStreetRunner]

So far, it's looking like Cleric casting will be much more useful than Wizard casting. Still, these have limitations. For Discern Location "To find a creature with the spell, you must have seen the creature or have some item that once belonged to it. To find an object, you must have touched it at least once."

So tracking still becomes useful when all you know is someone or something has been attacking villages throughout the kingdom and you are tasked with finding the perpetrator and bringing them to justice.

Still, I would like to see some ideas that don't involve "just accept that magic trumps everything and play a primary caster." Somehow a cleric sitting and casting a bunch of spells doesn't really have the role-play feel of Lord Baltimore running Butch and Sundance to ground.

[Flickerdart]

Fair enough. But just assume for a moment the target has Mind Blank up 24x7. Now what?

Metafaculty (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/metafaculty.htm) defeats everything non-epic, including mind blank.

[Mnemnosyne]

So far, it's looking like Cleric casting will be much more useful than Wizard casting. Still, these have limitations. For Discern Location "To find a creature with the spell, you must have seen the creature or have some item that once belonged to it. To find an object, you must have touched it at least once."

So tracking still becomes useful when all you know is someone or something has been attacking villages throughout the kingdom and you are tasked with finding the perpetrator and bringing them to justice.

Still, I would like to see some ideas that don't involve "just accept that magic trumps everything and play a primary caster." Somehow a cleric sitting and casting a bunch of spells doesn't really have the role-play feel of Lord Baltimore running Butch and Sundance to ground.
There are a lot of spells that can help get you a lock for discern location/metafaculty. For instance, hindsight will show you everything that happened in an area in great detail, so you just need to find a place where your target has been, cast hindsight, and you've got a good look at them, and now you have seen them.

The only real way to make mundane tracking methods more effective is really to limit the level at which the adventure takes place and possibly nerf certain spells. At high levels you've got 'one spell can solve it' or 'magic vs. magic'. And pass without trace (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/passWithoutTrace.htm) is a big reason why; a level 1 spell that flat out makes it so that "Tracking the subjects is impossible by nonmagical means." Indeed, at level 1, I don't think this spell has a counter (at least not one I can think of offhand) - if whoever is running has access to them, they cannot be tracked.