Survival (Wis)

You are skilled at surviving in the wild and at navigating in the wilderness. You also excel at following trails and tracks left by others.

Several modifiers may apply to the Survival check, as given on Table: Survival DC Modifiers.

Common Uses

Avoid Getting Lost/Avoid Natural Hazards

You can use the Survival skill to avoid getting lost or avoid natural hazards and you make a Survival check whenever the situation calls for one.

Retry? 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.

Follow Tracks

To find tracks or to follow them for 1 mile requires a successful Survival check. You must make another Survival check every time the tracks become difficult to follow. If you are not trained in this skill, you can make untrained checks to find tracks, but you can follow them only if the DC for the task is 10 or lower. Alternatively, you can use the Perception skill to find a footprint or similar sign of a creature’s passage using the same DCs, but you can’t use Perception to follow tracks, even if someone else has already found them.

You move at half your normal speed while following tracks (or at your normal speed with a –5 penalty on the check, or at up to twice your normal speed with a –20 penalty on the check). The DC depends on the surface and the prevailing conditions, as given on table.

Action A Survival check made to find tracks is at least a full-round action, and it may take even longer.

Retry? For finding tracks, you can retry a failed check after 1 hour (outdoors) or 10 minutes (indoors) of searching.

Tracking Modifiers

  • Class A ranger gains a bonus on Survival checks when using this skill to find or follow the tracks of a favored enemy.
  • Feats If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in Survival, the bonus increases to +4.
  • Size and Number of Creatures being Tracked: See Table: Modifiers to Survival Checks when Tracking below.
  • Terrain:
    • Very Soft Ground: Any surface (fresh snow, thick dust, wet mud) that holds deep, clear impressions of footprints.
    • Soft Ground: Any surface soft enough to yield to pressure, but firmer than wet mud or fresh snow, in which a creature leaves frequent but shallow footprints.
    • Firm Ground: Most normal outdoor surfaces (such as lawns, fields, woods, and the like) or exceptionally soft or dirty indoor surfaces (thick rugs and very dirty or dusty floors). The creature might leave some traces (broken branches or tufts of hair), but it leaves only occasional or partial footprints.
    • Hard Ground: Any surface that doesn’t hold footprints at all, such as bare rock or an indoor floor. Most streambeds fall into this category, since any footprints left behind are obscured or washed away. The creature leaves only traces (scuff marks or displaced pebbles).
Table: Base Survival DC’s to Track by Ground Condition
Surface Survival DC
Very soft ground 5
Soft ground 10
Firm ground 15
Hard ground 20
Table: Modifiers to Survival Checks when Tracking
Condition Survival DC Modifier
Every three creatures in the group being tracked –1
Size of creature or creatures being tracked:1
Fine +8
Diminutive +4
Tiny +2
Small +1
Medium +0
Large –1
Huge –2
Gargantuan –4
Colossal –8
Every 24 hours since the trail was made +1
Every hour of rain since the trail was made +1
Fresh snow since the trail was made +10
Poor visibility:2
Overcast or moonless night +6
Moonlight +3
Fog or precipitation +3
Tracked party hides trail (and moves at half speed) +5

1 For a group of mixed sizes, apply only the modifier for the largest size category.
2 Apply only the largest modifier from this category.

Survive in the Wilderness

You can keep yourself and others safe and fed in the wild. See Table: Survival DCs by Task for DCs for various tasks that require Survival checks.

Action Varies. A single Survival check may represent activity over the course of hours or a full day.

Retry? For getting along in the wild or for gaining the Fortitude save bonus noted in Table: Survival DCs by Task, you make a Survival check once every 24 hours. The result of that check applies until the next check is made.

Finding Water

Source PCS:Q2016

One of the most vital tasks in traveling deserts is locating the next water source. An individual requires roughly a gallon of water a day while traveling in a desert’s heat, or more if she wishes to have enough to bathe or cool off. The temperatures around oases are often cooler due to the presence of water and shade, making them important resources for resting, treating sunburn, and so on. A gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds, meaning that 3 to 4 days’ worth of water constitutes a light load, or half of a Medium load, for an average PC. Create water can only conjure 2 gallons per caster level, which makes scrolls or even wands of create water limited in their usefulness when multiple people require water.

The Survival skill can help characters find water and survive in the wilds, but in deep deserts off of established trade routes, water and food alike are difficult to come by. In these harsh, remote regions, the DCs of Survival checks to get along in the wild increase to 20, and an adventurer can provide food and water for one other person for every 4 points by which the check result exceeds the DC. At the GM’s discretion, a roll of a natural 20 can indicate the discovery of a small but reliable oasis.

Table: Survival DCs by Task
Survival DC Task
10 Get along in the wild. Move up to 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.
15 Gain a +2 bonus on all Fortitude saves against severe weather while moving up to 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 Keep from getting lost or avoid natural hazards, such as quicksand.
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.

Modifiers

  • Training If you are trained in Survival, you can automatically determine where true north lies in relation to yourself.
  • Class A ranger gains a bonus on Survival checks when using this skill to find or follow the tracks of a favored enemy.
  • Feats If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Survival checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in Survival, the bonus increases to +4.

Survival Unchained

Source PFU

About This Section Optionally, a character who reaches 5, 10, 15, or 20 ranks in a skill unlocks various bonuses and abilities unique to that skill. The unchained rogue uses these rules extensively, but others can gain access to them with a new feat.

In this system, characters unlock additional abilities when they attain 5, 10, 15, and 20 ranks in a skill. The skill unlocks system interfaces with the unchained rogue to make the rogue the true master of skills.

Skill unlocks give characters new abilities and ways to use their skills upon reaching 5, 10, 15, and 20 ranks in a skill. Any character with the Signature Skill feat can earn skill unlocks for a single skill, and they are a prime feature of the revised version of the rogue who uses her rogue’s edge ability to gain skill unlocks for several of her most iconic skills. Alternatively, you might make skill unlocks a universal part of the game, but you should be aware they add significant power and flexibility to skills, so giving them for free to all classes would grant power boosts to other highly skilled classes such as the investigator and bard, particularly in comparison to the rogue. Another alternative is to eliminate access to the Signature Skill feat, limiting skill unlocks to rogues and rogues alone.

With sufficient ranks in Survival, you earn the following.

5 Ranks: You reduce all nonlethal damage you take from heat, cold, starvation, or thirst by 1 point for every 5 ranks you possess in Survival.

10 Ranks: You can track creatures that leave no tracks, including flying and swimming creatures and creatures using trackless step or pass without trace, taking a –20 penalty on your Survival check.

15 Ranks: Once per day, you can spend 1 hour and attempt a DC 30 Survival check. Success grants you cold resistance or fire resistance 5 for 24 hours. You can share this with one ally for every 5 by which you exceeded the check.

20 Ranks: You take only a –10 penalty when tracking creatures that leave no tracks.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Jason Bulmahn, based on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams.

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