Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Pathfinder's Ultimate Intrigue - Pursuit Rules

    In most of my Pathfinder games we've just used the basic rules.  We did once use the rules for 'Performance Combat' from Ultimate Combat to make a really cool fighting/ talking hybrid adventure, but by and large even though we have a lot of the Pathfinder books we don't use many of the optional rules.  In my current campaign, however, one character made a Bard with the Wit archetype from Ultimate Intrigue.  One of the archetype's abilities directly uses the 'Verbal Duel' rules from that book, so I decided to also use them so that character would get all they were designed for.  I also decided to use the 'Pursuit' rules from the same book since in for a penny in for a pound - why not try as many rules as possible and see what they were like?
    Today I'm going to cover the Pursuit rules since they are the easiest to understand and run, and I have a clear and strong opinion about them.  So let me start by recapping the rules from pages 142 - 147 of Ultimate Intrigue:


Part 1 - Setup
    Now, the GameMastery Guide has rules for a 'Chase' - which is a short-term, foot or carriage or steampunk-car chase.  These 'Pursuit' rules are for much longer chases.  I think the book even mentions Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas chasing the Orcs who kidnapped Merry and Pippin, a pursuit that takes several days to resolve.  So this is a long-term action, not a quick and frantic scene.
    The first major distinction is weather this is a pursuit or a race.  In a pursuit one group (PC or NPC) is directly following the other, hoping to catch them, I'll come back to that.
    In a race both groups are headed to the same destination, and whichever gets there first wins.  A race is the easiest to set up and play, since one group's actions do not directly effect the other.  The GM does have to decide if both groups are taking the same path/ trail  (which could be dramatic as they might see signs of the other group being ahead or behind) or if each group is taking a different path.
    For a pursuit the biggest question is who's casing and who's being chased?  PCs pursuing NPCs or vice-versa?  I guess there could even be multiple groups, like the PCs trying to evade two hostile forces, but the rules don't directly mention that (that I remember) and I'm not sure if the added complexity would really add anything to the game.
    Another question is: how could the pursuit end?  The book mentions several ways...

Ending a Direct Pursuit: A direct pursuit can end in one of four ways. When the pursuers are on the same tile as the quarries and have made equal or greater progress than the quarries, the pursuers catch their quarries. When the quarries reach a location where they stop progressing (such as a safe haven or stronghold), pursuit ends and may turn into a siege. When the pursuers can’t possibly succeed at the Survival check to continue tracking their quarries and have exhausted any other tactics that might help relocate the trail, their quarries have eluded them. Finally, the pursuers can voluntarily give up the pursuit. Optionally, the GM can choose a distance at which the quarries are so far ahead that the pursuers have no real chance of catching up. For instance, the GM might decide that if the quarry group is five tiles ahead of the pursuers, they’ve escaped; this number might be smaller in jungles or other dense terrain.

    This is all reasonable enough, though I do hate the part about how the GM can set an arbitrary distance for the pursuit to end.  In a more rules-heavy game like Pathfinder this should really be some specific guideline or formula, not "whenever the GM feels like it."
    To measure progress each character uses their speed divided by ten.  So Generic Medium Creature with a base land speed of 30 feet has a base Pursuit Speed of 3.  The group is expected to stay together during this however, so the Group's speed is equal to the lowest speed of it's members.  This different speed is used because each 'round' of the pursuit is 1 hour long.  You get 8 rounds in a day, going off a generic length of daylight.
    Now, this is not explicitly mentioned when setting up the pursuit, but weather matters.  Rain or snow can make it harder to track somebody, so there is a sidebar that mentions the weather.  It has two main problems however.  First it does not mention how you determine if it might rain.  Roll percentile?  Okay, but what are the odds?  Should the odds vary depending on the season? The type of terrain?  I'm not sure if there is a 'random weather table' somewhere else, like the Core Rulebook.  I usually don't throw a lot of weather into my games.  But if there is a table I wish the book had mentioned where, if not I wish they had come up with at least a quick and dirty system.
    The next problem is that you need to know how long the weather lasts and who is in it, beyond it, or headed towards it.  This is all really complicated, and I'm not sure just how much it adds to the game.  Here's the whole sidebar...

    Bad weather, especially precipitation, can affect both the progress a group makes and the DCs of Survival checks required during pursuits.
    Progress: Heavy precipitation, strong winds, and other environmental factors might impede a group’s progress. For brief storms lasting one or two pursuit phases, reduce the group’s progress by 1 in each pursuit phase. If an entire terrain tile has particularly nasty weather (like a high mountain plagued by winds or a jungle during a monsoon), instead add between 4 and 8 to the tile’s progress to complete, depending on the weather’s severity. Increase the tile’s number of maximum advantages by 1 so the travelers have the opportunity to find a way to overcome the nasty weather.
    Tracking: If there is rain during a direct pursuit, increase the DC of the Survival check by 1 for every pursuit phase that it rained. If it snowed, increase the DC by 10 instead. To track the duration of the precipitation during a direct pursuit, mark down the tile where the quarries are and the amount of progress they have made when the precipitation begins, then mark down the progress they had made when the precipitation ends. When the pursuers are on that tile and have made an amount of progress equal to or greater than the lower progress value, use the increased Survival DCs. After the pursuers have passed the higher progress value, the Survival DCs return to normal. If the precipitation occurs before the quarries entered an area, the Survival DCs to follow the trail might be reduced since the ground becomes very soft mud or covered in snow.

   While I applaud them for thinking about weather changing the pursuit, this is such a damn cumbersome and clunky system.
   Finally, to end the setup phase the GM just needs to determine the path the quarries are taking.  This could be easy if there is already a hex-map of the area, or the GM just needs to pick out some terrain (from a list) that seems appropriate.  Then the GM needs to determine how far ahead the quarries are.
    With everyone in their starting blocks we're ready to begin the pursuit.

   
Part 2 - Terrain
    The primary factor in the pursuit is the terrain.  There are 14 terrain types.  Each has 3 core elements and some optional elements.  The core stuff is...

  • Progress - this is how hard it is to cross this terrain tile.  You subtract the group's speed from the tile's progress, when it hits 0 they move on to the next tile (which could be the same type of terrain).
  • Ground - this sets the Survival DC to make progress.
  • Advantages - this sets how many extra things you can do to progress faster.

     Progress is pretty easy to understand, it's how hard the tile is to cross.  Plains and Roads have the lowest at 8 and Jungle has the highest at 32.
    Ground is also an easy concept, it just sets the Survival skill DC.  These could be the standard ones of: 5, 10, 15, or 20.  If you make the DC you make progress, if you don't then you don't.
    Advantages, this is a little bit tricky.  There are two reasons I can see for advantages, one is based on 'realism'/ logic and the other on gameplay.  Basically an Advantage is a way to make extra progress, from a logical standpoint.  Plains and Roads have the lowest advantage numbers, at 0.  This makes sense because these terrains are so easy to traverse that you can't really make it any easier/ faster.  Jungle has the highest at 8, so if you can use your machetes to cut down the foliage you'll make it easier to travel.  Or of you can do something creative then you can make it easier (beyond just finding a good trail with Survival).  From a gameplay standpoint, the advantages give the rest of the party something to do.  A lot of travel becomes a one-player game with whoever has the best Survival skill rolling while everybody else takes a nap.  So this system tries to get everybody involved, with mixed success.
    Okay, we haven't actually started rolling dice yet, so let's go...


Part 3 - Tracking and Advantages
    I wish the book laid this out better, but basically each party member is going to be making one action/ skill check.  Each round is 1 hour long, and there are a default of 8 in a day (I don't think the book specifically mentions it, but I'd say the GM can change that if needed).  The party is going to be roughly split into two groups, those tracking and those advantaging.
    Trackers - so at least one character has to be tracking.  They make a Survival check based on the terrain's DC, that increases by 1 for each day behind the quarry they are, and decreases by 1 for every 3 characters in the quarry party.  And then the weather of course.  Any number of characters can choose to be 'assistant trackers' which is their one action for the round, and they make a normal Aid Another check.  All trackers and assistants move at half speed, unless they have a special class ability or item or something that lets them track and move faster.  Likewise, the only spells or actions that can modify this roll (or any for advantages below) are those that have a duration of at least 1 hour.  Also no one can take 10 or 20, or use an ability that allows only a single re-roll (since again this is a long-term action).
    Trackers and assistants also suffer a penalty, they only move at half speed.  I don't remember it sating if you should track fractions or round down or up - so a Medium Human of base speed 3 is either a 1 or 1.5 or 2 when tracking.
    Advantagers - the other action a party member can take is to create an advantage.  This is a little tricky though.  First, each terrain tile has a maximum number of advantages that are allowed.  The book does not clearly spell this out, but I feel safe in saying that each member of the group can create an advantage that number of times.  For example, a Forest tile has a max of 3 advantages.  So a party of 4 characters, with only 1 tracking, can make a total of 9 rolls (3 from the tile for each of the 3 party members not tracking).  There is a list of 10 different advantages, and 3 are tied to a specific terrain while the rest can be used anywhere.  They are all a little vague, enough so that the GM may rule that a certain advantage is not possible, or might have a higher or lower DC.
    Basically an Advantage is just a non-Survival skill check.  The book does not give any base DCs, it seemed to think you should just look the skill up in the Core Rulebook to work those out.  I was saying that the DCs for advantages was the same as the DC for the Survival check from the terrain tile, just because that was easier.  Also, while a failed Survival check from the trackers means you make no progress, the Advantagers checks work differently.  A successful Advantage check adds 1 to the group's progress (I'm assuming even if the Survival failed, just to keep things moving).  Failing reduces that character's speed by 1, unless they failed by 5 or more in which case they slow the whole group by 1.  This is a little weird since if the whole group has the same speed (all Medium creatures for example) and the slowest person sets the group's progress, then reducing your speed by one is going to reduce the whole group, which makes the distinction kind of meaningless.  I don't know, I just don't like how an advantage can either add or subtract to progress, I'd rather have even a failure just not add anything, like with tracking - maybe that's just me though.  Sine this is really designed to give the rest of the party something to do, I don't want to make a player feel like they shouldn't try to help since they might hurt the group as a whole.  While adding zero is not really helping, it seems like (with my players at least) psychologically it seems safer than knowing you could subtract from the others.
    Okay, so to recap, each round each player chooses to either track or advantage, and they make however-much progress until they leave the tile.  But, of course, there's one more potential complication.


Part 4 - Tactics
    While the action (tracking or advantage) says what each character is doing, there are also tactics to say how they are doing it.  There are both individual and group tactics, and there is no limit to how many each character or group can use except for the ever-elusive "common sense" or GM fiat.
    Tactics get kind of weird, so I actually want to cover them individually.  First up we have the personal tactics which each character can choose.
    Fast Tracking - a tracking character does not reduce their speed by half, but they take a -5 to the Survival check.  Some abilities let you track at full speed anyways, but the -5 is not a really big deal since the highest DC is 20, and 25 is doable for most mid-level characters.  Also this is only an individual tactic if only one person is tracking, any assistant trackers also have their speed halved, so remind them to take this as well to keep the group moving.
    Obscure Trail - Quarry Only - mark where the character starts and stops using this tactic, the character moves at half speed but add 5 to the tracking DC through the marked section.  Wow, I really hate this one.  Too many things say "mark this section" for my taste, this should be a simple system, not a ton of additional book-keeping.  Also the flat +5 DC is crap at higher levels, why not make it a contested Survival or Stealth vs Survival check? (though admittedly that's even more bookkeeping)  And, since this is an "individual" tactic, if each member of the group chooses to use it do the penalties stack?  That could be huge for a low-level party (three quarry could apply a -15 penalty, which might make it impossible to succeed) though it would at least be meaningful for a higher-level group.
    Recovery - a character can spend a round healing their allies with spells or items.  They cannot track or advantage for that round.  This seems like way too big a penalty.  I can see using the Heal skill taking enough of a chunk out of the hour to slow the character, but spells and scrolls and potions and items can all be used in one round of combat, wich is just 6 seconds long.  So helping 5 of your comrades takes less than a minute.
     And this one I hate the most, I'm going to print exactly what the book says...
    
Special Movement: A character with consistent access to a fly speed, swim speed, or the like for a full pursuit phase might be able to move particularly quickly over the appropriate type of terrain; though, for instance, a character flying above a jungle canopy would not be able to follow a trail below.

    WTF?!?!  Wow, what a way to gloss over something so important.  It's bad enough that these rules seem to be only written for two groups of people on foot, since there is no mention of horses/ mounts and how they effect speed, tracking or endurance.  So if I can fly the GM just makes up what happens?  I get that flying means I can't roll Survival to track someone through the jungle - but what about rolling Perception to spot the guys I'm chasing?  What's the DC?  How is that DC effected by the distance ahead of me they are and the terrain type?  All of this is just getting left up to the GMs imagination?  If that's the case, why did you bother writing rules for it?!?!

    Then there are the group tactics, which every member of the group has to agree to use...
    Forced March - the group takes a 9th round at the end of the day, but each member has to make a Con check or take nonlethal damage and possibly become fatigued - it references the rules on page 171 of the Core Rulebook.  This seems like a pretty small bonus, and also a trivial penalty at higher levels.  I'm not even going to bother reading the rules in the Core Rulebook, I don't care.
    Gather Information - Pursuers Only - okay, this is a weird one, let me cover it and then set off the rant-bomb.  So this is a Diplomacy check, it takes 2 rounds (they call them phases, whatever, and this is the only thing that takes more than one: that's 2 hours of 'real' time), and there have to be people around (no guidance on how to determine that) or you have to be able to talk to animals or plants or something.  Typical DC of 15, though that depends on "how sneaky the quarry are being."  Replaces the Survival check for tracking to make progress.  Holy bajolie there is so much wrong with this.  If this replaces Tracking, why the hell is it in the back with the Tactics and not in the front with the Actions like tracking and advantages?  How the hell am I supposed to determine (as the GM) if there are "enough people around" and "how sneaky the quarry are being" ??  What is the DC for talking to plants and animals?  Should it be lower in a Forest or Jungle tile where presumably there are a lot of flora and fauna and higher in a Road or Mountain tile???  This wonky mechanic should have been cleaned up in playtesting or proofreading - neither of which I think was actually done for this, or honestly any of the other new rules in Ultimate Intrigue.
     Here's another one I hate, and it's full description...
    
Hustle: This tactic is analogous to hustling during overland movement. A group using this tactic can double the progress they make during that pursuit phase. They can use it once per day without consequences, but using it again requires all members of the group to take 1 point of nonlethal damage and become fatigued. Each additional hour spent hustling deals twice the amount of nonlethal damage of the previous hour. A group can hustle during a forced march, but they take the nonlethal damage and conditions from both, meaning a healthy group usually becomes exhausted when they do so. Hustling is a useful tactic with fairly light repercussions, but the group spends all of its time moving. This means that the obscure trail, recovery, gather information, and set a trap tactics can’t be used when hustling. Unless an advantage is focused specifically on movement (such as climbing lead or fancy footwork), it can’t be gained while hustling.

    Okay, this thing is wonky since it interacts with everything else in the Pursuit system, and it's a bunch of weird book-keeping. The amount of non-lethal damage is trivial to a mid- or high-level party, so the fatigue thing gets thrown in there.  Again, what happens if the party is mounted?  Do all mounts take fatigue the same way characters do?  The speed gain is not at all worth it if you have Advantages left to use, so this is really meant for low/ no advantage terrain or after you've used your advantages up (which I wish it just said).  Having to track this every single round seems annoying, and if you're so focused on movement why don't you take a penalty to the Survival check to track (like a forced "Fast Tracking" tactic above), and if you do why doesn't it explicitly say that?  I get this as a tactic, and you really, really need ways to increase your speed since most living things move at the same rate, and the only way to go faster is tied to the Terrain's Advantages, which mean that again they apply to everyone involved.  But this seems way too complicated for what should be a quick and simple system.  Rolling each hour of 10 days' pursuit is a recipe for insanity, this whole mini-game is more grinding bookkeeping than meaningful decisions.
    I forgot about this one, it sucks too...

Intentional Hardships: A quarry group using this tactic chooses a circuitous or treacherous path to attempt to shake pursuers. This decreases their group’s progress by 2 as long as they use the tactic. Mark the terrain tile and amount of progress the group made on that tile when they start and stop using this tactic. While the pursuers are in the same area, their progress is reduced by 2, but their number of maximum advantages is increased by 2. Like advantages, this reduction applies after any multiplication or division due to tracking, hustling, and the like. For simplicity’s sake, the GM might want to require the quarry group to use intentional hardships when they first enter a terrain tile and stick to it throughout that terrain tile.

    Okay, so the quarry are forced to lose 2 progress, and the pursuit loses 2 progress, but gain 2 advantages, which means they can just roll (again trivially for a mid- to high-level group) to make up the loss that the quarry have no way to regain.  Whoever is stupid enough to use this tactic deserves to be caught.  Again too we have the minutia of tracking exactly where and when the quarry use this, so much that to book itself even points out that this is a bunch of stupid book-keeping you should simplify.  If the game designers saw that this was as stupid system why didn't they write a better one?
    The last two are really easy to work out, mostly.  First there is "Set A Trap" which means the quarry ambush or create a trap for the pursuit.  Which you just adjudicate normally when the pursuit reaches that point.  Sounds easy, though I don't remember the time and DCs to make an improvised wilderness trap off the top of my head, so might take some book-flipping to work out.  Lastly a group can "Split Up" into multiple groups, which is easy enough except for the extra work of tracking an extra party's progress/ speed/ advantages/ tactics so again even the book points out that this sucks and you might not want to do it.  A big question though, if the quarry split up because one of them has an item, and so they want to make the party chase down the wrong group (ideally), what roll does the pursuit need to make to determine how many groups they split into?  Say there are 4 quarry, only 1 has a stolen artifact.  They travel for a day and then split up (because they knew/ suspected they were being pursued?  a friendly raven told them to?)  - so when the pursuit reach that point do they need to make an extra Survival check to find how many groups they split into?  Do they automatically know?  Is there any way to figure out who has the stolen artifact?  And now if 4 pursuers also split up you've got 8 different people's progress and tactics and such to keep track of.  That should be fun.
    And that is the Pursuit system in a nutshell.
    Are you as exhausted as I am?


How It Played For Me
    Total s***storm.
    I made one huge mistake, I didn't pay enough attention when I read the rules, and so I ran this for a group of level 10 characters.  A maximum 25 DC is trivial for characters of that level.  So I ended up using the "fail skills on a natural 1" optional rule (that I never normally use) and I nerfed my NPCs skills so a couple of bad rolls made them loose progress.  It ended up being long, boring and stupid.
    So, instead let me create a sample group for you and we'll do a fresh playtest here.

The Situation
    A group of monsters have stolen an artifact from a church.  The PCs have been called in to retrieve it.  There will be 3 monsters with a 1 day head start.  There will be 5 PCs.  All will be considered to be low-level.  The monsters are headed back to their hideout, their path will cover 5 tiles: Forest A, Forest B, Plains, Hills, Mountains.  The Mountains tile will be considered Hard (DC 20).  Both sides will be considered to have enough food.  The monsters are taking advantage of a storm front, stealing the artifact just before it hits, so the PCs are going to have 4 rounds of bad weather at the start of the pursuit, the monsters will be past that section so they will be unaffected.

The Party
    Are going to be considered to be level 1, trained in whatever they need to do (ie, someone with Survival as a class skill is doing the tracking), with a +2 in the relevent attribute (this is just so I don't have to actually make some characters).  That means they will have a +6 bonus to whatever action they take (I'll assume they choose Advantages that they are likewise skilled in, for simplicity's sake).  They will all have a base speed of 30', which I'm going to round down to 1 progress for tracking.

The NPCs
    Are going to be considered "level 1" monsters, so about a CR 1/4 to 1/2 each.  I'm going to assume they are a little less skilled than the heroes, so they will only have a +5 to their rolls.  I'm also going to assume they are a little bit faster, so they will have 2 progress while tracking.

The Rolls
    The 3 Quarry gives a +1 bonus to Survival for tracking, while the 1 day's head start gives a -1, so they will cancel each other out.  I'm also rounding up that "day" - I'm going to say the monsters traveled for 4 hours to get ahead of the storm before taking a nap for the night, so I'm giving them 4 rounds of progress to set the lead.
    The first terrain tile is a Forest, with a DC 15 and 3 Max Advantages.  Since the monsters get 4 rounds of progress I'll let them take all 3 advantages, and 1 round with no advantages.  Advantages will be made off the same DC as the tile's Survival (again, for simplicity).  So let's roll, tracker first then the advantages (while they last).  I'm going to use an online dice roller (to lazy to reach for my bag :) from Wizards of the Coast https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm - for the first round I get: 12, 19 and 17.  So the tracker failed, which gives the group a base 0 progress, and both advantages succeed for 2 progress total.  Round 2 is 10, 11 and 20 total, for 1 progress, which makes the total 3.  Round 3 is 7, 8, and 18, only 1 more progress for 4 total.  Round 4 is the last round of the head start, and all advantages have been used up, so it is just the tracking roll, an 18 means they get the base 2 progress for their speed, and a total of 6 progress.  The forest needs 16 progress, so they are still in the Forest A tile when the PCs join the chase the next day.

Round 1
    The monsters have used all their advantages for this tile, so it will only be the tracker rolling, but both of his buddies will aid another him (so they need to make DC 10s), I'm going to roll them first.  The aides get 25 and 12, so they will give the tracker a +4.  He gets an 11 even with their help (and his buddies are thinking about eating him) so they make no progress.  This leaves them in Forest A at 6 of 16 progress, with 0 advantages.
    The heroes give chase.  They have 3 advantages, which they will use, but they are penalized by the storm (which I'm ruling by time and not distance, to simplify) which is going to reduce their movement by 1 for each round it's raining, it also increases the survival DC by 4 (the last 4 hours it's rained) which will increase by 1 for each of the 4 rounds it continues to rain.  However, it also adds 1 advantage making a total of 4.  One hero is tracking, the others will try for an advantage while they can.  Tracker first I get 9, with 21, 12, 14 and 13.  The 15 base survival plus 4 for the rain makes 19 total, which the 9 is way short of.  I'm also using the same DC for advantage (to simplify), so only 1 advantage roll is made, for a total of 1 progress.  The heroes are in Forest A at 1 of 16 progress, 5 behind the monsters, with 3 advantages.

Round 2
    Same 2 aid another checks and then survival for 10, 25 and 13.  The leading monster's blindness continues so they make no progress.  Monsters are in Forest A at 6 of 16 progress, with 0 advantages.
    Heroes switch tactics, the rain penalty increases to 2, making the DC 20.  Given their poor showing last round they are all going to do aid another (DC 10) with 8, 24, 24, 26 for a +6 to the tracker who gets a 16 total, again no progress.  Heroes are in Forest A at 1 of 16 progress, still 5 behind the monsters, with 3 advantages.

Round 3
    Monsters are the same, 21 and 21 give the tracker +4, his 26 total finally gets them moving, for 2 progress.  Monsters are in Forest A at 8 of 16 progress, with 0 advantages.
    Rain penalty increases by 1 again for DC 21, just one more round after this it will be raining.  Heroes will again aid and track.  The aides roll 24, 14, 25 and 16 for a total of +8 and the tracker rolls 18 so no progress.  Heroes are in Forest A at 1 of 16 progress, now 7 behind the monsters, with 3 advantages.

Round 4
    Monsters get 22 and 9, for a +2 to the tracker.  He gets an 18 which beats the Forest DC 15 (he's not effected by the rain), so they finally make 2 progress.  Monsters are in Forest A at 10 of 16 progress, with 0 advantages.
    Heroes have the final round of rain, for DC 22 to track.  Others aid (DC 10) with 23, 17, 16, 11 for +8 to tracker.  Who gets a 28 so they finally move for 1 progress.  Heroes are in Forest A at 2 of 16 progress, now 8 behind the monsters, with 3 advantages.

Round 5
    With the rain over both groups now are at DC 10 to aid and Dc 15 to track or advantage.
    Monsters get 12 and 9, for +2 to tracker.  Who gets a 16 to make 2 progress.  Monsters are in Forest A at 12 of 16 progress, with 0 advantages.
    Heroes go to 1 tracker and others take advantage, they get 15, 11, 15, 18, 19 - 4 successes for 4 progress.  Heroes are in Forest A at 6 of 16 progress, now 6 behind the monsters, with 2 advantages.

Round 6
    Monsters 25 and 10 for +4 aid.  Tracker 26 for 2 progress.  Monsters are in Forest A at 14 of 16 progress, with 0 advantages.
    Heroes same as last round, 23, 23, 26, 26, 24 for 5 progress.  Heroes are in Forest A at 11 of 16 progress, now 3 behind the monsters, with 1 advantage.

Round 7
    Monsters 19 and 7 for +2 tracking.  Tracker 18 for 2 progress.  Monsters are in Forest B at 0 of 16 progress, with 3 advantages.
    Heroes take their last advantage for this tile, with 22, 26, 21, 19, 24 for 5 progress.  Heroes are in Forest B at 0 of 16 progress, and they have caught the monsters!!!

    I've been working on this article all day, so I'm finishing this example here.  I was going to give the monsters a full 8 rounds of a head start, but shortened it in hopes of keeping the pursuit shorter.  As you can see, at low levels it can be pretty swingy, but when you go from 1st to 6th level, and those +6 become +11 or more, these DCs get pretty easy to hit.  Like an auto aid another and 4 or higher base, with 2 allies that becomes auto as well.  Which is the biggest problem with the system.  It relies on the swing of the dice to create leads and catch up, but if you reliably hit those DCs then it becomes impossible or incredibly long to catch up.
    It's hard for me to say exactly how long this would take to play at the table, but note that I've had to make 59 die rolls, assuming 3 seconds per roll with description that's just shy of 3 minutes.  So maybe 5 minutes tops to play this if you knew the system.  Not too long, but I wonder about it since all that happened was the players caught the monsters at the end of the same day even with having to navigate the storm.


What I Like
    I think there is potential here, a small grain of a good idea, that is buried under a lot of crap.


What I Hate
    Just about everything.  As I mentioned before this is really meant for low-level characters on foot.  There isn't a lot of depth to this.  It kind of involves the group but let's be honest, an "Aid Another" check does not really feel like you're involved.  The stupid "every living thing moves at exactly the same speed" of Pathfinder is really on display here, and why that is stupid.  It seems like a lot of rolling for very little return, it is not all that deep, dramatic, or tactical.  I guess it's better than nothing, but that's a pretty low bar.
    There are also Underwater, Water (surface), and Planar terrain types - which totally show the faults with the system.  How the heck do you make a Survival check to track someone underwater?  Where are the rules for ships with oars and exhausting the rowers, along with sailing ships and wind conditions?  What the heck good is a "Planar" terrain type when it just says "make something up or copy another tile" ?!


What I Would House Rule
    I would actually love to have a good pursuit system.  And this does have a decent core, after you burn off all the fat I think there's a skeleton your could build something useful on top of.  I am so not going there though, not right now.  I've got two campaigns running, one of which I am making a brand new and detailed setting for - so I don't have the time to try to fix this (to my liking at least).  Maybe someday though, someday...


    When I played this I decided to make some handouts.  I thought it would be better to have the Terrains and Advantages on cards that I could lay out and the players choose from.  So I'm dropping some links below to my Google Drive with those files in case you want to try it yourself.  I sized each 'card' to fit in some 66mm x 91mm clear deck protector sleeves.  After I ran this I thought it would be good to have a "tracker" for progress and all those weird effects that start and end at certain places, so I added that at the last minute.  This all kind of helped, one player did say she liked choosing from the cards.
    I have two files:

EDIT 1/10/2023: Due to current confusion about the upcoming OGL v1.1 and how that might relate to the previous OGL 1.0a that I was using, I have removed all links to my previous documents.  I will try to alter and re-upload them in the near future.

    So have you tried these pursuit rules?  What did you think of them?

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