You can follow the trails of creatures and characters across most types of terrain.

Prerequisites: Survival 2 ranks
Benefit: 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, such as when other tracks cross them or when the tracks backtrack and diverge. You move at half your normal speed (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 the table below:

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).

Several modifiers may apply to the Survival check, as given on the table below.

Every 24 hours since the trail was

made +1

Every hour of rain since the trail

was made +1

Fresh snow cover since the trail

was made +10

Poor visibility²:

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.