Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Hullo!

Curious - since both skills cover it - which would be weighted more in a nautical setting when trying to approximate current location and chart a course?

Survival - having 5 TRAINED ranks in survival guarantees the ability to always pinpoint the location of north without a check. Useful for sailing blind and for finding stars, but it says nothing about using the stars to pinpoint your current location beyond these 5 ranks.

Knowledge (Geography and ASTRONOMY) -

The skill describes knowledge of the land, the knowledge related to using charts and also the knowledge of the stars/planets/moons.

Navigation in medieval era came from using a simple compass to determine the location of North, from using either Polaris or the Sun to measure latitude (using a board with a stick to an accuracy of half a degree, or even just fists stacked on each other from the horizon), and using either the degree by which the direction of North changes on the compass (Columbus's Hypothesis) or by trying to keep track of True time and Local time (before mechanical clocks, this was once again done by using large lexicons describing the heavenly cycles with increasing accuracy to determine how late/early said cycles repeated themselves at your current location to deduce time, then deduce longitude using it).


Based on how navigation was done, I'm feeling confident that 5 trained ranks in survival and roughly 20 trained ranks in Astronomy (not counting int bonus yet) should be able to allow one to safely navigate to anywhere in the known world. (since SRD describes 20 as being the highest DC for non-difficult questions)

Naturally, being caught in a storm and having the sky hidden from you would elevate DCs higher, and trying to discover uncharted lands would do so as well, but this is regarding routine navigation, with consideration that NPC pilots/navigators do the same with their 5-8 skill mods.

It is knowledge (geography) and profession (sailor).

dndtools lists knowledge geography as a prereq for "great captain" feat.

Survival, IMO is "how to eat a dead bear and not to die from food poisoning"

Survival has always been the go to for tracking and reading maps etc. I mean in PNP its obviously a little different since you can have proffession skills and such but either way its always been survival checks for as long as i have played D&D

Wolfrayne wrote:Survival has always been the go to for tracking and reading maps etc. I mean in PNP its obviously a little different since you can have proffession skills and such but either way its always been survival checks for as long as i have played D&D

Do you think if a DM asked for survival checks on maps, since more people have ranked it as it's not a custom skill, I could go "But I've 20 ranks in Geography and Astronomy!" and argue to be able to use it instead?

Highly subjective and would probably depend on the DM.

I would argue that Survival would be used for more general details regardless of knowing the region or not. For example Survival check could tell you that water is nearby with direction, if there are signs of nearby civilization, approximate population of a given type of fauna or beast, etc.

Lore Geography gives you knowledge of maps, direction and land marks. Thus a successful check would allow you to know your approximate location and distance to various other settlements and land marks.

Again, just my interpretation, I imagine individual DMs have a bit of creative freedom on the type of skill use they allow.

EDIT: To clarify, Geography and Astronomy can help you get where you want to go when you already know where you are. Survival can help you get to the type of location you are looking for regardless of knowledge as to where you are currently.

We should have a synergy with geography and survival. The book says survival can help you to know where the north is (assuming there is a sun or a moon in the sky).


In the book of planes and deities and demigods the lore tellls the sky from each plane are slighly different from each other. That means a high geography check can tell you what plane you are in. It is a good knowledge to have in some circunstances.

Hoihe wrote:

Wolfrayne wrote:Survival has always been the go to for tracking and reading maps etc. I mean in PNP its obviously a little different since you can have proffession skills and such but either way its always been survival checks for as long as i have played D&D

Do you think if a DM asked for survival checks on maps, since more people have ranked it as it's not a custom skill, I could go "But I've 20 ranks in Geography and Astronomy!" and argue to be able to use it instead?

Yes.

However DM could also use "the clouds obscure the stars and you cannot see them" or "you ate a poisoned mushroom and died" afterwards.

Basically "where is north" is survival skill. (moss on trees, etc)

"Which continents are there" is geography skill.
"Use sextant to determine your coordinates" is profession: sailor.

Or something.

Do you think if a DM asked for survival checks on maps, since more people have ranked it as it's not a custom skill, I could go "But I've 20 ranks in Geography and Astronomy!" and argue to be able to use it instead?

Yes

I would think that survival would be more used for traveling in uncharted territory.

How long can we hike/sail north before we run out of food?
Can we find fresh water on the Islands/Mountains ahead?
What is the fishing like in these waters?