Survival
Trait Description: Survival allows the character to exist safely and comfortably in the wilderness. A character with this Ability can find food, water and shelter. He can also set traps and snares, track enemies and identify poisonous plants and dangerous animals. He can also tame and train both wild and domestic animals.
Specialties: Training Animals, The Far North, At Sea, Other Specific Environments, Finding Shelter, Tracking
Trait Effects: Someone with Survival 1 can probably find a decent shelter in the woods or tame a hawk. Someone with Survival 3 can tame a strix or find water in the deserts of the South. Someone with Survival 5 can tame a gryphon or find both food and shelter in the Far North during a blizzard.
Dramatic Rules for Survival
Endure Wilderness (Survival)
While Resistance staves off injury from extreme environmental conditions, not all environments are so hostile that they actually inflict damage. However, just because a barren tundra isn't cold enough to inflict immediate frostbite doesn't mean that unprepared travelers can survive there. Away from civilization, characters must hunt or gather their own food, find or erect shelter and keep themselves protected from the elements. Characters with at least one dot of Survival can perform these tasks without any roll, assuming they only intend to procure sustenance and shelter for themselves.
Foraging
Obtaining food for others for a day requires one threshold success per character on an (Intelligence + Survival) roll (difficulty 1 for verdant forests, jungles and swamps, 2 for grasslands, 3 for dry savannas, 4 for deserts and tundra and 5 for blasted wastelands). Hunting/foraging is a dramatic action taking (the difficulty – the hunter's Survival rating) hours, minimum of one hour. Characters lacking proper tools and/or weapons are at a -2 internal penalty to checks. Players should remember that characters who do not receive sufficient nutrition will starve (see Enduring Hardship).
Finding Shelter
Finding shelter and generally staying alive in the wilderness is much easier and does not require a roll under most conditions provided characters have the proper equipment (insulated garments for cold weather, extra water skins for arid climates, etc.). Without such tools, make an (Intelligence + Survival) roll—difficulty by terrain, as previously listed. In extreme climates (those that qualify as difficulty 4-5), even players whose characters have the right equipment must make the roll at -3 standard difficulty. Only one person in a group need make this roll, provided the rest follow her directions. Success means the characters stay alive. Failure indicates that extras perish and heroic characters suffer whatever damage the Storyteller feels is appropriate for the severity of exposure.
Predict Weather (Sail, Survival)
Only the Celestial Incarnae know the plan of weather to come, and even these designs may be altered by the rituals of thaumaturges, the spells of the Exalted, and the Charms of rogue spirits. Still, in the absence of such phenomena, enough patterns exist that knowledgeable characters can attempt crude weather predictions. Roll (Perception + Ability), with a difficulty of 2 in stable climates (i.e., Southern deserts are universally dry and hot) and 3–5 as appropriate to more tempestuous and unstable climes. The threshold on this roll indicates the number of days forward that the character can predict overall trends: clear skies, precipitation (light, heavy or torrential), overall temperature (freezing, cold, chilly, temperate, warm, balmy, sweltering) and similarly sweeping trends. Add one to the difficulty if the character uses Sail to make predictions on land or Survival to make predictions at sea. The base difficulty assumes the character uses the Ability best suited to the environment.
Tracking/Evasion (Survival)
Although the Stealth Ability governs the actual techniques of hiding and sneaking, characters who wish to travel long distances without leaving traces of their passing must use Survival instead. This requirement applies regardless of the terrain the character passes through, be it urban or wilderness. Similarly, characters use their Survival knowledge to track down others.
Contests between trackers and fugitives are resolved as an extended, opposed roll of the pursuer's (Perception + Survival) against the target's (Wits + Survival). Roll twice for each day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Tracking at night requires the aid of dogs (or similarly keen senses such as Charms may provide) and grants a third roll, if appropriate. In most cases, neither party will continue at night. During any period of time in which characters do not keep moving, they forfeit the next closest roll. If one party is notably faster than the other, her player receives an additional success on each roll as the character catches up or pulls away. If the fugitive has a substantial lead, this should be represented by additional successes on the first roll. The pursuer's player may gain bonus dice on each roll (between two and five) if the character is using hounds or other tracking creatures to help. If the pursuer is notably slower, she will not catch her quarry unless she closes the distance by journeying while the fugitive rests or is waylaid by obstacles. If she wins, it simply means that she can follow without impediment and will eventually catch up. The Storyteller remains the final arbiter and interpreter of how tracking chases play out.
Whichever party in a tracking contest gains a threshold of three successes over the other wins. For the fugitive, this means slipping away so that pursuit cannot continue to follow. For the tracker, this means the character gets close enough to have an actual encounter (combat or otherwise) or simply holds the trail and gradually closes the distance as quickly as circumstances allow.