The team has some tracking to do, and the choice of who the party tracker is comes to either Miko or Belkar.
Cast
- Roy Greenhilt ◀ ▶
- Elan ◀ ▶
- Belkar Bitterleaf ◀ ▶
- Vaarsuvius ◀ ▶
- Miko Miyazaki ◀ ▶
- Dirt Farmer's Wife ◀ ▶
Transcript
- Panel 1
The Dirt Farmer's Wife talks to Elan next to a sign which reads, "Dirt 10 cp/scoop 1 cp/scoop Free!". Roy and V walk nearby.
Dirt Farmer's Wife: Sigh... Times are tough.
Vaarsuvius: I am not intending to be completely without compassion for their plight, but there is a matter of scale to consider.
Vaarsuvius: We cannot divert from a quest that may hold answers to key secrets about the nature of the universal order to track down a few dozen petty brigands.
Roy: Look at this way: Miko is going to help the peasants, and you can't get your answers without her guiding you there.
Roy: So the sooner we squish the ogres, the sooner we're back on the road.
- Panel 2
Vaarsuvius: Fine. But let the record show that I consider this an utter waste of my prodigious magical talent.
Roy: I'll inform our stenographer.
- Panel 3
Roy: We know the ogres were here a few hours ago, so I say we follow their trail.
Miko: Agreed. I will begin tracking them now.
- Panel 4
Roy: You have the Track feat? That's kind of an odd feat choice for a monk/paladin.
Miko: If I had not selected it, I would not have been chosen to hunt you down.
Roy: Huh. I guess that's true.
- Panel 5
Roy: OK, then, we'll follow you to—
Belkar: Whoa, there, no way. I'm the tracker on this team, so I'm the one who walks in front and follows footprints.
- Panel 6
Belkar: So just get your caboose to the back of the line while a man goes out and finds them for you, OK?
Miko: I would prefer to track them myself.
- Panel 7
Roy: Look, guys, this will be easy to figure out. Tracking uses the Survival skill, right? So whoever has the higher Survival skill modifier gets to do the tracking.
Miko: That is fair.
- Panel 8
Roy: Now Miko, Survival skill is a cross-class skill for both the Monk and Paladin classes.
Miko: Correct. I have thus only 1 skill rank in Survival.
- Panel 9
Roy: There you go, Belkar. Survival is a class skill for both Ranger and Barbarian, so you must have spent at least a few skill points on it.
Belkar: Yeah, um... see, there's a funny story there...
- Panel 10
Roy: How could you not spend ANY points on Survival??
Belkar: I didn't think it would come up!
Roy: You didn't... I hired you to be the party tracker!!
Belkar: And don't you feel stupid now?!?
- Panel 11
Roy: No, Belkar, I don't think it's physically possible for me to feel stupid after talking to you.
Miko: Perhaps we should compare our respective Wisdom modifiers?
Belkar: ...
Belkar: I'll be in the back.
D&D Context
- The Track feat allows characters to use their Survival skill to track other characters. It is generally not seen as that useful of a feat. Rangers, like Belkar, gain the feat for free as a class feature.
- Each level characters get skill points to spend to increase their skills. Cross-class skills take two points instead of one to increase.
- The Survival skill gets better the more Wisdom a character has. As was established in #58, Belkar has a low to average Wisdom score.
Trivia
- Dirt Farmer's Wife's line in the first panel ("Sigh... Times are tough.") is a reference to Ian Jones-Quartey's RPG World web comic, specifically, to RPG World #9.