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I strongly believe Track should become a skill rather than a feat. First of all, my own interpretation of what a skill, a feat and a class ability is:

• Skills: everyday knowledge that anyone can train on (more or less)
  
• Feats: special techniques and variations of mundane abilities
  
• Class abilities: special powers unique to each class
  

With this interpretation, I believe Track would be better of as a skill rather a feat (or perhaps could be incorporated into Survival) since its an ability that can be learned and theoretically acquired by anyone. After all, why Track is a feat and Disable Device or Appraise are skills?

In the days of AD&D, tracking was a class ability available only to the ranger, which actually made him irreplaceable as a scout in the party. Nowadays, track has de-evolved into a simple feat, that anyone can take. A druid that takes the track feat can be a more effective tracker than the ranger, because of his superior Wis score, on which Track is based. So the ranger is actually second in a field where he is supposed to be the best.

My suggestions:
Track becomes a skill, and the ranger gains at 1st level an ability similar to the rogue's trapfinding ability. That is, a trail with a DC to follow higher than a certain number (25 for example), can only be followed by a ranger. In this way, everyone can track in a basic level, but for difficult situations, a professional (the ranger) must take over. This makes the ranger more useful and irreplaceable at the same level of ability, without monopolizing Track as a skill. The method works exactly like a rogue's trapfinding.

Bladesinger Boy wrote:

You know, the way Tracking currently works is you need to make SURVIVAL skill checks. If you took the Track feat and don't have survival as a class skill, you won't be a very good scout.

The druid HAS survival as a class skill. And why make it a feat when there is already a skill involved? And why it is a feat for that matter?

If they go with Saga's skill format, it'll be a "trained" feature of the Survival skill. They don't use a feat for tracking any longer.

ancalimohtar wrote:

Half the stupid problems in 3rd edition were because designers were cowards and kept in "holdovers" from 2nd.

Let's hope they've learned better in the seven intervening years. If you're going to get rid of something, get rid of it completely instead of keeping an inane vestige.

Wonderfully put; and I couldn't agree with you more.

I still can't believe that when 3rd edition came along, they still didn't address the Gygaxian magic/spell system that was basically a cut & paste from previous editions.

Hopefully in 4th edition they won't let the sacred cow crap in my living room…

Say no to diseased Venezuelan cow meat.

peteyrock wrote:

I agree that Track should be a part of the Survival skill and everyone should have access to it. However, I don't want Rangers to miss out on what they're good at. So, by keeping the Swift Tracker and Woodland Stride class abilities, they ought to stand out. Throw in Skill Focus (Survival) as a class feature or even the ability to reroll Survival checks a la Saga Edition. Now, we're talking. That's a tracking machine.

This is EXACTLY what I hope for in 4E. It's simple and would work perfectly for the ranger.