How do i track down one particular barghest AND MAKE IT PAY?

[Voidstar01]

right so DM put us up against a barghest, except this one knew what I assume was blink as a 3/day SLA. We never managed to hit it. We fought this one barghest for a literal real life hour, we fought until we had exhausted all it's uses of the SLA... THEN IT USED DIMESION DOOR TO RUN AWAY WHILE LAUGHING AT US!

It needs to die, but first it needs to suffer, BUT before that I need to find it. How do I do this? party is lvl 5, i'd prefer class agnostic solutions so the rest of the party can help out, but if I need to jump off a bridge and roll up a divination wizard or something I will.

Also how do I make it pay? any suggestions?

[Crake]

Well, as a bhargest, it likely had fur, which often sheds when such creatures perform vigorous actions (like combat), take that loose, shed fur to a wizard who can scry it. The wizard will have second hand information, so the save will be at +5, but then -10 for having a piece of it's body. Don't need to re-roll, just pay someone to do it for you.

[Jowgen]

First, get the Barghest's name.

Identify Transgressor might work, Gloves of Object reading on a piece of shed fur should also do the trick.

Now that you have its name, you can planar bind it specifically. Plot your revenge accordingly.

[Mr Adventurer]

All barghests have Blink at will, so prepare for that. The basic spell to shut it down (as well as Dimension Door) is Dimensional Anchor, a 4th level spell. You need to hit with the ray for it to work, though.

Blink only grants a 50% miss chance, and inflicts a 20% miss chance on the person using the spell too, so make sure it's being applied properly. (If you can see invisible creatures, your miss chance against a blinking foe is only 20%.)

EDIT: Locate Creature is a divination spell any Wizard can use, which might help if you can get within range. It can only Dimension Door once per day, so you can probably continue to track it with the spell even if it leaves range at one point, so long as you can move quickly to pick up the signal again and triangulate.

But yeah, if you really want to go for the long slow revenge, finding out its name and Binding it is the best way to go.

[Voidstar01]

Blink only grants a 50% miss chance, and inflicts a 20% miss chance on the person using the spell too, so make sure it's being applied properly.

Yea the dice just decided that we would absolutely not hit the thing through miss chance, and yea it missed a few of it's attacks to but between our high AC and the cleric casting cures it resulted in a whole lot of nothing for an hour.

[Mike Miller]

First, get the Barghest's name.

Identify Transgressor might work, Gloves of Object reading on a piece of shed fur should also do the trick.

Now that you have its name, you can planar bind it specifically. Plot your revenge accordingly. Unname it, so that.... What were we doing?

I fixed that for you.

[Endarire]

What about the circle dance spell from Spell Compendium?

[OGDojo]

if you have a half decent ranger it should be able to track it. and with a missing piece it just has to follow the blood and fur, and if it has blink the DC might be a little higher but honestly even if the dc is 30 a ranger with track, at level 4 (if built properly) should have no issues finding it. might lose its tracks every so often but a good roll will bring you back on track. also scout and druid can both do this as well, and i think rogue can do it to. but if you wanna do magic i would suggest using some divining spells to locate it then just walk there or dimension door there.

[Zaq]

if you have a half decent ranger it should be able to track it. and with a missing piece it just has to follow the blood and fur, and if it has blink the DC might be a little higher but honestly even if the dc is 30 a ranger with track, at level 4 (if built properly) should have no issues finding it. might lose its tracks every so often but a good roll will bring you back on track. also scout and druid can both do this as well, and i think rogue can do it to. but if you wanna do magic i would suggest using some divining spells to locate it then just walk there or dimension door there.

I’m with you up until you indicate that a level 4 “properly built” ranger should be able to have a +20 to Survival (i.e., hit DC 30 while taking 10).

It’s likely that one can build specifically for such a task, but if you’re trying to make a combat-capable ranger (MAD, feat-starved, and item-reliant) and not just a tracking machine, that’s not super realistic at ECL 4.

You’re looking at +7 from ranks. Being generous, maybe +2 from WIS (MAD, remember, so that’s actually nontrivial). I guess you could theoretically get +2 from race if you’re a killoren or an illumian or similar, but those aren’t usually my go-to races for rangers. +2 from a masterwork tool. With the unusually high WIS and unusual race, that’s 13. Gotta roll a 17 or else come up with another +7 to take 10.

Can we do that? Sure, with a little effort (Skill Focus and Shape Soulmeld, investing most of one’s level 4 WBL in a +skill item, etc.), but not without spending resources that a combat-capable ranger needs elsewhere. Which is pretty important. Rangers are way underpowered in 3.5 anyway, so they don’t have a ton of spare build capital to invest in side projects unless you’re defining yourself primarily through tracking rather than mattering after you find your quarry.

Yeah, you mentioned “a good roll” rather than just taking 10, but a 20% success rate isn’t going to let you track something reliably when you need to roll to stay on the trail and to find the trail once you go off it.

Skill optimization is “easy” in 3.5, but that doesn’t mean that it just happens with no investment, especially at low levels. Survival might have more sources of bonuses than Truespeak does, but every new bonus still costs you something.

[daremetoidareyo]

A vulture AC has like a +16 to survival, so if you and a ranger use aid another it can take 10. A clawfoot dino animal companion has +19 to survival

[OGDojo]

I’m with you up until you indicate that a level 4 “properly built” ranger should be able to have a +20 to Survival (i.e., hit DC 30 while taking 10).

i actually was considering making a "Tracker" character, mostly as an NPC and yeah your combat effectiveness might take a hit but rangers (that are trackers) are usually hunters, preferring a bow and some arrows or maybe even a crossbow, which with the normal bonus feats you get plus being able to take flaws from UA you can easily get a level 4 ranger to have 6 feats not to mention the bonus feat for picking the ranged combat direction. then you can spend most of your money on your bow and equipment and use the extra 3 feats (from human and the UA flaws) to increase your tracking ability.

Just a thought tho i know "skill focus" is one of the feats so is "Self sufficient" giving you a total of +5 and if you rolled a high wisdom (which is possible) of say a 16 or 17 and increased it at level 4 to an 18, you gain a +4 which puts you at a +9+7=16 and at level 4 you can have 5400 gp and can purchase an ioun stone (for 800gp) that increases it again by 2 getting you to 18, oh and that ioun stone lets you change it daily to whatever skill you want that day. and finally the Hunters kit that gives a +2 bonus on top of that taking it to a +20 even, for less than 1000 gp, then you can spend the other 4400 gp on a good bow and decent armor. small price to pay for having the ability to "take a 10" and get a 30

and this way you can still gain your point blank shot, precise shot, and another bow feat to compliment your ranged ranger

and i didn't even think about being assisted, you gain a +2 to anyone who can make a dc 15 survival check, and if the party is a gung-ho about finding this as the title states, then there will be plenty of people trying to assist you. and if your ranger and another player take the Exceptional Aid feat you gain a +4 instead of a +2... there are lots of ways to do it,

if you pick the right Animal companion (wolf gets a total of 5 when tracking by scent) it could even assist you with tracking itself and you wouldn't need the other party members or the ioun stone.

[Asmotherion]

Two ways i'd go about it; Either find out it's true name (Legend Lore for example may help) and planar bind it or scry on it.

Any spell you don't have available atm you can purchase either in scroll form or hire a caster.