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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
making sense of scent.
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<blockquote data-quote="Jeff Wilder" data-source="post: 4421769" data-attributes="member: 5122"><p>To answer the question: Scent, as written, is automatic detection within the given ranges.</p><p></p><p>Scent is one of those areas in which 3E didn't do such a great job. There are a couple of ways to handle it that would have been better than the tacked on system that made it into the rulebook.</p><p></p><p>(1) Make "Pick Up Scent" a skill, Wisdom-based like Spot and Listen, but only available to creatures with the Scent special ability, much like Control Shape is only available to lycanthropes. Use racial mods liberally. Be sure to give a synergy bonus to Sense Motive! ("I can smell your fear.")</p><p></p><p>(2) Make noticing a scent a Wisdom check, and give a significant bonus (probably as high as +8 for animals like dogs) for having the Scent ability.</p><p></p><p>Remember that making the DC means <em>noticing</em> the scent. We all see, hear, and smell things constantly without actually <em>noticing</em> them. DMs can set DCs; we do it for Spot and Listen all the time. Give a penalty for distance (-1 per 10 feet works fine), halve or double it if wind direction warrants, and if using the Wisdom check method, remember that DCs should be significantly lower for ability checks than for skill check of approximately the same intended difficulty.</p><p></p><p>I'm honestly not sure which of the methods above I prefer; they both have strong and weak points. When I house-ruled it before, I used the first method. Nowadays I don't find house-ruling it to be a worthwhile change, but if I did I'd probably go for the simpler second method.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jeff Wilder, post: 4421769, member: 5122"] To answer the question: Scent, as written, is automatic detection within the given ranges. Scent is one of those areas in which 3E didn't do such a great job. There are a couple of ways to handle it that would have been better than the tacked on system that made it into the rulebook. (1) Make "Pick Up Scent" a skill, Wisdom-based like Spot and Listen, but only available to creatures with the Scent special ability, much like Control Shape is only available to lycanthropes. Use racial mods liberally. Be sure to give a synergy bonus to Sense Motive! ("I can smell your fear.") (2) Make noticing a scent a Wisdom check, and give a significant bonus (probably as high as +8 for animals like dogs) for having the Scent ability. Remember that making the DC means [i]noticing[/i] the scent. We all see, hear, and smell things constantly without actually [i]noticing[/i] them. DMs can set DCs; we do it for Spot and Listen all the time. Give a penalty for distance (-1 per 10 feet works fine), halve or double it if wind direction warrants, and if using the Wisdom check method, remember that DCs should be significantly lower for ability checks than for skill check of approximately the same intended difficulty. I'm honestly not sure which of the methods above I prefer; they both have strong and weak points. When I house-ruled it before, I used the first method. Nowadays I don't find house-ruling it to be a worthwhile change, but if I did I'd probably go for the simpler second method. [/QUOTE]
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