Scent determinations

[Voadam]

What information can you determine with the scent ability?

I've got a PC druid with scent investigating a murder and I have to determine which kind of information he can determine.

For instance, dwarf scent versus human scent, smoke, oil, metal dust in the air of the Swordsmith guild, sweat, and blood.

I've ruled that you can't distinguish between subraces unless there is a significant distinguishing factor so no telling that a duergar had been in a room full of dwarves based on scent alone.

Based on my experiences with my dog I ruled he could tag individual scents so he could distinguish dwarf a's scent from dwarf b's scent.

Would sex be identified by scent?

 

[Kemrain]

I tend to agree with you.

Unless you're intimately familiar with a race and it's subraces, you probably shouldn't be able to tell which subrace the subject in question belongs to. You could pick them out of a crowd, but subrace requires familiarity. Sex? If I can tell the difference between male and female human scents, someone with the Scent ability should be able to easily.

It's a hack, but look at scent as another kind of sight. If you see someone once, you have a decent chance of recognising them later. If you're not familiar with Dwarves and Duergar, could you tell the differencve between them by looking at them? If not, you're prolly not familiar enough to distinguish scent.

How's that?

- Kemrain the Smelly.

 

[dcollins]

Well, the DMG does say this:

Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.

I would recommend stepping in as the DM here and creating a table of DCs for each of the items you're considering giving out as information. I guess this might be a Wisdom check or a Survival check depending on which part of the rules you're reading.