Scent, Spot, Listen, Blindsight....as skill checks?

[Nail]

And the need for the players to "know exactly how it works" is pretty silly, since *you* dictate what the DC is anyway....

For many things, having the DM determine secret DCs is okay. In this particular case, however, it's best/easiest if the players know. After all, a ranger with wolf animal companion probably has a reasonable call to know how effective his wolf's scent ability is.

For the most part, I haven't written it up because it hasn't come up much. (That's a poor excuse, BTW.) (Note the smiley!!!)

 

[DrSpunj]

For the most part, I haven't written it up because it hasn't come up much.

And herein lies much of our disagreement and my consternation about the issue.

Garret had Bavic (his Riding Dog working towards Paladin's Special Mount) from the very first session, and my expectations of how Scent worked according to the Core rules were wrong from the get-go.

This worsened when Rowan got Asmathias (Snake Animal Companion) and was compounded further when she started Wild Shaping into Bears and things with Scent.

It has been part of our party's abilities from day 1 and hasn't come up as much as it could have because I wasn't making any head way understanding what you wanted it to do (or not do, as the case may be) so I stopped bringing it up recently, but it has come up...a lot!

I'll try and post some of my own thoughts (FWIW) after lunch.

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[Nail]

Garret had Bavic (his Riding Dog working towards Paladin's Special Mount) from the very first session, ....

Right. I understand now.

I didn't realize it was causing such consternation. I do now. As of right now we will do scent by the book, until we do (or don't!!) come up with a better system.

My understanding is that, by the core rules, you will know if strangers approach you within 30 ft, automatically. No roll required. No mystery involved.

Please understand I didn't realize how much this issue irritated you. But we're trying to solve that now, right?

 

[Nail]

IMC, "Scent" grants a +4 bonus to "detection" rolls -- Spot, Listen, Survival (tracking), Search (for something with a scent).

That's what I was planning to do...but why a bonus on Listen checks?

 

[Nifft]

That's what I was planning to do...but why a bonus on Listen checks?

Same reason Scent grants a bonus to Spot checks: multi-modal detection & corelation ("fusion") is very powerful. If you could have rolled a Spot and a Listen check, you'd get a +4 bonus on the Awareness roll, same as Scent.

-- N

 

[Nail]

Good. I was hoping someone else would think that.

An "awareness" skill sounds like a great idea. It would include vision, hearing, smell, tremorsense, blindsight, etc. ....and then we'd keep the Search skill, with the understanding that certain senses might provide circumstance bonuses.

 

[Planesdragon]

But what about creatures that have varying abilities in several of the "senses". Does a blindsight-ing creature spot things better in daylight, even if it's blind? Etc.

The rules are still in development.

Off the top of my head:

* Penalties for range and intervning walls (from Listen and Spot) would be standardized, and the form of sense would be limited to what is plausibly seen. (i.e, you can't smell someone from a hundred miles away, you can't see through walls.)

* Variying abilities would be dealt with via a racial circumstance bonus. For example, an eagle would gain checks for visual data.

Blindsight, Darkvision, and Scent would all be "additional forms of sense", and not give any bonuses. Instead, they'd allow for either additional chances to notice things (Awareness check to notice a nearby scent, in addition to the check to notice the guy hiding in the bushes) or a negation of penalties (no concealment from darkness for darkvision, for example.)

OTOH, the ruling could be that the senses assume that you're looking and listening, and each extra sense you can bring to bear (or cannot use) imposes a +4 bonus or penalty...

 

[DrSpunj]

It's clear that: the game designers constructed scent to be a secondary ability,
<snip>
Then they built blindsight to deal with "everything else".

Well, I'm glad you know what they were thinking.

Seriously, those are assumptions and ones I happen to partially disagree with. The game is built for and around humanoids whose best senses are 1) Vision and 2) Hearing, with the former much more important for the vast majority of people. It's the way we work, it's the way we think and it's the way we interpret what's going on in the world around us. That directly translates from us playing the game to our PCs all the time! How many times have you asked (or heard) "Okay, so I open the door. What do I smell?" (hehe, let's take a poll, that could be funny! )

So of the senses, Vision and Hearing (and foiling them) get the biggest chunk of rules text. If we were only allowed to play or interact with Humanoids like ourselves that's probably all the rules we'd need. Unfortunately, the game incorporates other senses for other creatures, and most importantly, for many of those creatures they have different primary senses!

Take the Bat with Blindsight. Know what I serendipitously learned today? That the real-life common fruit bat can "sense" an insect from as much as 18 feet away! And gets enough information at that distance to determine whether it's likely something he'd like to eat! Wow!

So what about Scent? And Blindsight? And Tremorsense? Are they "automatic"? Yes, within certain conditions.

...Wait a minute: vision doesn't work automatically?

Yes, within certain conditions. For instance, no one can Hide from you if you can see them (which is why Darkvision foils someone trying to Hide using shadow concealment) but they can still Hide behind cover. And you automatically "see" anything within your visual range, given ambient light and obstacles limiting line-of-sight. What doesn't work automatically is something that is difficult to see, and the roll determines whether your brain recognizes what your eyes have told you. If a PC carrying a torch is in a large cavern he can "automatically" see everything within a 20' radius. No check is necessary.

You don't automatically hear everything within a certain radius.

Actually yes, you do automatically hear anything within certain frequencies that reaches your ears. Whether you recognize it or understand its significance is another question entirely (and IMO, that's partially what the check represents).

So back to that Bat. The Bat's primary sense is his Blindsight (though he does have poor Vision). The Bat can "automatically" sense anything within a 20' radius (with a lot of caveats in the rules). Why should the Bat be treated any different than the PC with a torch in a large cavern using Vision? If you're going to give him a bonus based on his best sense and add it to a roll based on one of his worst, it'd better be a damn good bonus!

WRT Scent being automatic, again, it's dependent upon a lot of conditions, but within a certain radius it's as automatic as Vision, Hearing & Blindsight. However, I'd actually argue it does take a Move Action to pinpoint once you're within 5' of the source. Why? Because the rules say it's a Move Action to determine direction. Whether you're 5' away or 30' away, you still have to determine direction, so it takes a Move Action. Here's the RAW:

The creature detects another creature’s presence but not its specific location. Noting the direction of the scent is a move action. If it moves within 5 feet of the scent’s source, the creature can pinpoint that source.

So is this too powerful? Not to me, but I know YMMV. How close do you think you could get to a bear if he was blind and deaf (so he could just use his sense of smell)? 10'? 30'? 60'? What if it was a dog? A wolf? A snake?

Do they "automatically" know something is within 30' of them according to the rules? Yes, unless the scent is masked.

False, powerful odors can easily mask other scents.

How do they respond? Well, depends on the smell, and because of this text:

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

It also depends on whether they've encountered it (or something like it)before.

Summary:
To me, the abilities are well and sensibly defined in the Core rules. However, the DM is the final arbiter of what the prevailing in-game conditions are and that can have drastic effects on whether they work or they don't. And even when they work the DM has a lot of control over what information is actually passed on to PCs.

If you are going to go ahead with a roll of some kind I hope it would only be used when the situation is clearly ambiguous whether the ability would work or not, and I'd actually prefer it be the better of their Listen and Spot bonuses, with an appropriate racial bonus (of +4 or +8, typically) to the roll.

On a slight tangent, as I said in the other thread, I'd like to use a single Awareness or Perception skill in my next campaign.

But what about creatures that have varying abilities in several of the "senses". Does a blindsight-ing creature spot things better in daylight, even if it's blind? Etc.

Well, Blindsight by definition doesn't care about the ambient light, but dealing with varying abilities between senses can be taken care of with appropriate modifiers to the roll just like we use now modifying each individual sense.
Can you make a Spot check in the dark with Normal or Low-light vision? No, but you can make a Listen check. Under the new system I'd probably institute a flat penalty (-2? -4?) for creatures denied their Primary Sense and making a check, but it would require a bit of tinkering, I agree.

Thanks.

DrSpunj

 

[SteelDraco]

I've allowed PCs with Scent to pick up ranks in a Smell skill, which increases the Wisdom bonus you normally use for scent-related tasks. In particular, it was used quite a bit by the half-vampire for tracking by scent. Seemed to work all right. I just assumed that it was a class skill for any creature with the Scent ability.

 

[DrSpunj]

I've allowed PCs with Scent to pick up ranks in a Smell skill, which increases the Wisdom bonus you normally use for scent-related tasks. In particular, it was used quite a bit by the half-vampire for tracking by scent. Seemed to work all right. I just assumed that it was a class skill for any creature with the Scent ability.

That sounds like it would work really well for PCs with the Scent ability, but I don't think it'd work so well with monsters and animals because the designers have hard-coded their bonuses into other skills, and they don't have too many skill points to distribute given their whopping 1 or 2 Int.

I suppose for a PC's Riding Dog Special Mount or Animal Companion you'd have to retrofit some of their skill ranks in Listen & Spot into the new Smell skill. It's a bit tough to apply to the other senses though as a Bat gets a +4 racial bonus to Listen & Spot as long as his Blindsight works. Does he lose all or part of that if we make a Blindsight skill?

Thanks.

DrSpunj