Should there be a skill for the ability to smell?

[jmucchiello]

Smell could be a skill but we do already have the scent ability. But one problem is that no matter how much you train your nose its never going to be as good as a dogs for instance. If you make is a skill then it would be possible for people to out smell a dog.

I wouldn't have a problem with that. I'm sure there are makers of perfume and cooks whose sense of smell rivals that of dogs in their area of expertise. The more you actively train a sense, the better it works. Artists and photographers generally perceive color better than normal people. Sound engineers, recording artists, etc, hear better than normal people. Can human sense of smell surpass that of a dog's? I'm sure it can, especially when we are talking about a fantasy world.

dreaded_beast: Scent (the ability) does allow you to find the square where an invisible target is located, thus normal invisibility does not mask your scent.

Dark Psion: Thanks for the plug.

Ultimately I'd prefer all the sense skills be rolled into Perceive and just allow circumstance bonuses. Gnomes have a +2 bonus to Perceive sound based events. Rolling Spot and Listen into one also rolls Move Silently and Hide into Sneak. That would solve the multiple die rolls needed to slip through the shadows past the guard. One Sneak roll versus one Perceive roll is so much easier than dealing with MS and Hide vs Listen and Spot. The other benefit is you can say, "Make an Perceive check" "23" "You smell some perfume, like the kind the king's daughter was wearing."

 

[Garnfellow]

My wife just bakes some snickerdoodles and puts these little steaming drops of heaven on the rack to cool off. But since I only rolled a 2 and have a bonus of only plus one and the fact that I'm covered in mud from fixing the sod outside gives me a -2 to smell them I can't get a whiff even with my face DIRECTLY over the rack.

Am I the only one who can see why this didn't make it into the book?

Nice straw man, but how would the Spot check work for you to see those very same snickerdoodles?

 

[Mystery Man]

Nice straw man, but how would the Spot check work for you to see those very same snickerdoodles?

That's Mr. Straw Man to you.

 

[JustKim]

Additional sensory skills put too much strain on the system. Once you introduce a scent skill, it automatically becomes the best detection skill in the game unless you also introduce a countermeasure skill, say "smell nice". Now not only must alert monsters take points away from spot and listen to invest in scent, stealthy monsters must take points away from hide and move silently to invest in smell nice. This spreads monster skills thin and makes opposed DCs better by at least 2 points, a significant amount.

It's also redundant with existing systems. Say an opponent is invisible, and you want to locate him. Normally you roll listen. If you fail this check, however, you now have scent to roll back on. The same applies to hidden foes and spot, and now there are two skills that counter disguise, bluff, etc.

 

[dreaded_beast]

dreaded_beast: Scent (the ability) does allow you to find the square where an invisible target is located, thus normal invisibility does not mask your scent.

I know.

However, in the event that there was such a "skill" as being able to scent/smell, then I would make it so that invisibility also masked odor to prevent from the scent/smell skill from being to powerful.

I'm talking about the hypothetical "scent as a skill", not "scent" as it is handled know in DND.

 

[pfisteria]

I wouldn't have a problem with that. I'm sure there are makers of perfume and cooks whose sense of smell rivals that of dogs in their area of expertise. The more you actively train a sense, the better it works. Artists and photographers generally perceive color better than normal people. Sound engineers, recording artists, etc, hear better than normal people. Can human sense of smell surpass that of a dog's? I'm sure it can, especially when we are talking about a fantasy world.

That's a lot of improvement those people have to do; we're talking about (as far as scent goes) something like 5 million receptors in humans to somewhere around 200 million receptors in dogs.

 

[Gez]

Yes, but 5M well-trained receptors (and more importantly, a brain trained to interpret to the full extent the information from those 5M receptors) can probably match up 200M barely used receptors.

I know some dogs are trained so well they can, from your mere smell, determine whether or not you have some sort of cancer. Specially-trained dogs are also used, as everyone knows, to detect drug, explosives, or people burried under snow or debris.

The key here is specially-trained. My pet dogs would not be able to find someone burried under snow. Heck, the poor bitch (yep, she's a she-dog) is barely able to tell whether someone is in the same room as her by scent.

A specially-trained human is probably able to perceive odors as well as a non-trained pet dog. Now he will never be match to a bloodhound or any other sort of dog trained to use scent. That goes without saying. But outpassing the basic lazy pet dog that never had to hunt or scavenge for food, is not used for hunting, and wasn't even trained to sit up and beg? Yes, definitely.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

Having DM'd a troll PC, I can say that the scent ability should have either some skill or effort (Detect Odor -- three rounds of concentration) tied to it. Its current lack of description combined with darkvision for seeing walls makes it almost as good as blindsense -- which it's not. (You'd never think that a dog has the echolocation capabilities of bats, but that's about what scent comes down to for finding invisible people.)

And does anybody find it odd that a Gnome's sensitive nose gives it +2 on craft (alchemy) checks, but the don't have scent -- while trolls don't get any bonus on craft (alchemy), but can sniff out invisible opponents in short order?

::Kaze (loves making the game more immersive, let's just work on fleshing out the system a bit more, eh?)

 

[Tonguez]

Like others I use a Perception skill to cover spot listen smell taste touch etc
I then have the players choose two senses as their primary types (default for most PC races is sight and hearing (although gnomes get scent instead of hearing and halforcs get scent instead of vision*)) then handled as normal for Spot, Search etc

*Vision and hearing isn't absent in gnomes and halforcs its just unrefined (and requires a feat (like the scent feat) to develop further)

 

[CombatWombat51]

Here's the skill I wrote up, which is basically the Scent ability with a chance of failure. The key to not having to spread thin creature skill points is by giving racial bonuses to Scent checks. In fact, in many cases where a creature had Track as a bonus feat and +X to Survival, simply changing the bonus to Scent, and removing the Track skill worked perfectly.

Scent
Wis; Exclusive, Untrained
Unlike other skills, your eligibility to take ranks in Scent is based on your race. Creatures that have the Scent special quality (and only those creatures) also have the Scent skill. With a successful Scent check, you can detect approaching creatures, sniff out hidden enemies, and follow a trail.
You can detect creatures with a successful check. Make a Scent check with a DC equal to the amount of feet they are away. If the opponent is upwind, the DC is doubled, and if the creature is downwind, the DC is halved. The DC to detect a strong odor, such as smoke or rotting garbage, is equal to half the number of feet away they are. The DC to detect an overpowering scent, such as skunk musk or troglodyte stench, is equal to 1/4 of the number of feet away they are.
You can detect another creature’s presence, but not it’s specific location. To discern the direction of a scent requires a check with the same DC as above, and doing so is a standard action that doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. If you move within 5 feet of the scent’s source, you can pinpoint the location of the scent.
You can follow tracks by scent. The typical DC for a fresh trail is 10. The DC increases or decreases depending on how strong the quarry’s odor is (+5 bonus for strong scents, and a +10 bonus for overpowering scents), the number of creatures, and the age of the trail. For each hour that the trail is cold, the DC increases by 1. Otherwise, use the same rules as for the Track feat. Creatures tracking by scent ignore the effects of surface conditions and poor visibility.
Creatures with Scent can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.
Water, especially running water, can ruin a trail for air-breathing creatures. Still water forces another Scent check to follow the trail, with a +10 modifier to the DC. Running water also forces another check, but with a +20 modifier to the DC.
False, powerful odors can easily mask other scents. The presence of such an odor raises the DC to properly detect or identify creatures by 20, and the base DC for a fresh trail increases from 10 to 20.
Special: Creatures with the Scent ability gain a +4 racial bonus to Scent checks.
If something gives a bonus to Listen and Spot checks, such as a ranger’s favored enemy bonus, the bonus also applies to Scent checks.