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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cptg1481" data-source="post: 1171014" data-attributes="member: 5360">Dogs and Those who love them!!!!I too can sneak up on my own dogs (they are mutts, untrained in house protection etc.), however, I'm just guessing here (not an animal expert BTW) but I think the key factor is that part about it being one's own dog.  I mean they know who you are and everything and they know that they are relatively safe when in their own home while you, the pack leader, are there.  OTOH, my dogs bark like crazy when a stranger walks by on the sidewalk (across the street, about 50' or so) near our house.  This is during the day, at night, in any kind of weather etc.  However, I can come home at 0300 use the garage door opener, enter the house, heat up something in the microwave, and never even get so much as a grunt from either of them.  Likewise when one of my buddies comes by unannounced the same docile beasts wake from a dead sleep at my feet in the basement and run to the door barking like mad while the guys are still in the driveway.  Often they haven't even exited their car yet.  I have plenty of warning there.  While this is not a tested theory I'd say it has to do with the fact they can hear or somehow sense and I would say also identify the sound my car makes and other things about me from a great distance.  Once identified as a non-threat they take little notice.   Also, about spot, they bark like crazy at night when in the back yard at anyone walking down the sidewalk when they turn the corner (about 200' away) onto out street but somehow they don't bark at me and my daughter at all even in total darkness from the same distance.  They must be able to somehow identify us, perhaps by out gait or our low voices or smell, who knows but they can.  IMC (not that my players would ever consider it) dogs would be like the above.  Also in real life, I am a soldier and can tell you from experience dogs, especially, those of the rural variety are way more alert than city dogs.  I mean when I was in the Q course at Ft. Bragg, walking around at night we had to take extra care to avoid the multitudes of dogs in and around the farm houses.  Hell, they would bark a lot, perhaps not even at us sometimes but it does give one an unsettling feeling to be walking like 200-300 meters from a house and the dog starts barking away....sometimes followed by the porch light and even the owner a few seconds later.  The dogs had to have some idea something was out there.  I know its a game and needs to be somewhat abstract for playability reasons but I think it doesn't take a lot of searching to find examples of dogs throughout history alerting their handlers to danger at great distances and in circumstances well beyond the 30' smell range given in the DMG.   Thanks to this little article I am going to change the stats for dogs/wolves right now.  Maybe like +10 listen, +10 spot and change the range of their scent to say 120'.  Also, I will give them a +5 insight bonus to the detection (all senses)of their favored enemy (selected by the owner/handler, counts as two of his tricks DC 20 to train and takes 2 months of time).  Therefore say an outpost is bordered by a marsh and suffers yearly raids by lizardfolk, the lord orders the dogs trained to detect them as their favored enemy.  For wild animals it'd be say the most widely available and suitable prey animal - i.e. elk, rabbits, or deer etc.  Perhaps a feat or two related to the ability to sense certain objects needs to be made as well, like steel, metal or gold, even poison, magic and such.  We can train dogs to detect cancer, why not magic?  maybe a feat to give it a psionic type ability to sense when something is just not right....strong evil (or good, dogs works with their masters regardless of politics) etc., nothing exact but say they wake up well before an earthquake or natural disaster, perhaps alerting the people early and giving them precious moments before the event increasing their chances to detect the danger on their own....The dog wakes you up taking away the -10 modifier for being asleep.  Yea I know its a game.....but I like dogs what can I say.  They need some beefing up.  I'm off to do some stats crunching. Perhaps not a perfect solution but a decent first cut IMO...</blockquote>

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