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jjpickar
2007-01-18, 09:05 PM
Alright should there be a smell skill and if so how should it work?

Only one rule, if you want to say how it works use the standard skill description rules from the PHB. It doesn't have to be exactly like it but you do have to cover all the stuff like associated ability score and synergy bonuses.

clarkvalentine
2007-01-18, 09:11 PM
No, there shouldn't be.

Skill points are rare enough - we don't need even more too-similar skills to distribute points among.

Besides, awareness-type skills are already too many; if I had my druthers I'd condense Spot, Listen, and Search into the single skill Notice.

Aximili
2007-01-18, 09:11 PM
Well, associated ability scores would certainly be wisdom. And no sinergies. Aside from that, I don't know if there should be one.

Indoril
2007-01-18, 09:15 PM
The "Scent" ability covers this. Naturally it is only given to creatures with an acute sense of smell. The human nose is not nearly sensitive enough to allow it to be used as a skill by them or any other creature for which it is not specifically mentioned (in other words, creatures that don't have the Scent ability can't use it).

Woot Spitum
2007-01-18, 09:16 PM
It could be a monster skill. It would also be nice in dark, noisy areas.

jjpickar
2007-01-18, 09:21 PM
What about gnomes? They're supposed to have sensitive noses. Also the scent ability is far too vague in definition. It could also be an awareness skill for those classes cursed to forever fail spot checks like wizards. Gnome Illusionist with the smell skill. Hmmmmm

JaronK
2007-01-18, 09:27 PM
Survival is the skill used to track by scent, so that's the skill to use.

JaronK

jjpickar
2007-01-18, 09:31 PM
But only for tracking so what about if you walk into a room and want to know if by scent a demon was summoned in say the last few minutes?

Dumbledore lives
2007-01-18, 09:37 PM
One thing is you can't really train your nose or make your sense of smell better. Humans are born with a certain limitation on what we can and can't smell. Other skills you could train like ride, craft, and just about every other skill but you just can't make your nose better. It just doesn't work.

Machete
2007-01-18, 09:38 PM
Wisdom check.

I smell rotten eggs. Uh oh.

Indoril
2007-01-18, 09:49 PM
What about gnomes? They're supposed to have sensitive noses. Also the scent ability is far too vague in definition. It could also be an awareness skill for those classes cursed to forever fail spot checks like wizards. Gnome Illusionist with the smell skill. Hmmmmm

Gnome noses are just good enough to give them a bonus on Craft (Alchemy) checks. So they are probably just a bit better than humans.

Humans have around 10cm^2 of tissue with scent receptors in it, and around 4,000,000 olfactory nerves per square centimeter. Gnomes then would have say maybe 6,000,000 nerves per square centimeter

Dogs (wolves, what have you) have 150cm^2 of tissue containing olfactory nerves, and about 400,000,000 nerver per square centimeter.

This means humans have a total of around 40,000,000 olfactory nerves. Gnomes (by my estimate, I could be wrong) would then have around 60,000,000.
Dogs and wolves, the most basic creature with the Scent ability in DnD, have a total of around 60,000,000,000 olfactory nerves...1,500 times more than humans and 1,000 times more than even gnomes.

That is why Scent is not available to everyone as a skill, but is instead only available to creatures with a more acute sense of smell.

jjpickar
2007-01-18, 09:51 PM
Awww more realism in a fantasy game?

Aximili
2007-01-18, 09:51 PM
Wow. Right to the point Indoril.^^

Hefty Lefty
2007-01-18, 09:52 PM
Well, there's a feat "Track", free to first level rangers, that I feel covers it. Sure it means following tracks, but that certainly includes scent. If there is a pungent smell, everone can smell it, but if there's a subdued scent, it would take the same kind of skill to identify what is as does a user of the track feat.

jjpickar
2007-01-18, 09:55 PM
(Last ditch attempt) I know the difference between pumpkin pie and apple pie by smell as well as really sweaty sock as opposed to only slightly used. It doesn't have to give detailed information just trigger memory and comparison which is what smelling does anyway.

Indoril
2007-01-18, 10:01 PM
(Last ditch attempt) I know the difference between pumpkin pie and apple pie by smell as well as really sweaty sock as opposed to only slightly used. It doesn't have to give detailed information just trigger memory and comparison which is what smelling does anyway.

But can you track down a person in a forest blindfolded and earplugged? That's what scent is for. Everyone can smell really strong smells and remember things that they've smelled in the past, but the Scent ability covers things that are very faint or covered by many other smells. Dogs and such can pick those out, even follow a scent over a river or a scent that has been masked to some degree.


Well, there's a feat "Track", free to first level rangers, that I feel covers it. Sure it means following tracks, but that certainly includes scent. If there is a pungent smell, everone can smell it, but if there's a subdued scent, it would take the same kind of skill to identify what is as does a user of the track feat.

Well yes a Ranger would use scent in that to some degree, but he would still need tracks to follow and such. A werewolf Ranger would be able to do it perfectly by smell alone.

Kantolin
2007-01-18, 10:08 PM
Um. According to the DMG, the feat 'scent' can (With DM's discretion, as it's 'a powerful feat' to quote it) be taken by half-orcs and gnomes, thus suggesting that the two of them do have potentially sensitive enough noses to catch things.

People without the scent ability can tell something like 'Hey, there is rotten eggs!', but wouldn't be able to tell 'Hrm, I smell something outsidery that went in that direction' simply because people can't.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#scent

Information on how the scent feat works is there. If you'd like people to have more powerful noses, perhaps give people with good senses of smell the scent feat, or potentially homebrew up a skill selection which has DCs similar to the above feat. I'd make it ranger-focused personally.

...And would give half-orcs a bonus to it, since poor half-orcs need all the help they can get. Man.

Indoril
2007-01-18, 10:19 PM
Oh then I stand corrected. About the gnomes anyway (and...half orcs too? where did that come from? I don't recall anything saying they had good noses).

TheOOB
2007-01-18, 11:30 PM
Knowing how to reconize smells is different from being able to smell them. Reconizing apple from cherry pie would either be a craft(baking) or a profession(baker) check. Smelling the pie in the first place would be a wisdom check.

It's the same with spot checks. You can use spot to see some ancient ruins, but it takes a knowledge or decipher script check to identify them. You can hear footsteps with a listen check, but it takes a knowledge(nature) check to tell their orcish.

Humans can't train to make themselves better able to smell things, but they can train themselves to reconize smells via knowledge and profession skills.

MrNexx
2007-01-19, 01:25 AM
jjpickar, the only reason we're not using a generic Notice skill in our game is because I inherited it from the previous DM; if I'd been DM since character creation, we'd likely have a 2 page document of house rules (one sneak skill, one notice skill, disable device handling both open lock and disable device, amongst other things...)

Seffbasilisk
2007-01-19, 02:50 AM
It's more experiance and less natural. Natural is in Wisdom. And that's taken into account when a DM describes how an area smells. Also?

*wahoosh!*

And another Catgirl fried to a carbonized frame!!

GolemsVoice
2007-01-19, 03:32 AM
I think your "ability to smell", if humans and the likes have any that is worth being considere, is contained by such things as trap sense and maybe some of the spot checks. I could imagine a rogue sniffing his nose, smelling somearcana gunpowder or things like that, yelling "Get down, Traps!" followed by an explosion which does not harm him because he spotted thetrap. But you can't smell a spear trap, so in this case, his spot check would have been carefully looking araound.

Malachite
2007-01-19, 03:47 AM
Actually, people who live out in rural areas typically have a far better sense of smell than those in cities, and those who live off the land even more so. I saw a Ray Mears programme recently where he went to stay with aborigines, who could smell water. A white guy who lived out there described other people who come out into the bush as 'blind, deaf and with no sense of smell', implying that he's at least learnt to smell things better. Sure, we've got lower limits than dogs, but we have lower speed and endurance limits than them too. Doesn't mean we can't train them.

Still, devil's advocacy over, I agree we have enough awareness skills already. Lump smelling other than the Scent feat under the Survival skill.

Xefas
2007-01-19, 03:59 AM
I'd just also like to add that making a Smell skill would also effect many other things than the skill department.

For instance, what about the metamagic feats? You'd have to have 'Smelly Spell' which lets you enhance the odor of your spell so its easier to smell targets struck by them. 'Not so Smelly Spell' so that people couldn't track your spells by smell, and then 'Smells like Something Else Spell' that...makes your spell smell like something else entirely.

Thomas
2007-01-19, 05:05 AM
Like TheOOB suggests, use Knowledge etc. skills. Knowledge (the planes) to recognize the tell-tale brimstone scent of a demon, or Knowledge (arcana) to recognize the scent of foul incenses used in demon-summoning rituals.

Shazzbaa
2007-01-19, 07:12 AM
I'd say the actual applications of a human's sense of smell would be rare enough that a simple wisdom check would be fine. Honestly, if the fact that the room smells like Mint cookies is important (the horror thread, anyone?) but for some reason the GM doesn't want to just come out and say, "The room smells like Mint cookies," he could just ask the PCs to roll a Wis check.

Otherwise I agree that it's sort of encompassed by existing skill checks.

Besides, so few people would actually care about training their sense of smell that I'd think if you've got a character concept that needs to be able to smell well, just play a race that would or could have Scent and ask your DM nicely. Otherwise it's... not that big a deal.

...but the Scent ability is QUITE useful. Don't take it lightly.

MrNexx
2007-01-19, 07:58 AM
...but the Scent ability is QUITE useful. Don't take it lightly.

Actually, I ran a game where I gave Orcs (and half-orcs) scent, for free. The party ran into a group of orcs with a low-level shaman. His first spell? Obscurement. The orcs could maneuver just fine.

silvermesh
2007-01-19, 10:33 AM
I, for one, like the idea.

put everything that the scent feat does under the new scent skill, CRANK UP DCs, and now anything that has scent as a feat gets say a natural +20 on all scent checks. make scent a cross-class for everyone who doesn't get it naturally. now, an epic character who spent a lot of scent points might be able to do some cool scent-based stuff, but he's still not wolf-man.

Golthur
2007-01-19, 11:00 AM
I'm in favour of the idea for consistency, but, as Indoril shows, human noses just aren't sensitive enough to be able to train it up in any reliable manner. But, for races/monsters that do have adequate sensitivity - absolutely yes.


I, for one, like the idea.

put everything that the scent feat does under the new scent skill, CRANK UP DCs, and now anything that has scent as a feat gets say a natural +20 on all scent checks. make scent a cross-class for everyone who doesn't get it naturally. now, an epic character who spent a lot of scent points might be able to do some cool
scent-based stuff, but he's still not wolf-man.
This might work, actually. Set the DCs very, very high - so it ends up being "good luck making a DC 35 with your 4 cross-class ranks, buddy".

Hmm. Interesting thought, anyway. I've got a race in my homebrew that can get lesser scent and then scent, so I might play around with this for a bit.

Munchy
2007-01-19, 01:26 PM
There is both research and evidence to support the idea that human noses are capable of picking up scents far better than commonly thought and that these abilities can be developed.

http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2006/12/18/hscout600212.html

This suggests that skill points are a proper way to handle scent as a human can be trained to a certain degree and can perform tasks that untrained humans can't. Furthermore the amount of training determines how skilled a person is at it.

IMO the way to handle this would be to allow scent checks for all creatures, but adding appropriate bonuses to take into account both the creature doing the smelling and the one being smelled. Furthermore, ranks in survival would be allowed to add some number to the scent checks, but the contribution would be capped based on the species. Here are some examples to illustrate what I mean.

Example racial considerations:

Human (-10 scent, +0 if tracked, +4 cap to survival checkbonus to scent)
Gnome (-7 scent, +0 if tracked, +6 cap to survival checkbonus to scent)
Troll (Scent per MM, +0 be tracked, no cap to survival checkbonus to scent)
Tiefling that smells like sulfur (-10 scent, +4 to be tracked, +4 survival cap)

PC1 - Human ranger. (10 ranks in survival)
PC2 - Gnome ranger (10 ranks in survival)
PC3 - Troll ranger (10 ranks in survival)

Scenario one : Tracking a human.

PC1 - Scent checks are done with a -6 bonus = -10 race + 4 survival bonus
PC2 - Scent checks are done with a -1 bonus = -7 race + 6 survival bonus
PC3 - Scent per MM. +10 bonus to scent checks from the +10 survival ranks.

Scenario two : Tracking the tiefling.

PC1 - Scent checks -2 bonus = -10 race + 4 tiefling + 4 survival bonus
PC2 - Scent checks +3 bonus = -7 race + 4 tiefling + 6 survival bonus
PC3 - Scent per MM. +14 Bonus = 10 survival + 4 tiefling.

Of course the DM is then left with the task of determining what the bonuses (to use scent and to be tracked) for each race should be, if the Wisdom bonus should be added in full or capped based on race (Capped IMO), and if there should be some cost (feat, training, other?) for PCs from races without scent to learn this ability.

In any case I think that a DM that wants to include smell checks can do so without too much dificulty.

jjpickar
2007-01-19, 01:55 PM
Finally, some support. I have to admit Silvermesh's idea works really well. It keeps everything fairly realistic (in a D&D sort of way) by making it possible to use but not nearly as effective for anyone without natural olfactory advantage.
Now with the fiend scenario (using Munchy's suggestions) an average human walking into the room minutes after a summoning ritual has a decent chance to smell a something is wrong. Whereas the average wolf can smell the supernatural wrongness hanging heavily (to him) in the air and flee in terror.

Oh, and Kudos for Munchy with the research to give this discussion credibility

CrazedGoblin
2007-01-19, 02:00 PM
i have to pose the question of what if: say you wish to smell a substance and you roll a natural 20 and take a huge sniff of it then realise its a solvent and solvent abuse kills, and it does. one hell of a trap though :P

jjpickar
2007-01-19, 02:06 PM
Forcing people to sniff death. I like it. Now if only we could have a paint sniffing trap.

Person_Man
2007-01-19, 02:08 PM
No. If anything, Skills should be consolidated further.

Does anyone remember the last time a PC took ranks in Decipher Script, Forgery, Profession, or Knowledge (architecture)?

Does anyone else remember the wonderful 3.0 Skills of Innuendo, Intuit Direction, or Read Lips?

We have well over 36 Skills (remember, every Craft, Profession, and Knowledge Skill is taken seperately). My feeling is that there should be roughly 24ish total. Enough so that a full Skill class (8 per level) with the highest possible starting Int (18, or +4 per level) can max out roughly half of the Skills. Either that, or they should give Rogues and Scouts more Skill points and other classes less. And they should eliminate spells that duplicate Skills (Knock, Invisibility, Silence, etc).

Because if Skills are going to be the main focus of your class, you should be reasonably good at them.

CrazedGoblin
2007-01-19, 02:08 PM
would there even be a chance to roll a save against it :P

jjpickar
2007-01-19, 02:32 PM
First of all, the smell skill would be a whole lot more effective than those skills you just mentioned. Consider this, A halfling rogue/wizard with invisibility can fool most listen and spot checks but a smell check can still sniff him out. Especially if he had to sneak through the sewers to get into whatever he's sneaking into. This scenario happens a lot in D&D.

Of course paint sniffing traps would allow a save. You have to say no to abusable substances like drugs. But if you fail you're trippin.

Aximili
2007-01-19, 03:45 PM
Does anyone remember the last time a PC took ranks in Decipher Script, Forgery, Profession, or Knowledge (architecture)?

My last bard had 1 rank in decipher script :smallbiggrin:

jjpickar
2007-01-19, 06:50 PM
Hey, what would magic items that enhance the smell skill be like? Maybe an ensorcelled dog mask or an enchanted pig's snout? The Snout of Piggy Sense, I like it.

Aximili
2007-01-19, 07:29 PM
That gave me an idea. How much would you price an item that gives you the scent ability?

jjpickar
2007-01-19, 07:43 PM
Well, using DMG pricing rules, and giving it the power of a 4th level spell on the use activated or continuous use column, I get roughly, 56,000 gp. Which seems a little too high.

Munchy
2007-01-19, 08:01 PM
Well, using DMG pricing rules, and giving it the power of a 4th level spell on the use activated or continuous use column, I get roughly, 56,000 gp. Which seems a little too high.

Actually the pricing could drop depending on the duration of the spell you based it on. You assumed an 1hr/lvl duration, but if you made it last 24hrs (Fairly reasonable IMO) the cost would drop by 1/2 to 28K. However, an even better way of doing this is to get an item that can cast the spell on command a limited number of times a day. For 1/day it would give a price of 10800gp. Even if you want to give the spell an 1hr/lvl duration you can still create an item to cast it 3/day with a CL8 for 34560gp.

jjpickar
2007-01-19, 08:04 PM
That's much better. Thank you for the suggestion. But what would it look like?

Munchy
2007-01-19, 08:42 PM
That's much better. Thank you for the suggestion. But what would it look like?

I'd go for some type of mask that covers the nose completely and goes in the goggles body slot. I'd make it something like a gas mask without the big eye pieces or the big filter in the front.