Come Up With New Senses

[Lysander]

The five senses are so passe'. Let's come up with some new senses that creatures can have, along the lines of Darkvision, Tremorsense, etc.

Some of these may be a creature's only way to see, may work in addition to conventional senses like sight and hearing, or may be temporarily granted by spells.

A few ideas:

Scrysight - The creature can create a scrying sensor to view through and move it independently as a free action. The sensor can move at a 30 foot fly speed but can only travel up to 50 feet from the creature (though some creatures have longer or shorter ranges). If the sensor is ever destroyed a new one appears next to the creature. Effects that block scrying can stop scrysight as well.

Heat Sight - The creature can see heat. Warmer objects appear redder, making it easy to spot warm blooded creatures in colder environments. Heat Sight works in perfect darkness and through thin barriers, but provides no information other the vague shapes of objects.

Infrasight - The creature's eyes glow red, casting a very faint light that allows it to see perfectly in darkness up to 60 feet. Unlike darkvision this ability actually casts out bright light in wavelengths most creatures cannot see, and uses that to illuminate the environment. Infrasight depicts all objects in shades of red. Infrasight's weakness is that other creatures with normal vision can spot the glowing red eyes in the darkness. (In my opinion Infrasight should replace Darkvision for most creatures).

Elemental Sight - This vision only reveals the five elements as vague colored blobs of red (fire), air (white), earth (brown), water (blue). Anything that is not purely of one element, including plants or creatures, appears pure black, making it easy to spot foreign objects surrounded by an element. Elemental Sight works in perfect darkness.

Pulse hearing - This is a specialized type of hearing designed to pinpoint heartbeats. A creature with pulse hearing can pintpoint the exact position of small or medium creatures up to 30 feet away, large creatures up to 50 feet away, huge creatures up to 70 feet away, gargantuan creatures up to 100 feet away, and colossal creatures up to 150 feet away. Anything that completely blocks sound can shield against pulse hearing, but otherwise it automatically succeeds in finding creatures. It provides no other information beyond creature size and position, and does not work on creatures without beating hearts.

Bird Sight - The creature forms a telepathic bond with a single or small number of birds, allowing it to telepathically see from that creature's eyes and mentally request it look at certain things. Animals with this ability may instinctively collect food for their bird in order to build the bond. Variants of this ability instead create links with other creatures like fish or reptiles.

[Debihuman]

Isn't pulse hearing much like tremorsense?

In previous editions of D&D there were infravision and ultravision.

Debby

[peacenlove]

Another idea would be Lifesight (living creatures shed light, idea taken from libris mortis.) and dweomer/psi/mystery sight (you can percieve magic auras as easily as mundane color, you can give each school its distinct color, with caster level functioning as the color strength).

[Zeta Kai]

1. Depthsense
2. Barometry
3. Psionic Sight

[Origomar]

you mean 4 elements right?

[Strawman]

Windsight - observing the profile of nearby objects through their alterations to the wind.

Mass sight - all nearby mass is observable by its constant vibrations on an atomic scale

[elliott20]

Smision: Visual representation of olfactory senses.

what? Bender mastered it too.

[Cyrano]

The mystical sense of Balance - allows one to tell whether or not they are falling.

Technically eligible!

But to make it eligibler, and add a dash of wacky, have Balancesense! You can tell when things are balancing! I dunno, it's vibrations or something, leave me alone.

Put this monster in a giant maze made of balance beams and ka-pow, you've got yourself a terrifying deathgym.

[Kaihaku]

I've toyed with making a "Sixth Sense" or "Spirit Sense" a Skill choice for specific campaigns replacing some of the more judgmental detection divinations (detect evil for one). It would allow people to sense the potency but not type of auras and such. So someone with it maxed could sense that that comely young lass is more than she's pretending to be but they couldn't just ping "evil" or know that she's a Succubus.

A "danger sense" ala spiderman would be fun, pinging when someone is in a situation with a high CR.

[HamsterOfTheGod]

Power sight ("IT'S OVER 9000!"): You can see critters CR/ECL/HD. Maybe for an epic level hunter. CR 1's are invisible. CR20's are bright and shiny despite magical protection/concealment/cover.

Touch sight: The critter is surrounded by a gas/thin tentacles/swarm of helpers. It can see anything it can "touch" to say 30 feet or whatever distance.

Foe sense: After some trigger, eg wounding or being wounded by an opponent, you can see your opponent regardless of any circumstances (blindness, concealment, etc) as long as you (would have) line of sight.

Magic Missile radar sense: You generate a field of magic missles. Every creature, object and square in range around you is constantly hit by the magic missles. If a magic missle hits it (creature or object) you can see it. Every creature takes 1d4+1 force damage per round within 300 feet. Inanimate objects are not damaged.

Energy radar sense: Similar to above. You generate a field of energy (fire, cold, acid, lightning, of sonic). Every creature and object within the specified range takes 5 hp energy damage per round. You sense things by how they affect the field.

Mirror sight: Look through a mirror. You can see through any other mirror within range.

[Strawman]

Weathersense - You are able to detect the current, recent, and soon-to-be weather conditions.

Also, you could expand upon some of the sense the body has that are not part of the "five senses." The inner ear has a mechanism that uses liquid to sense how your are positioned compared to the gravitational field (balance). The bladder has a means of determining how full or empty it is. Muscles have sensors that let us observe the location of various parts of our body without using the "five sense" (touch your finger to your nose with your eyes closed).

If you can find a way to expand the bladder thing so that it is an Extraordinary Ability, let me know.

[Eloel]

Power sight ("IT'S OVER 9000!"): You can see critters CR/ECL/HD. Maybe for an epic level hunter. CR 1's are invisible. CR20's are bright and shiny despite magical protection/concealment/cover.

CRs 10 or more below you shines Blue. 5 to 10 below shines Green. 5 below to 5 above shines White. 5 above to 10 above shines Yellow. More than 10 above shines Red.

[Iferus]

Sense of direction: Always know which way is North. Like a very precise compass.

[PId6]

Hydrosense - Sense all water nearby, including water inside of creatures.
Bloodsight - As Hydrosense, but specific to blood.
Coldvision - Like Heatvision, but in reverse. Excessively hot creatures cannot be seen at all.
Anti-Lead Vision - Sees through sheets of lead, nothing else. Also opens up various Anti-whatever vision to see through different types of materials.
Metalsense - Sense all metallic objects nearby, including the metal in your blood.
Liquorscent - Smell alcohol from a mile away.
Moonsight/Sunsight/Starsight - See creatures only by the light of one of these. Other lights don't work.
Deathsight - Cannot see living things.
Naiveyes - See no evil creatures or evil effects.
Malev-o-Vision - See no good creatures or good effects.
Gloryeyes - See people only by how well-known they are.
Infinivision - See the world through every star in the sky.

[Owrtho]

Anti-Lead Vision - Sees through sheets of lead, nothing else. Also opens up various Anti-whatever vision to see through different types of materials.

Must suck not being able to see through air or glass...

Also:
Escape Sense: know the shortest paths to all open exits from whatever room or passage you are in. Ignores hazards and dangers that may prevent getting to the exits. Does not detect closed, sealed, or blocked exits (open windows, holes in walls, etc. count as exits). The outside counts as a room separate from the inside. In walls (without ceilings) and pits that are shorter/shallower than 10' are ignored (paths may go through them). Does not bother to detect if exits or paths to exits are large enough to pass through (though they must be at least 6" or large enough for the user to pass through, whichever is smaller).

Prey Sense: Same as above but instead leads to viable prey (as determined by species and what it can eat) instead of exits.

Owrtho

[Lysander]

Creature Beacon - All the members of a species emit a signal (either a scent or a psychic transmission) that allows every other member of that species nearby to detect exactly where they are.

Map Sense - The species has a racial memory that allows it to remember topography of the land, and view the world as a map with their own position highlighted. This ability only works in areas that species ancestors have lived in.

Time Sense - The creature has an internal clock and always knows exactly what time it is.

[The Demented One]

Electrographic Sight: Perception of electric currents. Can be used to pick out living beings, due to neuroelectricity, and with training could be used to "read thoughts" to a certain degree, in the same way that an EEG can pick up brainwaves.

Thaumolfaction/Thaumagustation: Enhanced sense of smell or taste, analyze the magical or alchemical properties by sniffing/licking them.

Sympathetic Synesthesia: Like normal synesthesia, but for all your friends! Speak in colors, look like a smell, have skin as soft as how chocolate tastes, and more!

Sidereal Compass: Intuitively know your location relative to a heavenly body. Extremely useful if you happen to be an astronaut, astronomer, astrologist, or something else that starts with astro-. Pretty useless for anyone else.

Pycnohaptics: Determine by touch the density, hardness, and other physical properties of objects.

[Debihuman]

6th Sense: you see ghosts and other incorporeal undead.

Debby

[HamsterOfTheGod]

Sick sense: You see the sickness in the world. Pelor, or whichever god, shows you the wicked (regardless of alignment) that have to be cleansed.

Fey sense: You can sense Fey even it they are hiding or concealed or in the Feywild...

Nun sense: You can identify the members of your order even if they are disguised...

[Platinius]

Emosense: You see emotions in varies colors, mix's and intensities. A frenzying berserker glows and feels like white hot steel (fury in it's purest state), sorrow is more like purple and feels like rain (sorrow is a bit of a combination of love and sadness), sadness is dark blue till black and feels like ice, love is a soft red and feels like gentle warm wind (you can't grasp it but you know it's there), hate is a hot red and feels like very hot (not as hot as fury, but unlike fury hate hardly disappears from one moment to another) etc. A coldblooded assassin would be invisible the same way as golems, simple undead or other automatons, animals have emotions (the more a kind of animal is developed the more varied the emotions are and the more you see of them)

[hamishspence]

I liked Shen Sight in Azure Bonds- You see alignments- all alignments, not just Evil, in various shades depending on the type- with nuances:

Greed is yellow, Jealousy green, Hate red, Sadism purple, Pride gray, etc.

it is a bit like "Emosense".

[Lysander]

Vitality Sight - All living creatures are surrounded with a golden aura. This aura appears dimmer the more injured they are.

Fear Scent - A keen sense of smell attuned to detecting fear in living creatures. It can detect any mammal's fear within 50 feet, even if you cannot see them.

[Terror_Incognito]

Lysander.

Bird Sight - The creature forms a telepathic bond with a single or small number of birds, allowing it to telepathically see from that creature's eyes and mentally request it look at certain things. Animals with this ability may instinctively collect food for their bird in order to build the bond. Variants of this ability instead create links with other creatures like fish or reptiles.

As a huge fan of Discworld I'd like to try and make a feat for Borrowing.

Borrowing (General)
Prerequisites
Wild Empathy Class Feature, Concentration +10

Description
You are able to ride the minds of animals and use their senses to perceive the world around you. You can also use this link to control animals.

Benefit
By making a concentration check (DC 15) for one round you are able to automatically sense any animal within 100ft. This only tells you the general direction and distance of the animal.

By focusing for another round you may use that animals senses and guide the animal where you want it to go. You may continue riding in the animal's mind as long as you maintain your concentration.

This is an Ex Ability.

I'm also going to add a table of modifiers for the con check as soon as I figure out how to do a table.

[Roukon]

The mystical sense of Balance - allows one to tell whether or not they are falling.

Technically eligible!

But to make it eligibler, and add a dash of wacky, have Balancesense! You can tell when things are balancing! I dunno, it's vibrations or something, leave me alone.

Put this monster in a giant maze made of balance beams and ka-pow, you've got yourself a terrifying deathgym.

I was going to say balance, but you beat me to it. I like the extra ideas you added though.