Can lycanthropes sense each other when both are in human form ?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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Can lycanthropes sense each other when both are in human form ? Does it make a difference if either or both are attempting to conceal their nature ? Are there any rules references for this ?


So long as they make their perception checks against the other creature's stealth check they can see and hear the creature provide there isn't invisibility involved, and the lighting is correct.

As to your real question, no there are not any rules references for this -- unless they have a reason to know they currently don't "automatically" know that another creature does or doesn't have lycanthropy.

Contributor

Sensing whether someone is a lycanthrope is likely like sensing anything else: religion, alignment, sexuality, profession, etc. It would be a Sense Motive check, but a very high DC, and you'd likely get a lot of false positives. Go looking for a werewolf and you instead find the hairy guy who likes bloody rare steaks and wears a bunch of wolf motif items because he thinks wolves are cool.

Even stuff that's supposed to have physical signs will have a lot of false positives. Finding a werewolf is more difficult than just bringing in every guy with a unibrow, especially since even if all werewolves have them, a sensible werewolf who wanted to go under the radar would learn to wax or pluck.


I would say scent would be a dead give away to be honest, as long as the perception check beat the disguise or musk or whatever they were using.

Wolverine comes to mind, he could always smell sabertooth..

just how I would rule in my games anyways


I was just about to mention scent. There may be something in the scent that keys them in on what someone else is. I probably wouldn't let a werewolf pick out a wereshark, or what have you, but they might pick up the scent of another werewolf fairly easily.

Contributor

A werewolf might be able to pick up wolf scent from another werewolf, but the difference between scenting this and scenting someone in a wolf fur coat or who has a wolf animal companion or who recently used the "Bite of the Werewolf" spell? There are still plenty of chances for false positives.


Then again a wherebear would make them go hmmm...


Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:
A werewolf might be able to pick up wolf scent from another werewolf, but the difference between scenting this and scenting someone in a wolf fur coat or who has a wolf animal companion or who recently used the "Bite of the Werewolf" spell? There are still plenty of chances for false positives.

That is very cool. Might have a false positive come up sometime. Be a fun little roleplaying thing.


Were creatures gain automatic empathy with the base animal of their affliction. Going on that, I'd personally allow were creatures to automatically identify other weres of their specific breed (werewolves could sense other werewolves) but might not give them much more than that.

They do have the scent ability, so that makes it tricky. I'd probably offer them something like this: "His scent doesn't perfectly match his appearance. You're not sure why, but there's something unusual about him." Keeping in mind that most polymorph effects are magical in nature, I have to assume that they're at least sophisticated enough to maintain the scent of whatever creature they assume & probably reassume their original scent when returning to their base form.

I'd personally rule differently based on the form of shapeshifting. Lycanthropy is supernatural, so the scent factor is probably still there. Also, bearing in mind that the armor/equipment doesn't meld or change, there's a good chance that the wolf scent you pick up on is actually from the person's equipment.

Just a few thoughts.


I agree that scent should be a give away for any lycan detecting any other lycan.

If you want to make it harder to detect eachother, two options

1 : Perception tn 15 check for other lycans and creatures with scent ability, regardless of moon phase.

2 : 3 days either side of the full moon (or other phase if they go full lycan on waxing/waning etc) the beast within can be smelt by other lycans/creatures with scent.

Sense motive could be used to sense unease during a full moon or close to full moon, but the tn would be 20, not something that anyone should or could notice with ease.

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