It's supposed to cover all the senses, so if there was information to be received, it should have been covered in a perception check.
As for the take 10, that would mean taking a full minute to cover a 5' square. If you think about that, it would mean taking 6 minutes to cross 30 feet. That is going to wreak havoc on any kind of timed abilities the party has. Also, was the stench from some sort of ability of the fungi? It could be that the reek was due to some sort of excretion from the fungi in reaction to you drawing close. In which case, no, you wouldn't smell anything walking up to the room.
In theory, the perception or sense motive action would require you to study the subject, and is considered a move action I believe, if used in combat. You're not just taking a cursory glance, you're actively studying the creature to see how it responds. So, depending on what else your character did during combat, this would be correct.
Perception is meant to accompany all the senses. Now, if it is dark, the ability to see something is going to be curtailed and the associated penalty to perception in the dark should be considered as a penalty to seeing something. For example, a torch burning 1000 feet away cannot be detected by the blind creature no matter what he rolls. But to assume your character doesn't specify all the senses he's using is a exercise in pedantic tomfoolery. All it means is that the players will waste everyone's time by providing a litany of ways they are perceiving all in one go... and god forbid the GM requires a separate roll for each.
Taking 10 is no longer than a normal check, it is just an easy way to assume average. Taking 20 is what requires a lot more time to do something (and can be used to search a room for items and secret doors and such, by the way)
The stench is an iffy thing. It isn't necessarily that you didn't smell it, but that it wasn't anything remarkable. Your character may have smelled 'something' but didn't really take notice of it beyond standard 'dungeon stink'. Then when hit by the full force of the stench, that's when you walked close enough to hit the standing cloud (or the mushroom let out a blast of spores, or whatever). Smells are definitely not measured in a linear strength-to-distance graph. A dead animal does not smell half as bad at 10 feet as it does at 5.
What you can and cannot do in a turn is your GM's choice. There are two types of situations with these actions; active (do I see any archers hiding in the trees?) and passive (bluff vs sense motive to feint). You get passive checks for free because they are part of the rules; you get them because the rules say you get them to determine the result of an action.
Different skills have different action types. Sense Motive (per the rules) typically take a minute to use as you are building an opinion of the actions of another person... at least when used to see if they are lying or acting oddly. Perception is usually reactive, a "did the PC see the monster sneak through the underbrush" and thus free. Actively searching is a move action. Knowledge checks to remember or recall something take no action, but researching in a library can take hours. Seeing a monster with bat wings, spiked tail, and three jaws and identifying it is a free action; just like seeing an actor on TV and knowing that is John Actorman is a free action.
So if you take an action to watch people, you can't use sense motive that turn because, technically, you'd need to watch them for awhile to get a sense of their motives. Move action to see what I did there, heh.
Thanks for the correction, Seebs.
At the point of the stench thing, it comes down to how the encounter has it portrayed. The smell may not carry very far, if there's ventilation that draws it in another direction, or upward. There are many reasons that a smell might not be noticeable at more than close range. It could be that your perception + 10 wasn't greater than the DC to smell that.
My suggestion would be to discuss that with your GM. Ask them what their take is on a Perception check. If they think it should be one roll for each sense, I would take out 6 dice each time, and roll them all, and ascribe a sense to each of the different die. The GM probably didn't have the roll detect smell, because they felt that there wasn't a perception check necessary, or took your suggestion, and your perception + 10 wasn't high enough. The Take 10, should be something to speed things along, but at the same time it shouldn't act as spider sense. ;)
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Take 10 does not take extra time at all. I don't know where people get that idea. Take 20 takes longer. Take 10 doesn't.
+1 to this. Taking 20 takes longer because it's going off of the assumption that you roll 20 times and eventually get a 20. Taking 10 is just taking an average d20 roll.
Also there is nothing in the rules that states you can only percieve in one 5' square at a time. That is preposterous, especially when your senses can extend past a 5' radius around you. There are even modifiers for distance when using the perception skill.
Perception is a combination of a bunch of skills from older game versions. It encompasses all of your senses at once, not just one at a time.
Sense motive, however, usually takes time as you have to study the person first. This is called out in the rules as "generally" a minute but that time can vary depending on circumstances.
It takes a minute to get a hunch about the NPC based on what they are saying or how they are acting. It would require your GM to agree to the 'constant take-10 sense motive' idea, as it isn't a thing in Pathfinder.
Generally, you want to say "I want to roll for sense motive" and the GM should answer how the NPC seems; it isn't a lie detector for a specific sentence, more like a measurement of overall emotional state or anything they seem to be either avoiding or fixating on. For example "You realize that Flint has asked about your food storage procedures 4 times in the conversation..."
Initiative is an initiative check as it is 1d20 + initiative bonus, it is not an ability check. Ability checks are those which are 1d20 + ability modifier (strength, constitution, etc). Skill checks are, unsurprisingly, those rolls that are 1d20 + skill modifier (ranks, bonuses, ability modifier, etc).
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An ability check is just that, a check using your ability score modifier. For example, a strength check is an ability check. Roll d20 and add you strength modifier (typically used to break down doors).
Sense motive is generally done outside of combat. Usually you're having a conversation and either the GM rolls behind the screen for everyone so as not to give any clues or someone says they'd like to sense motive and the GM lets them roll. At least that's the way I've always seen it done. I don't see anything wrong with taking 10 on sense motive checks.
For sense motive, I would rule that it's an active skill, you need to study the person. Take poker as an example, just sitting at the table isn't going to let you know if a person is bluffing or not. You have to pay attention to the way they play, if there are any "tells". Without studying the person, you're not going to pick up on them, because most of them are subtle. It's also an actively opposed roll, with the subjects bluff roll going directly against your sense motive roll.
After that, we get into the semantics of how your GM wants to play it. Is the bluff distracting, etc. Again, talking to your GM would do more to clear this up. Usually, the way I rule it is if there is an opposed roll, there needs to be a roll.
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For sense motive, I would rule that it's an active skill, you need to study the person. Take poker as an example, just sitting at the table isn't going to let you know if a person is bluffing or not. You have to pay attention to the way they play, if there are any "tells". Without studying the person, you're not going to pick up on them, because most of them are subtle. It's also an actively opposed roll, with the subjects bluff roll going directly against your sense motive roll.
After that, we get into the semantics of how your GM wants to play it. Is the bluff distracting, etc. Again, talking to your GM would do more to clear this up. Usually, the way I rule it is if there is an opposed roll, there needs to be a roll.
Generally I agree with this. However, there are things you could pick up on without having to "study" them so intently.
Going back to your poker example (I've played a lot of live poker myself so I know a little bit about this). I can pick up on someone's motive just on how they bet or they way they shift in their seat without studying them directly. I've correctly judged someone while having a full-on conversation with the guy next to me without much effort.
For sense motive, I would rule that it's an active skill, you need to study the person. Take poker as an example, just sitting at the table isn't going to let you know if a person is bluffing or not. You have to pay attention to the way they play, if there are any "tells". Without studying the person, you're not going to pick up on them, because most of them are subtle. It's also an actively opposed roll, with the subjects bluff roll going directly against your sense motive roll.
After that, we get into the semantics of how your GM wants to play it. Is the bluff distracting, etc. Again, talking to your GM would do more to clear this up. Usually, the way I rule it is if there is an opposed roll, there needs to be a roll.
Really? You never know when someone is acting shifty until you decide to concentrate on their actions? You never notice that they do not make eye contact, are sweating excessively, or say that the sun rises in the west without careful study?
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At the start of each session we go round the table giving the GM our passive Sense Motive & Perception scores. The passive score is our skill modifier +10.
That's the DC the GM uses for all of his various checks... I suspect he just uses the highest passive scores if our party is together, methodically moving through an environment...
It works pretty well too as he can just roll behind the screen without giving anything away by asking "Hey Krodjin, what's your Perception modifier again?", and then spark a chain reaction of every PC: "I'm rolling Perception!"