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Going back over the Keen Senses for each race, I stumbled upon a couple of very small issues. In particular, they are the ones for the dwarf and for the gnome. I'll just go ahead and say right now, it's a bit of a science thing and a bit of a flavor thing.
Dwarves get taste and touch. Gnomes get smell and touch. One thing I know is that smell and taste are very inter-related. It's creepy that if you hold up a piece of apple to your nose while blindfolded and then take a bite from a potato, the potato tastes like an apple. On that note, I think it may be better to link taste and smell then how it's currently written.
From a flavor point of view (no pun intended here), I think the dwarf should have sound and touch because they live underground where such senses would be a bit more honed. It's a fact we hear more, and hear better, when we're in the dark. Blind people can literally feel how things would look with sight. Dwarves, I think, would be used to identifying sounds and locations based on the echoes just by their nature of their customary living space. At the same time, their sense of touch would be heightened by the darkness they live in. Now, I do know they have darkvision, so they're not really blind, but I still feel the two senses are linked.
Gnomes, on the other hand, should perhaps have a +2 to two linked senses (sight and sound, smell and taste, or sound and touch). Their description states their passions take them in multiple directions, including various professions and hobbies. Given their obsessive nature, it makes more sense for them to have senses that are geared in the same direction as their obsession.
I also want to point out that since halflings have only one keen sense, it should be a +3 instead of a +2. On a general level, I've noticed that the rules tend to give a +2 bonus to two (linked) items and a +3 when it's only a single one. The greater exception being for combat related features which have far more reaching consequences.
I'm not sure I like half-orcs and humans having no keen senses at all. I don't think it breaks the balance to give them a keen sense or two. It adds to the template-like feel I get from the races. I'd give the half-orcs and humans a +3 to one, or +2 to the links I've suggested above.
Arovyn
Humans don't have "keen senses" because they are the base that everyone else is compared to.
Elves just aren't more dextrous. They are more dextrous than humans.
Orcs aren't merely dumb. They are dumber than humans.
The average ability score applies to Humanity. Very nearly each and every other race out there gets modified up and down from that point. The same applies with senses and all other bonuses.
So Elves or dwarves or gnomes or whatnot having a keen sense of something is in direct comparison to what the human has. And human is base because it's the one race we know well enough to not need a book for :) We KNOW how well humans see, touch, hear, and smell. And with that as a starting point, we know that some races do some of those things a little better.
That's how I've always looked at it, anyway.
-S
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I've met people who can hear a whisper 30 feet away in a loud crowded space. I'd call that Keen Senses: Sound. I, myself, get a headache and flinch whenever someone blows a dog whistle around me. Mechanics just seem to hear what's wrong with a car, and some can find exactly what they need by feel alone.
I don't disagree with your point. Humans are the baseline for everything. But that doesn't mean they can't have *some* of the benefits other races are getting. I've always played a human in D&D. I don't lament not having darkvision or low-light vision. Obviously humans don't have those kinds of eyes. But when it comes to a keen sense, I can definitely argue that many people irl have one form or another. Typically, it's only one, but tell that a blind person. :)
Arovyn
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Maybe a +2 bonus to Perception (Smell) would work. I always think of orcs of having a powerful sense of smell, as many wild predators do.
Orcs are such a horribly maligned race. In virtually every campaign world they're stupid, ugly, and out to kill everything - possibly themselves. They often follow evil deities and act as a general nuisance to everyone else. I hate that stereotype, and I'm not sure how a half-orc fits completely into things. They aren't exactly old having only appeared for the first time with 3.0. I think half-orcs have to be the single most interally conflicted race in any setting where orcs follow the general stereotype. I mean if they aren't killed by their parents as kids, it's a wonder they don't commit suicide or get killed being run out of town as a general reminder of half their parentage... But I think I'm getting way off topic.
Half-Orcs, I think, deserve at least one keen sense, but I'm not sure what that sense should be. Scent is as good as any, but I think Sound is a better choice. Check out the ears in their illustration.
On a slightly different topic, the elf's (and half-elf's) Keen Senses ability has always kind of bugged me: Wouldn’t it make more sense for the “spot secret doors” ability to be able to find any secret door within line of sight. As it is, most GMs, in my experience, just roll the check even if the elf is 20 feet away from the secret door, or even if the elf is across a 100-foot room.
I don't know what to make of this one. Is it really a keen sense that should be mixed with what they already get? Or is this perhaps a wholly different ability altogether? I mean passing near a secret door and knowing it's there comes across almost as echolocation if you ask me, so it makes sense for a dwarf to notice by hearing. It really is up to individual DM's, though, to remember the rule is there and for player's to remind them. But a DM should not let the player know until their character actually passes near that secret door, or the character can simply actively serach on their own.
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A really good friend of mine asked me, "Why do we need half-orcs? Why can't we just stat up an orc and use that?"
My reply, "In the back of the 4E MM is all that info we need to do that."
His response, "So, once again, why do we need half-orcs?"
There are two d20 game worlds that I know of off the top of my head that have intelligent, forthright, and not necessarily evil orcs. One is Warlords of the Accordlands. Now, the race as a whole could be listed as evil, but they can certainly be played otherwise. The other, *sigh*, is World of Warcraft. I'm not sighing because I don't like WoW. It's just making a WoW reference is a dangerous thing...
We need more worlds with smart orcs, more playable orcs, and a half-race that isn't borderline psychotic/suicidal.
Arovyn
Arovyn:
Quote: " I've met people who can hear a whisper 30 feet away in a loud crowded space. I'd call that Keen Senses: Sound. I, myself, get a headache and flinch whenever someone blows a dog whistle around me. Mechanics just seem to hear what's wrong with a car, and some can find exactly what they need by feel alone."
You've pet people who have taken ranks in perception. More ranks than you have, (and more than I have, for that matter).
The average (insert demi-human here) has a better sense of (insert appropriate sense here) than the average human does for that given sense.
That means that for any given skill roll, all else being equal, the demi-human will have a higher base score.
It does Not mean that humans can't beat demihumans at the score. All the human has to do is take more skill ranks in the skill than the demihuman does. That will offset it. The difference is that it costs the human skill points to do it.
Humans are the base. The standard to which other races are compared to. It doesn't make sense for them to have a specific bonus to any specific sense or whatnot. Our senses are, by the very nature of being the base of comparison, "average".
-S