The scent section does appear pretty clear in that it must auto work as it simply says creatuires "can" detect without defining it mechanically i.e. by linking it to any skill e.g. Pereption.
Interesting that you should mention Perception.
What senses does Perception cover? Everything but smell? No.
Now let's look at where they define vision. Hmm no mention of the Perception skill there either.
But when we go to tremorsense, blindsense and blindsight.. wow there's where it directly says they automake such perception checks.
Scent is a bit like being able to hear with your nose. No matter how good you are at hugging the shadows if you enter the room and start singing at the top of your lungs you will get detected.
Yep, anyone not trying to be hidden from a given sense are automatically detected within the range of that sense. This is true whether it's vision, hearing, or even smell.
We don't require Perception checks for PCs to talk to eachother even in the heat of battle neither should we allow a stealth roll to ignore the lound and tuneless singing eminating from the would be stealther!You're leaping around here. Rather than just skim some of this thread, why don't you go back to read my posts on it?
To follow along with what you're saying.. we DO require Perception checks for PCs that are properly using stealth to remain unobserved by all senses. Not just sight and sound.
So if a PC wishes to try to sneak past a guard (or a guard dog) then they might have a chance if they can satisfy the requirements of the skill.
This is very different from claiming that the PC can openly walk past the guard without being seen, or the guard needing to see a PC walking in the open.
But that doesn't mean that the guard DOES need to make a Perception check when the PC is sneaking around using cover relative to the guard in order to maintain stealth.
When you have two possible ways to read a line...
James,
The only problem I have with this argument is that in order to make a stealth check, you need cover or concealment against all the senses you are trying to stealth against.
There are specific things a character _could_ do to cover or conceal their scent, but none of these involve sneaking past visual cover. They involve things like Negate Aroma, or "I douse myself in water so that until I start drying, the water will conceal my smell."
So you've essentially got a character in plain view of a creature's scent sense, but it seems you are saying that creature will not autodetect the character within the range of the scent ability.
Can you reconcile this with your argument?
Venture-Captain, Ireland—Belfast
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The scent section does appear pretty clear in that it must auto work as it simply says creatuires "can" detect without defining it mechanically i.e. by linking it to any skill e.g. Pereption.
Interesting that you should mention Perception.
What senses does Perception cover? Everything but smell? No.
Now let's look at where they define vision. Hmm no mention of the Perception skill there either.
But when we go to tremorsense, blindsense and blindsight.. wow there's where it directly says they automake such perception checks.
Scent is a bit like being able to hear with your nose. No matter how good you are at hugging the shadows if you enter the room and start singing at the top of your lungs you will get detected.
Yep, anyone not trying to be hidden from a given sense are automatically detected within the range of that sense. This is true whether it's vision, hearing, or even smell.
We don't require Perception checks for PCs to talk to eachother even in the heat of battle neither should we allow a stealth roll to ignore the lound and tuneless singing eminating from the would be stealther!You're leaping around here. Rather than just skim some of this thread, why don't you go back to read my posts on it?
To follow along with what you're saying.. we DO require Perception checks for PCs that are properly using stealth to remain unobserved by all senses. Not just sight and sound.
So if a PC wishes to try to sneak past a guard (or a guard dog) then they might have a chance if they can satisfy the requirements of the skill.
This is very different from claiming that the PC can openly walk past the guard without being seen, or the guard needing to see a PC walking in the open.
But that doesn't mean that the guard DOES need to make a Perception check when the PC is sneaking around using cover relative to the guard in order to maintain stealth.
When you have two possible ways to read a line...
James
I fear that I have not been clear. I don't see it as jumping around, I was and attempting to favour brevity and pls note I was not referring to speed reading this thread but others on this site.
Clearly an attempt to perceive via smell is a function of Perception. Certain circumstances allow for auto success. Creatures with a super sense often fall into that category.
The Scent RAW states what it can do but gives mechanics only for using it when tracking a creature outside of the stated ranges.
The only thing that gives pause is that under perception there are mechanics for perceiving by smell with a mechanic for critters with Scent and then goes on to do the same for critters with Tremor sense but only mentions auto success for the latter.
Stealth is no more effective at hiding ones smell than negate aroma is in allowing you to move silently. It doesn't allow one to hide ones thoughts, or taste for that matter! You are in plain view because of your smell just like a lump of uranium is in plain view to a Geiger counter.
W
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Blindsense (Ex) Using nonvisual senses, such as acute smell or hearing, a creature with blindsense notices things it cannot see. The creature usually does not need to make Perception checks to pinpoint the location of a creature within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature.
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Blindsight (Ex) This ability is similar to blindsense, but is far more discerning. Using nonvisual senses, such as sensitivity to vibrations, keen smell, acute hearing, or echolocation, a creature with blindsight maneuvers and fights as well as a sighted creature. Invisibility, darkness, and most kinds of concealment are irrelevant, though the creature must have line of effect to a creature or object [b[]to discern that creature or object.[/b]
From those quotes a lot of people use the normal Scent ability as if it worked like the Blindsense from keen smell ability.
Stealth work against Scent from the day Paizo joined all the sensory perceptions in one skill and all the systems to conceal your presence in another.
You need something to "conceal" your from the guy with scent, but it is not necessarily something that you need to define.
Your rogue can ambush a guard with a scent dog because he hide beside the night blooming bush of odorous flowers, or beside the resin exuding pine.
He can soil his clothes with orc faeces to smell non threatening to the orc guard dog or to the orc themselves. Or use cow dung to foil the farmer guard dog.
There are plenty of odours that an animal or even a humanoid will consider non threatening if encountered in the appropriate location but that are capable of covering your character actual body odour.
Photo naturalists are capable to get to minimal distance of animals with keen noses without alarming them. It can require hours of cautious approach, letting the animal accept your odour as something that is part of the ambient smell or other techniques, but it can be done.
As most of us don't have the stealth skill, and especially we don't have it trained to the levels of our characters it will be difficult to judge how they accomplish something but, as they have a high level of competence in what they do, we should accept that they are capable to do things that seem exceptional.
Fooling an animal with scent is in the realm of possible, so moving it in the "impossible" realm is reducing the effect of skills that work that way in our world and not only in a fantasy world.
Unless you want require every player to explain how their character do something the method used to foils scent by a guy with a good stealth skill is of not particular importance. The scent ability already give a large bonus to the perceiving creature, so allowing people to try to foil it don't make it useless at all.
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Venture-Captain, Ireland—Belfast
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James
I fear we're going round in circles and I look forward to this being offically sorted.
I will clarify if I may that the 5' range is for locating position the larger range is is for becoming aware of someone and then it's a move action to determine direction.
It is much more like hearing but if using vision makes it clearer, then you are right when you use dark vision as an analogy:
"If you're not actively hiding then you're automatically seen in dim light."
You cannot actively hide your scent via stealth alone. Unless you are taking some extraordinary measure such as the spell Negate Aroma whih was new to me when I started reading this thread then your are in plain sight. At least I can infer that from the rules and the fact that it makes logical sense also helps.
You could be right but I reserve the right to disagree.
Finally I would respectfully suggest being careful of positioning your opinions on how other ppl should format their posts i.e. Quotations as imperatives. It rubbed me up the wrong way and is likely to colour ppls opinions of the substance of your posts.
As to the substance of this let's hope it gets looked at soon.
TTFN
W
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Finally I would respectfully suggest being careful of positioning your opinions on how other ppl should format their posts i.e. Quotations as imperatives. It rubbed me up the wrong way and is likely to colour ppls opinions of the substance of your posts.I'm sorry W, I did not mean to offend. However people simply not touching a large quoted post and then posting below it a small post not referencing sections of it is considered rude on message boards. Much like if someone were posting with all caps it would be considered rude.
There's no reason not to trim posts. Not doing so needlessly spams readers. I'm sorry if it offended you, as it was not my intention. My intention was quite the opposite to help you avoid offending other people. It's my fault, I should have simply flagged it and not mentioned it. Mea culpa.
-James
I should say that after reading james request I have retuned to my last post and trimmed away a citation that wasn't really needed as the post is in this same page.
I don't think it is something sufficient to flag a post but the request isn't unreasonable.
Still finding large citations "offensive" is a bit excessive.
As a general principle I avoid trimming other people post when I cite them (unless, like as in this case, they are clearly made of different sections). It is too easy to distort, even involuntarily, what the other guy was saying.
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Venture-Captain, Ireland—Belfast
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I wasn't going to continue flogging this dead horse but I had a thought last night. The Scent ability means you can detect the presence of someone within x feet. You only know their location via scent within 5 feet. While a move action allows you you to decern location, Scent does not allow you to Percieve the location until the range is 5'. It helps you to Percieve the location at ranges over 5 feet hence the +8. Unlike Tremor Sense which does allow proper Perception within the full range.
Not worth going into how stealth skill combined with normal circumstances might make a smelly creature undetectable to a blood hound, I suspect we will not see eye to eye.
Flagging a post because I don't trim the quote? Hmmm that is a new one to me but it takes all sorts I guess.
TTFN
W
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it doesn't say so explicitly, but it could be presumed from the invisibility spell that it *does* effect all senses, and would impair a dog's ability to detect you. it is a 2nd level spell after all, nothing to sneeze at, though it still wouldn't be masking your scent/sound well enough to hide you from someone using blindsight/sense or tremorsense.
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One though came to mind (Beer, no, not that thought), using the dog example, does the dog have to be actively trying to use its scent? Does a sleeping dog have the same chance of spotting the sneaking rogue?
I suppose that depends on which side of the argument you lean towards.
If you believe that Perception is required to notice, even with Scent, then the standard penalty for sleeping should be applied.
If you think it is automatic, then active vs. passive is irrelevant and even a sleeping dog should detect you.
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doesn't your brain cease processing scents while you're asleep?
i can understand taking 0 to notice a loud noise, to rouse you while you're sleeping. I'd be curious what actually happens to real world animals in case of fire. whether they're just roused by the noise first, or whether they smell smoke (dc 0 perception) and wake up.
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One though came to mind (Beer, no, not that thought), using the dog example, does the dog have to be actively trying to use its scent? Does a sleeping dog have the same chance of spotting the sneaking rogue?
If dogs could only use scent while awake, they wouldn't make very good guard animals. I think the past couple centuries of domestication and use pretty much prove that dogs can use their scent and hearing abilities while sleeping.
Whether or not this real-world system of biochemical pathways floats over to PFRPG is a completely different question.
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doesn't your brain cease processing scents while you're asleep?
i can understand taking 0 to notice a loud noise, to rouse you while you're sleeping. I'd be curious what actually happens to real world animals in case of fire. whether they're just roused by the noise first, or whether they smell smoke (dc 0 perception) and wake up.
This thread got me thinking about that, too. I've been roused by strong smells before, so I'm figuring that a dog would be. Of course we'll never know for sure, unless someone's willing to set up a controlled experiment to find out.
How to model it in the game? Not so sure.
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Venture-Captain, Arizona—Tucson
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Not to muddy the waters, but some posters have indicated that they would require someone to have a specific "cover" smell present before they could use Stealth to avoid detection via Scent.
It occurs to me that the typical dungeon (or other adventuring environment) probably has plenty of smells present that could give olfactory "cover". These poorly-ventilated dungeons, orc lairs, garbage-strewn alleys, sleazy taverns, and opulent palaces would generally reek. The stench of spilled blood (and voided body fluids), rotting bodies, animal wastes, badly-cooked flesh, dumped chamber pots, spilled rotgut, exotic incense, unwashed bugbears, wet dogs, and hungry otyughs would cover any multitude of hygiene sins.
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This thread got me thinking about that, too. I've been roused by strong smells before, so I'm figuring that a dog would be. Of course we'll never know for sure, unless someone's willing to set up a controlled experiment to find out.
How to model it in the game? Not so sure.
I would think it would follow the model already given for Perception. A penalty for sleeping.
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Since there is no official book ruling for sleeping animals getting scent, I will refer to the real world. Scent should not work while dogs are sleeping.
Only birds or aquatic mammals are known for unihemispheric sleep, which is sleeping with half your brain still awake. Dogs, unfortunately, are not. I would rule that if a dog is asleep, he will have to make perception checks to wake up like everything else would. Scent or no scent, if you're brain is in complete slumber mode, that requires a perception.
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ARGH!!! Stop forcing your real world into my fantasy. It's break my verisimilitude. :-)
Don't worry, I'll destroy both worlds when I introduce my magus / gunslinger / wild rager barbarian into scenarios as a special NPC boss you have to unlock while playing.
/How do you do that?
//Wait and see. Just wait and see.
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Venture-Captain, Ireland—Belfast
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Since there is no official book ruling for sleeping animals getting scent, I will refer to the real world. Scent should not work while dogs are sleeping. Scent or no scent, if you're brain is in complete slumber mode, that requires a perception.
Nice research work there btw
Of course there are different views on this but my feeling is that Scent allows the (conscious) dog to be aware that something smelly has entered into it's range. I don't equate that to mean it gets the benefits of a successful perception check. An awake hound will sniff the air and try to work out where the smell emanates from, for which it uses Perception. A sleeping hound would not automatically be aware of the arrival of a new smell but as it uses Scent In combination with it's other senses I would apply the bonus for Scent as well as the penalty for sleep on it's Perception to wake up and spot the intruders.
W
It's worth pointing out that several posters appear to have the misconception that a dog's +8 modifer to Perception checks is from the Scent ability. It is not. Scent gives them an additional +8 on scent-based perception rolls ON TOP OF the +8 they already have (as mentioned in the writeup for the Perception skill in the Core Rulebook).
According to the standard rule for animals, dogs have 1 skill rank per hit die. Normal dogs have their single rank in Perception. Riding dogs have a single rank in Perception and a single rank in Acrobatics. It is easy enough to see this from the way the math works for their modifiers. Dogs thus have a Perception modifier of +8: +1 from the single skill rank, +3 because Perception is a monster class skill (as shown in the animal companion section of the CR), +1 from Wisdom modifier, and +3 from the Skill Focus: Perception feat shown in their stat block in the Bestiary.
This does NOT make dogs' Perception modifier an effective +16 in every circumstance. The wording of the Scent ability appears to limit its normal range to 15, 30, or 60 feet, depending on wind conditions, although it also says that especially strong smells may double or even triple these ranges. So a creature approaching from downwind might not allow a dog (or horse or any other creature with Scent) to get that +8 Perception modifier until it was as close as 15 feet away.
This means that sneaking up to melee range on an orc or half-orc with the Keen Scent feat or a wild shaped druid with Scent is a very problematic proposition and if the wind conditions are not taken into account is likely going to fail. Most adventuring or monster race characters put at least some ranks into Perception and a +8 bonus on top of that is hard to get around with a level appropriate challenge. Scent is a darn nice ability.
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Stephen Radney-MacFarland (Designer) Sep 20, 2011, 02:21 PM
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Lacedon
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Dragnmoon wrote:
You still need to make clear how someone/thing with Scent can detect a scent (DC? Automatic?)and how and if Stealth affects that.
If it is within range, it is automatic. Stealth doesn't help you when going up against a creature that has scent. That's the long and short of it.
___
I can't for the life of me see the other side of this one.
No, it doesn't say automatically. It doesn't need to. The ability does absolutely nothing if it isn't automatic. There is no point in making a perception roll to say "hey, there is something somewhere 30 feet away from me" when a regular old perception check without scent tells you exactly where the person is.
Stephen Radney-MacFarland (Designer) Sep 20, 2011, 02:21 PM
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Lacedon
–Dragnmoon wrote:
You still need to make clear how someone/thing with Scent can detect a scent (DC? Automatic?)and how and if Stealth affects that.
If it is within range, it is automatic. Stealth doesn't help you when going up against a creature that has scent. That's the long and short of it.
___I can't for the life of me see the other side of this one.
No, it doesn't say automatically. It doesn't need to. The ability does absolutely nothing if it isn't automatic. There is no point in making a perception roll to say "hey, there is something somewhere 30 feet away from me" when a regular old perception check without scent tells you exactly where the person is.
I could be wrong, as I don't pretend the rules are crystal clear on this issue, but I think that although Scent autodetects presence within 30' or so while wakeful and autodetects direction as a move action within the same range, at any range greater than 5' and less than about 30' it only makes it likelier that a target will unsuccessfully Stealth its exact location. Oh, and makes it more likely that a sleeping creatures with Scent will make the opposed Perception -10 check to wake up if somthing is trying to sneak up on them.