Alright well I ran an encounter tonight that featured my two friends (a human artificer and a Hengeyoki(oriental adventures) Warblade vs a group of Dark Creepers and a Darkstalker.
Now during the combat given how the Dark stalker and creepers fight i ran into an interesting argument. Scent vs Darkness. Now the creepers were using darkness which lowered the conditions to dimlight and the stalker used his deeper darkness to hide and fight. Now my warblade player went into his hybrid form which gave him scent and as a 2nd level warblade he had uncanny dodge.
His argument was that its one move action to follow their scent right to them as with being within 30 feet he'd already have their scent so no need to make the move action to pick up the scent. Now i disagree with this, i believe it is 2 separate move actions. His reasoning being that then tracking is pointless because all they have to do is move again and your back at square 1. Also he said there was no need for mischance as he could pinpoint them with scent. I still gave em a 20% miss chance but believe it should of been a full 50% as he doesn't have darkvision.
Now when he was being attacked he argued that he doesn't lose his dex bonus even in the darkness due to uncanny dodge so they could not sneak attack him.
I know im doing something wrong but its nearly 5am and i'm brain fried. Can someone point out what I did wrong so I can show him? As he believes he is right and this will cause more headaches next week when they delve into a Dark one's cave...
Thank you for as many posts of help i can get. Thank you all!
Scent is just an awareness that someone else is within 15-60 ft (depending on wind), more/less for strong/weak scents. You are correct that it takes a move action to get the right direction, and then another to approach.
Scent's pinpoint just gives you accurate knowledge of the exact location of any being he can smell adjacent to him. It does NOTHING for any current benefits of concealment a target has, period.
Scent was never meant to completely cancel out hidden attackers in the first place, though it certainly isn't useless. If you use two moves to come adjacent to a hidden enemy, you still get an attack of opportunity when they move away from you, unless it's a 5 foot step, which you can easily counter and full attack with by simply stepping to the spot they attacked you from. Mounted characters are especially useful with scent as they can ready an action to strike while the mount does the moving.
Scent's primary usefulness has always been in that you are immediately aware of enemies within range without any checks, so they get no surprise round.
Because uncanny dodge specifically works against enemies that are even invisible, he's right that they can't sneak attack him, even if he didn't have scent in fact. That's what makes it so uncanny.
In short, he can't be sneak attacked unless he's flanked, bound, or the attack states "as if they were flanked/denied their dex bonus". He can't move and attack someone he had to use scent to find if it's more than 5' away. He can full attack if he 5' steps and pinpoints them without using a move to smell for them. They keep all of their concealment.
The above posters are correct. Scent is a "automatic" ability in that you *know* there is a creature in range. You don't know where or maybe not even *what* it is, but you know it's there. You can take more actions to find out where the creature is, but the awareness mechanic is automatic.