Skill smell !

[Subal]

We have Spot, Listen, what about smell?

While walking through the forest , Xayna bends over to investigate a broken Axe that appears to have been Slashed into a Bear, She carresses the bear and feels the blood, As the wind picks up She catches a slight hint of a something familure ...orc..

We dont take smell into affect as much as we should, smell can tell us if various poisons might be within our food or drink, Possible fires within a area we cannot see but can smell, even enemies such as Ogres that have a distinct smell, Such as undead.

New skill for our sniffer ! yes no? or am i just crazy ?

[nickbeat]

Lore might work for that, it would help you identify what scents exist around you. I can smell perfume, but I can't ID it so well. A saveage would have a keener sense and likely the Lore skill would serve for that, perhaps combined with a spot check.

[wangxiuming]

That's interesting. For some reason smell as a skill seems a little weird, even though certainly the blind, dogs, and Wolverine probably would have had high ranks in smell. Don't know how hard it would be to code a new skill in though...

[Subal]

Lore is to basic, for example my friend that went too culinary school, he had to learn all of the Spices by smell alone. a Lore wouldnt work as it has nothing too do with training yourself to know specific smells, atleast thats the way i would see it. Unless you specifically trained yourself and practiced with a specific thing to know its smell lore would be useless

[HurricaneMasta]

I think "Smell" would best be folded into Survival...if it's not already, to tell the truth.

[Subal]

Survival is much more Tracking though is it not? natural things like that perhaps following Droppings from a bear, but just cause i cant track a animal Doesnt mean i havent trained my mind to remmember a specific perfume, perhaps a assassin female that might have been in the room left some fragrance from earler, when she was scopping her target out?

Maby a peice of bread looks like its fresh, but when you smell it it has a Vinigar smell, showing its gone bad. this can apply to many things that dont equate too Living in the wild

[Peridan]

I actually thought a lot about this with Samael, since he's a barbarian he has a high survival skill. I figured there had to be some kind of role for it to play, since he was so used to "surviving" in the wilderness. The most logical explanation I came up with was the sense of smell, since eyesight and hearing aren't incorporated into it.

I hope no DM makes a ruling on this, simply because I enjoy roleplaying it so much. =(

[HurricaneMasta]

Well, are you talking about a library of knowledge of specific scents, or the ability to smell something? If you're talking about the identification and categorization of scents then yes, Lore is probably best, as that deals with knowledge in a variety of forms.

But, if you're talking about the ability to actually *smell* something, as in a keen sense of smell, if should probably be Survival. Barbarians get Survival as a Class skill, not so with Lore. I would venture to say a barbarian can better smell an animal on the wind than a mage.

Not to mention that your garden variety animal beastie or druid pet will have ranks in Survival, but not Lore.

[Kangleton]

I would just combine Survival with Lore.

[Gairun]

Can we have touch as a skill too? I like touching things.

[Dark presence]

Smell really has no reason to be useful to people as a skill. Should you be able to smell things, know they are different and such? Sure. Its good for adding flavor and fleshing out a scene. But the human sense of smell is really not that great.

To do anything else is really a stretch. The only real exception I would give is people shape shifted into animals, who have much better senses of smell than people.

[undeadsteak]

Can we have touch as a skill too? I like touching things.

Pfft, No, touch sucks, we need taste in first.

[Jaeram]

I have a feeling the touch skill would eventually just evolve in to the grope skill... although that could still be fun...

[Gairun]

I am a MASTER GROPER!

[Bashir]

i think we should start to consider senses like the sixth or seventh sense. and we don't have any sort of in game comparison for senility or Alzheimer's.

seriously though. i think since there is no roll for smell. its best left to a DM to describe what you know. if he is running an event for you.

otherwise you won't have to worry about following your nose unless a toucan shows up. and then your only problem will be finding a milk cow.