Scent (3.5e Skill)
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Scent (Wis)
Use this skill to identify objects, people, creatures, or plants by smell or identify smells carried on the wind. Creatures with a sufficiently keen sense of smell are able to use their nose just as well as they use their eyes and ears bringing them as much information about the world around them by the smells around them.
Check
Make checks to identify a friend by smell in a dark room, detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, or track by sense of smell.
Your scent check is either made against a DC which reflects how difficult it is to pick up a specific scent or how difficult it is to identify what the scent is. Your DM may decide to make a Scent check for you, so that you do not know whether not smelling something means that nothing is out of the ordinary to smell, or you that you failed the check.
Table refers to detection of scents carried on the air.
| Scent DC | Task |
|---|---|
| 0 | Rotting corpse within 30 feet. |
| 5 | Object burning within 10 feet. |
| 10 | Very strong odors and Scented plants within 5 feet. |
| 12 | Clean human within 5 feet of the character. |
| 15 | Detecting water within 30 feet. |
| 19 | Identifying a single familiar scent 1 foot away on a busy well traveled road. |
There are sometimes modifiers which make scents easier or harder to detect.
| Condition | DC Adjustment |
|---|---|
| Per day of age of the scent | +5 |
| Per 10 feet distance form the source | +5 |
A character who is attempting to detect a scent on an object or person they have their nose close to dose not suffer any distance penalties to scent check as the object they are sniffing is the source and thus effectively is at 0-1 feet form the character.
Distance modifiers are halved if downwind of the scent and doubled if upwind of the scent.
Action
Varies. Every time you have a chance to smell something in a reactive manner, you can make a scent check without any actions. Trying to smell something you field to smell previously is a move action.
Try Again
Yes. You can try to smell something that you failed to smell previously with no penalty.
Special
This skill can be used untrained.
If you have the Alertness feat, you get a +2 bonus on scent checks.
A sleeping character can make a scent check at a -10 penalty. A successful check awakens the sleeper.
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