Tracking by scent

[Eyendasky80]

When tracking someone by scent, can you smell if they doubled back?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Possibly, if the scent starts to grow weak over time and then suddenly is slightly stronger I'd imagine that would be cause to notice they passed over an area twice or more.

 

If you're simply following the scent along at some point it ends and may go in a circle or so to indicate someone doubled back as well since it is highly unlikely someone followed the exact same path twice.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

A skilled tracking dog can, so I'd say 'yes'.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Absolutely. When tracking by smell someone who doubled back, you'd eventually reach a point where the path diverges (the one where the targets originally went and doubled back, and the path most recently taken). The trick is figuring out which path is the correct. The one most recently taken will smell a lot like the one doubled back on, and if it's recent enough, or if the target doubled back slower than he took off the new path, the false path might smell fresher.

 

Of course, most bloodhounds will try to sniff out both paths a bit before deciding, and tend to figure it out rather quickly.

[Silbeg]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

When tracking someone by scent' date=' can you smell if they doubled back?[/quote']

 

As a simple answer, I would say "yes", but might require an additional PER roll, or perhaps this would be an opposed check (concealment vs. smelling PER?)

[prestidigitator]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Absolutely. When tracking by smell someone who doubled back, you'd eventually reach a point where the path diverges (the one where the targets originally went and doubled back, and the path most recently taken). The trick is figuring out which path is the correct. The one most recently taken will smell a lot like the one doubled back on, and if it's recent enough, or if the target doubled back slower than he took off the new path, the false path might smell fresher.

 

Of course, most bloodhounds will try to sniff out both paths a bit before deciding, and tend to figure it out rather quickly.

Except that, as always when doubling back, you really must do something clever after doubling back to hide the fact that you have done it. If this is a manner that might trick smell (such as backtracking to the point where you are next to a river then jumping in), it may be effective. If it is not, like backtracking a ways, diverging, and brushing over the new tracks, the smell-based tracker is likely to figure it out with relative ease. There is very little point to backtracking without further steps to conceal a diverging path. Unless, of course, the thing being tracked is not doubling back to purposefully shake persuers, in which case there should be little issue.

[Eyendasky80]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Specifically, I mean would a tracker be able to tell if a group of people entered and exited along the same path definitively. Like Super Smeller X is tracking Nasty Man down a tunnel. What he doesn't know that Nasty Man walked back up the same tunnel after achieving his goal two hours ago. Can he tell that Nasty Man has since walked back out or does it just seem to him that Nasty Man has passed through this way and his trail continues in this direction?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

If Nasty Man were tracked to the point where he turned around - then I would still say yes. If you just stayed in the tunnel and didn't track out to the end of the trail then all you know is he went past the area.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Specifically' date=' I mean would a tracker be able to tell if a group of people entered and exited along the same path definitively. Like Super Smeller X is tracking Nasty Man down a tunnel. What he doesn't know that Nasty Man walked back up the same tunnel after achieving his goal two hours ago. Can he tell that Nasty Man has since walked back out or does it just seem to him that Nasty Man has passed through this way and his trail continues in this direction?[/quote']

 

My dogs do it all the time.

 

Never play hide and seek with a deer dog!

 

Seriously, though---

 

Nasty Man's second track would be stronger than his first. Scents fade immediately, or rather, they begin to. This is the reason that dogs never follow a trail the 'wrong' way-- it's obvioulsy stronger where it is freshest. They track one way a few feet, then the other way a few feet, and continue on whichever direction proves to be even slightly stronger.

 

Also, dogs are not as smart as people, but they can tell when their target has picked up an environmental scent, such a rolling through fresh plowed earth, and can use such simple cues to determine which path would be freshest:

 

"well, I have two possibles. One has mud scent, the other doesnt. The only mud is up ahead, so obvioulsy this trail was made after he got muddy. Woof."

 

Dogs can do that; I trust your characters are smarter than dogs

[prestidigitator]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

If Nasty Man were tracked to the point where he turned around - then I would still say yes. If you just stayed in the tunnel and didn't track out to the end of the trail then all you know is he went past the area.

I think it depends on the time difference, really. If Nasty Man went down the tunnel two hours and five minutes ago, and came back up the tunnel two hours ago, there is probably going to be no way to tell without following through, as ghost-angel says (of course, at that point it might be difficult to tell if they turned around or foiled the trail somehow right at the end point). If he went down an hour ago and came back ten minutes ago, it will probably be fairly obvious.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Except that' date=' as always when doubling back, you really must do something clever after doubling back to hide the fact that you have done it. If this is a manner that might trick smell (such as backtracking to the point where you are next to a river then jumping in), it may be effective. If it is not, like backtracking a ways, diverging, and brushing over the new tracks, the smell-based tracker is likely to figure it out with relative ease. There is very little point to backtracking without further steps to conceal a diverging path. Unless, of course, the thing being tracked is not doubling back to purposefully shake persuers, in which case there should be little issue.[/quote']

 

All true. I wasn't taking into these other tracking considerations as there was no information on the subject's intentions (trying to avoid being tracked or not or even knowing if and how he's being tracked) or path (could be an urban or bare rock, which would involve no physical clues other than scent).

[Dust Raven]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Specifically' date=' I mean would a tracker be able to tell if a group of people entered and exited along the same path definitively. Like Super Smeller X is tracking Nasty Man down a tunnel. What he doesn't know that Nasty Man walked back up the same tunnel after achieving his goal two hours ago. Can he tell that Nasty Man has since walked back out or does it just seem to him that Nasty Man has passed through this way and his trail continues in this direction?[/quote']

 

If Super Smeller came upon the train part way, he'd know what direction Nasty man most recenlty traveled in, and thus be on his current trail. If he'd been following the trail for some time (in this example, for 2 hours or more), he would have simply bumbed into Nasty Man as he walked back.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

I think it depends on the time difference' date=' really. If Nasty Man went down the tunnel two hours and five minutes ago, and came back up the tunnel two hours ago, there is probably going to be no way to tell without following through, as ghost-angel says (of course, at that point it might be difficult to tell if they turned around or foiled the trail somehow right at the end point). If he went down an hour ago and came back ten minutes ago, it will probably be fairly obvious.[/quote']

 

A difference of a few minutes, or even a few seconds, will make a difference when tracking by smell. A hound, coming across a trail, will know what direction the prey traveled in; the difference in the strength of the scent will be incredibly different even a few feet away from any given point along the trail.

[Silbeg]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Again, the best way to handle this all would be to allow/require an opposed PER check... it shoudn't be free, but I would definately allow the attempt.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Again' date=' the best way to handle this all would be to allow/require an opposed PER check... it shoudn't be free, but I would definately allow the attempt.[/quote']

I would actually use the Tracking Skill, since that's what it's for.

 

And they should have Tracking bought for the sense, smell in this case, so that's 5 Points there. And possibly even discriminatory for Smell, another 5 points.

 

so, 10pts to be able to track by Scent and a Tracking Skill. Not free at all.

[Silbeg]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

I would actually use the Tracking Skill, since that's what it's for.

 

And they should have Tracking bought for the sense, smell in this case, so that's 5 Points there. And possibly even discriminatory for Smell, another 5 points.

 

so, 10pts to be able to track by Scent and a Tracking Skill. Not free at all.

 

Actually, tracking scent replaces the need for the skill.. However, I would definately allow Tracking skill to be complementary to the PER roll (or vice-versa).

[prestidigitator]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

A difference of a few minutes' date=' or even a few seconds, will make a difference when tracking by smell. A hound, coming across a trail, will know what direction the prey traveled in; the difference in the strength of the scent will be incredibly different even a few feet away from any given point along the trail.[/quote']

It may, certainly. But whether the difference is observable is going to depend upon the overall age of the trail. That is going to be true of any phenomenon that fades over time. I can't tell you what the practical cutoff is, but at some point (whether after a few minutes, an hour, or a day), the difference in age is not going to be noticable to the observer even if the trail still is.

 

I'll give an abstract example. Let's say we are measuring something in Units (some arbitrary unit) at various points. Our detector is accurate to the nearest +/- 0.1 Units. We start with a measurement at point A that comes to 100.0 Units and one at Point B that comes to 101.0 Units. The difference in these values is quite noticable to our detector. Let's say the values at these two points both decay to 1/10th their values every hour (a very common exponential rate of decay that shows up everywhere in nature). After one hour, point A will measure 10.0 Units and point B will measure 10.1 Units, a difference which is just barely measurable. After another hour, point A and point B will both measure 1.0 Units, and the difference has become unmeasurable even though the value of the thing we are measuring can still be detected quite clearly at both points.

 

EDIT: My strong suspicion is that you may be able to get a rough idea of how old the trail is (say, 10 minutes vs. 15 minutes, or one hour vs. two), but when the time difference is significantly less than the overall age (ten hours vs. ten hours and five minutes) the difference will likely be uncertain or completely unnoticable. In the game system, perhaps applying things like Analyze could increase the accuracy, but I think there should still be some practical limit.

[Eyendasky80]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

If Super Smeller came upon the train part way' date=' he'd know what direction Nasty man most recenlty traveled in, and thus be on his current trail. If he'd been following the trail for some time (in this example, for 2 hours or more), he would have simply bumbed into Nasty Man as he walked back.[/quote']

 

He's at the beginning/end of the trail and Nasty Man is two hours gone.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

He's at the beginning/end of the trail and Nasty Man is two hours gone.

 

Then it only matters if Nasty Man stepps off is backtracked trail before SS catches up with him.

[Eyendasky80]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Then it only matters if Nasty Man stepps off is backtracked trail before SS catches up with him.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but he started at point A, walked the path to point B and walked back on the same path to point A where flew away.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but he started at point A' date=' walked the path to point B and walked back on the same path to point A where flew away.[/quote']

How long did it take Nasty Man to traverse the A-B-A-away trail? If this happened two hours ago and the whole proceedure took 5 minutes, SS might well have some difficulty. If it took him an hour, SS will likely pick up on it almost right away. It is a relative order of magnitude thing.

[Eyendasky80]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

How long did it take Nasty Man to traverse the A-B-A-away trail? If this happened two hours ago and the whole proceedure took 5 minutes' date=' SS might well have some difficulty. If it took him an hour, SS will likely pick up on it almost right away. It is a relative order of magnitude thing.[/quote']

 

Closer to an hour than five minutes.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

Closer to an hour than five minutes.

Then it is likely to be relatively easy to detect the retrace. If Nasty Man was trying to hide the fact that he did it, I would make it a straight Stealth/Tracking roll vs. SS's Tracking/Per roll. If he was oblivious to the possibility of being followed, didn't think of smell being used, or just didn't care, I'd make it a straight Tracking/Per roll with no penalties (or, since it is not likely to be very difficult to figure out especially given a little bit of time, don't even require a roll unless you have some story you'd like to excercise for a failure).

[Sean Waters]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

To clarify my earlier 'yes': 'yes, assuming you make an opposed skill roll of some sort'. If the person trying to foil the tracker DOESN'T have tracking scent, they operate at a substantial penalty'

[Dust Raven]

Re: Tracking by scent

 

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying but he started at point A' date=' walked the path to point B and walked back on the same path to point A where flew away.[/quote']

 

When did SS start tracking? Before or after Nasty got back to point A. If it was before, they would simpy run into each other someplace between A and B.

 

If after, then SS probably won't even bother with the trail at all, and follow to point C where Nasty went after returning to A. If Nasty teleported, or litterally flew away, then the trail would appear to go from point B to A and vanish.