Animal Senses

[TheNaga]

Is there any character I could look at have the senses of say animals found in the Amazon Rainforests?  If there is not then what things can I look to help me out?  Would the Bestiary for the Born to Be Wild book help me out?

 

How would would do the bear's sense of smell which IIRC allows a bears to smell a carcass 6 miles away?  I know that a bear has a sense of smell 7x better then a blood hound.  Would a +15 for range modifier for normal smell be a good way to simulate I the bear's sense of smell?

[Sean Waters]

That is going to be very much a matter of personal taste.  I would suggest that adding discriminatory and tracking to the smell group and adding +3 PER overall will cover most animal senses.  You could also add other specialist senses/adders, like sonar for bat navigation, or extra PER for nightvision or hawk vision, possibly IR or UV sensing too.

 

Still, a decent sense of smell* and generally sharper senses should do it for most animals.

 

 

*OK, not every animal has a better sense of smell, but it is common enough to include in a general list.

[Christopher]

The big question before writing anything up:

Does it have a game effect?

 

So a bear can smell a carcass from 6 miles. Carcasses are presumably smelly. It propably also asume the wind is blowing in the right direction.

Does it mean he can detect Characters (wich are not nearly that smelly) on greater distance?

[bigbywolfe]

Yes Christooher, it does. As the OP stated Bears sense of small is better than blood hounds, and we us then to track people.

Just because something doesn't have a combat effect does not mean it is worthless or doesn't have an effect on game.

[mhd]

How do you measure sense of smell? "7x better" regarding what?

[Christopher]

Yes Christooher, it does. As the OP stated Bears sense of small is better than blood hounds, and we us then to track people.

Just because something doesn't have a combat effect does not mean it is worthless or doesn't have an effect on game.

Nope, it does not state that.

 

The op only states some stuff that "the sense of smell is 7 times better then X".

7 Times what figure? Number of Olfactory Receptors per cm²? 7 times the range? 7 times to number of distinct smells it can measure? Or is there a unambigous measurement of smell taht I have not hear off called "Olfactory Scale" and it#s pointvalue is 7 times higher?

 

Funn fact: That dogs can hear higher tones is not a sign that thier hearing is better. It only means that thier "Range of Communication" is higher then that of human. We humans can hear deep tones that no dog can.

Cat's have it inversersed with them using much more deep tones. Accordingly they cannot hear some very high tones (that we humans have little problems with).

[bigbywolfe]

How do you measure sense of smell? "7x better" regarding what?

Do you mean in game or out? In game a better sense usually means either a better PER roll or the ability to glean more information from what you sense (such as Discriminatory).

[mhd]

Do you mean in game or out?

 

That was in reference to the OP, so out. Depending on the exact circumstances of "better", there are probably different ways of modeling it. And for senses, sometimes it just doesn't matter at all (my ability to see colors better than a cat doesn't really come into play, mechanically. And differences in analytical capability aren't modeled very well, either)

[bigbywolfe]

If you need to cut the red wire and not the green one it could be very significant.

[mhd]

Sure, but unless your campaign is very fashion oriented, distinguishing "chartreuse" from "pistachio" probably isn't. PER +3 (only to distinguish shades of green) would be a bit silly to note down for every human character...
 

[TheNaga]

Watch the Neat Geo Wild show Ultimate Bear and they will say in that that I know that a bear has a sense of smell 7x better then a blood hound in that .   Also this site mention it too http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/articles/grizzly-bear-facts/

 

A polar bear's sense of smell is acute, and it is the most important sense for detecting prey on land. A polar bear can most likely smell a seal from more than 1 km (0.6 mi.) away and 1 m (3 ft.) under the snow.

 

For example, the average dog's sense of smell is 100 times better than a humans. A blood hound's is 300 times better. A bear's sense of smell is 7 times better a bloodhound.  That means the sense of smell of a bear is 2,100 times better than humans!

 

A bear’s nose consists of hundreds of tiny muscles they control with amazing dexterity that can be likened to a human manipulating their fingers. The result is so precise they can smell animal carcasses from a distance of 20 miles upwind.

[Sean Waters]

Watch the Neat Geo Wild show Ultimate Bear and they will say in that that I know that a bear has a sense of smell 7x better then a blood hound in that .   Also this site mention it too http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/articles/grizzly-bear-facts/

 

A polar bear's sense of smell is acute, and it is the most important sense for detecting prey on land. A polar bear can most likely smell a seal from more than 1 km (0.6 mi.) away and 1 m (3 ft.) under the snow.

 

For example, the average dog's sense of smell is 100 times better than a humans. A blood hound's is 300 times better. A bear's sense of smell is 7 times better a bloodhound.  That means the sense of smell of a bear is 2,100 times better than humans!

 

A bear’s nose consists of hundreds of tiny muscles they control with amazing dexterity that can be likened to a human manipulating their fingers. The result is so precise they can smell animal carcasses from a distance of 20 miles upwind.

 

 

Probably a large part of that is modifiers: 

 

'Upwind' substantially reduces the range modifier.

 

I imagine that carcasses are rare, hence the evolution of a sense to detect them at range, which means there is also a large 'contrast' modifier.  In an environment where that is the only smell of that sort it will be much easier to detect.  It does not mean that you would be able to  detect a carcass at 20 miles upwind if you were in London, or even in the countryside around London: there are probably several village butchers within that radius: you could detect carcasses, and you could go and find one if you were hungry, but you would struggle to tell them apart, or find a particular one.  Meat is meat.

[mhd]

Watch the Neat Geo Wild show Ultimate Bear and they will say in that that I know that a bear has a sense of smell 7x better then a blood hound in that .

 

Yeah, and according to some rather popular site, ninja are mammals. (NB: "Ultimate Bear" is a HERO source book I'd buy)

 

All those apocryphal quotes still don't mention any kind of criterion. Let's say I'm mud-wrestling Cindy Crawford. Now a swarm of mosquitoes happens to drop by, I get stung seven times, she only once (she's perfectly, deliciously covered in mud, I, like the legendary Siegfried, have some patches of skin uncovered). Saying that I'm "seven times more attractive than Cindy Crawford" would technically be correct, albeit in a very limited way.

[TheNaga]

 

Yeah, and according to some rather popular site, ninja are mammals. (NB: "Ultimate Bear" is a HERO source book I'd buy)

 

All those apocryphal quotes still don't mention any kind of criterion. Let's say I'm mud-wrestling Cindy Crawford. Now a swarm of mosquitoes happens to drop by, I get stung seven times, she only once (she's perfectly, deliciously covered in mud, I, like the legendary Siegfried, have some patches of skin uncovered). Saying that I'm "seven times more attractive than Cindy Crawford" would technically be correct, albeit in a very limited way.

 

Bears have an incredible sense of smell because the area of their brain that manages the sense of smell, called the olefactory bulb, is at least 5 times larger than the same area in human brains even though a bear’s brain is one third the size.

[Sean Waters]

Yeah, and according to some rather popular site, ninja are mammals. (NB: "Ultimate Bear" is a HERO source book I'd buy)

 

All those apocryphal quotes still don't mention any kind of criterion. Let's say I'm mud-wrestling Cindy Crawford. Now a swarm of mosquitoes happens to drop by, I get stung seven times, she only once (she's perfectly, deliciously covered in mud, I, like the legendary Siegfried, have some patches of skin uncovered). Saying that I'm "seven times more attractive than Cindy Crawford" would technically be correct, albeit in a very limited way.

 

 

I have no idea what that means, but I'm thinking hard about it...

[bigbywolfe]

Yeah, and according to some rather popular site, ninja are mammals. (NB: "Ultimate Bear" is a HERO source book I'd buy)

 

All those apocryphal quotes still don't mention any kind of criterion. Let's say I'm mud-wrestling Cindy Crawford. Now a swarm of mosquitoes happens to drop by, I get stung seven times, she only once (she's perfectly, deliciously covered in mud, I, like the legendary Siegfried, have some patches of skin uncovered). Saying that I'm "seven times more attractive than Cindy Crawford" would technically be correct, albeit in a very limited way.

You criticize him for providing "apocryphal quotes" but when you quoted his post you didn't include (or reply to) his second paragraph which included some solid numbers:

 

 

A polar bear's sense of smell is acute, and it is the most important sense for detecting prey on land. A polar bear can most likely smell a seal from more than 1 km (0.6 mi.) away and 1 m (3 ft.) under the snow.

 

 

Sure, but unless your campaign is very fashion oriented, distinguishing "chartreuse" from "pistachio" probably isn't. PER +3 (only to distinguish shades of green) would be a bit silly to note down for every human character...

 

Nothing I have said (or anyone that I can tell) has suggested any build remotely as silly and trivial as this.

[Lucius]

Bears have an incredible sense of smell because the area of their brain that manages the sense of smell, called the olefactory bulb, is at least 5 times larger than the same area in human brains even though a bear’s brain is one third the size.

 

Sounds like they're extracting much more information. So, that would be Discriminatory on Smell, probably Tracking on Smell, and probably a straight bonus such as +2 to Smell.

 

If you want to simulate something concrete - "smell a carcass 20 miles upwind" - figure out how to make it happen in-game.

 

A carcass is probably pretty smelly - so, +5.  Size isn't specified, assume it's pretty big, +2. Upwind, light breeze, is, according to the rule I just consulted, a -2. So far we have a positive modifier of +5.

 

20 miles is, what, about 14,000 meters? That's about a -20 or so for Range. That puts us at -15.

 

Let's give the bear a +3 on all Perception for generally keen predator senses, and +2 on smell specifically. Now we're at -10.

 

So we need Telescopic: +10 vs Range Modifier for normal smell. Or maybe just +8, putting the bear's chance to sniff the carcass at 8 or less (unless it's Smarter than the Average Bear) and even better if it takes a deep breath and gets a good long sniff.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I smell a palindromedary

[Sean Waters]

Oh Palindromedary: not necessarily 'discriminatory': the thing about the arctic is that there is not that much to smell, so it is unlikely that a great deal of evolution will go into determining fine differences between smells.  What a polar bear wants to know is 'which way to the food?'.

 

Tracking, definitely though.

 

On another point for Meadyaon - 20 miles...upwind.  Hmm.  I'd translated that in my head to 'downwind'.  I'm not sure I'm prepared to believe that smell, airborne chemicals, can travel against the prevailing wind flow, at least not over those kinds of distance.  I'd be keen to see a reliable citation for that one.

[bigbywolfe]

Oh Palindromedary: not necessarily 'discriminatory': the thing about the arctic is that there is not that much to smell, so it is unlikely that a great deal of evolution will go into determining fine differences between smells.  What a polar bear wants to know is 'which way to the food?'.

 

Tracking, definitely though.

 

On another point for Meadyaon - 20 miles...upwind.  Hmm.  I'd translated that in my head to 'downwind'.  I'm not sure I'm prepared to believe that smell, airborne chemicals, can travel against the prevailing wind flow, at least not over those kinds of distance.  I'd be keen to see a reliable citation for that one.

I think the carcass was upwind, meaning the bear was downwind of the carcass.  Unless I'm completely misreading what he is saying.

[Lucius]

Sounds like they're extracting much more information. So, that would be Discriminatory on Smell, probably Tracking on Smell, and probably a straight bonus such as +2 to Smell.

 

If you want to simulate something concrete - "smell a carcass 20 miles upwind" - figure out how to make it happen in-game.

 

A carcass is probably pretty smelly - so, +5.  Size isn't specified, assume it's pretty big, +2. Upwind, light breeze, is, according to the rule I just consulted, a -2. So far we have a positive modifier of +5.

 

20 miles is, what, about 14,000 meters? That's about a -20 or so for Range. That puts us at -15.

 

Let's give the bear a +3 on all Perception for generally keen predator senses, and +2 on smell specifically. Now we're at -10.

 

So we need Telescopic: +10 vs Range Modifier for normal smell. Or maybe just +8, putting the bear's chance to sniff the carcass at 8 or less (unless it's Smarter than the Average Bear) and even better if it takes a deep breath and gets a good long sniff.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I smell a palindromedary

 

Okay, so we assume the bear is downwind of the carcass. Reverse that modifier, and before range we're at +9.

 

After that Range Modifier, we're at -11. Figure in the Keen Predator Senses as, say,  a +3 bought to Perception and Lots of Olfactory Receptors and Big Olfactory Bulb as a +2 bought to smell specifically and we're at -6. Buying a +4 Telescopic to normal smell seems a lot more reasonable.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is both upwind and downwind of me

[mhd]

You criticize him for providing "apocryphal quotes" but when you quoted his post you didn't include (or reply to) his second paragraph which included some solid numbers

Well, if someone can confirm that the "7x" difference is about smelling dead carcases, I'll leave a content man.

 

Nothing I have said (or anyone that I can tell) has suggested any build remotely as silly and trivial as this.

I didn't mean to imply that, that "build" was intentionally far out hyperbolic. Maybe I should've exaggerated more to make this obvious enough... The point being was that while distinguishing colors probably is a valuable ability in-game (and thus not being able to might qualify as a Complication), being able to do that on a very fine level probably won't come into play. And us humans are really great at doing that, by the way. Probably the reason why we have nightsight tuned to green-scale instead of gray-scale and definitely the reason why the extra bit in a 16 bit RGB triplet went to the "G" part.

 

My point is that not every measurable difference (no matter how big) is significant when viewed by a game-play lens.

 

And I'd still like to know where this "7x" comes from. Found it all over the 'net, probably mentioned in some documentary. My "citation needed" isn't about disbelief here, sorry if it appeared that way. "Apocryphal" probably was the wrong term, but zis language of yours haz vay too big vokabulary, ja?

[bigbywolfe]

And you again ignore the paragraph with the actual numbers (that I quoted again).

Your the only one stuck on the x7 thing. The rest of us are talking about the other SOLID numbers like that you refuse to acknowledge have already been given for some reason.

[Sean Waters]

Duplipost

[Sean Waters]

I think the carcass was upwind, meaning the bear was downwind of the carcass.  Unless I'm completely misreading what he is saying.

 

I think you must be right.  Makes me think though, on a still day, no wind, the smell couldn't travel 20 miles by diffusion alone: the wind is an essential part of the process.  It would be interesting to know how far smell molecules will travel in a still (but not enclosed) environment in detectable quantities.

 

Assuming that the wind is an essential component of scent detection at a distance, then 'air tracking' is going to be unreliable unless there is a constant wind direction.  For tracking a carcass that may not matter as it is not moving, but for applying the same principle to a moving target on a blustery day, I suspect that the effective range, even for an astonishing nose, will be down to the hundreds of metres at best.

 

Tracker dogs (for example) do not need to rely on 'air tracking' in the same way - they usually start somewhere the target is known or suspected to have been, and they follow scents that are airborne, but only travel very short distances - from sweat drops, bits of skin and hair and such, that you shed and that give off a smell.

 

http://forensics4fiction.com/2011/08/14/can-you-really-evade-a-bloodhound-by-crossing-a-river/

[Sean Waters]

Also interesting:

 

http://www.csiro.au/helix/sciencemail/activities/SmellSpeed.html