D&D 3E/3.5 D&D 3.5 Scent Ability Question

[crispy01]

Hi, first post and all, so apologies if this is in the wrong format, wrong section, worded strangely or already been asked before, but after a brief look around, I could not find much about this.

Right, so I have a character with the scent ability, but most times I try to use it to find creatures, or be aware of them, my DM keeps saying that the things are "odourless". What I am asking is whether this is actually mentioned as a feature of certain creatures, as in its in the rules, or if he is just making this up? And also, are there any types of creatures which would be odourless? I mean, practically everything has a type of scent, so why is he trying to convince me that Vampires cannot be tracked by scent? I can accept that incorporeal creatures would lack a scent, but I cannot accept anything other than incorporeal things lacking a scent.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[GMMichael]

Living things will emit sweat, pheromones, breath, and dust - all of which can have a certain scent. Vampires...probably just dust. So maybe they're 1/4 as easy to track as living things?

Also, constructs, elementals, and maybe oozes are likely to leave little to no scent behind.

 

[Crewgar]

There's unfortunately nothing that other people can 'say' if that's the way he keeps ruling it, your best bet is probably to sit down and talk to him privately about it and try to work something out. Now that being said as some things that you can bring up depends largely on the world and description of the undead.
In some campaign worlds vampires smell rotten, others musty, some they spell perfumed if they're trying to at act like nobles or the like. Skeletons smell like old bones, dry, musty smells, zombies like rotten or rotting flesh. Even incorporeal undead can smell, if they're wearing real clothes, like wraiths are sometimes described as doing.
But again it sounds like your DM may be frustrated with the ability, something that happens to the best of us, and the only way to resolve that is to sit down with him/her and talk it over. Talk about why you took that ability, and how you see it working, and go over the rules as written, ESPECIALLY the limitations of the ability, and try and work something out. In my experience, going over the limitations helps better understand the ability, so that he can still come up with ways around it, ways to sneak up on you or hide. That will make it feel a bit less like an I win button, and more like a cool power (which is hopefully the way you see it too). Even if in the end it's just swapping out the ability for something else.
In my current campaign, the start of which was written years before for another party (and written when I was a lot younger and had way less of an idea about the power of various things). I (stupidly) gave a stone of Earth Elemental Summoning (the unlimited use ones) to the party at like level 5. The first group just saw how much it was worth and sold the thing, but the second started using it for every fight...This got old really quickly, so looking over the rules for earth elementals this magical bluestone was created that nerfed the item (as it was magical and the elemental was unable to move through it, sense through it, or anything else). This (fairly) annoyed the player with the item, but he also understood the blancing aspect, especially when the stone was mostly used for major events, and he was free to use the ston eto deal with smaller encounters and non major plot critical events. He still ended up selling the stone eventually, but it became a part of the world and still to this day in the campaign, while the party might get frustrated by the stone that they cannot stone shape a passage through, it has become a part of the world and took something that was intially a slightly spitefull and frustrated response on my part and made it into something lasting. But the player still came to me frustrated at the beginning, and rightfully so, because I was nerfing his cool item, but we were able to work out a compromise in terms of game balance, that let him use it at times (though not as much as he'd like) but that still preserved the game. And this is what I'd suggest suggesting if when you talk to your DM that that is why he's constantly making things 'scentless'

 

[Dandu]

Living things will emit sweat, pheromones, breath, and dust - all of which can have a certain scent. Vampires...probably just dust. So maybe they're 1/4 as easy to track as living things?

They smell of dried blood, the grave, and glitter.

 

[gamerprinter]

While I might agree that a vampire probably has some kind of scent, I would also accept a GM's ruling that vampires in this world has no scent, and using scent to find a vampire would fail. There's nothing wrong with such a ruling. I make such arbitrary rulings from time to time in my game as well. It doesn't say a vampire has no scent in the Bestiaries (monster manuals), but neither does it say that they indeed have a scent.

I can understand your frustration from a player's point of view, still I also understand and accept the GM's decision that this is the case.

When you GM your own game, you can decide vampires have a scent, but in the game you're now playing, they don't. Live with it. It won't destroy your game, just one particular advantage, that you don't have.

 

[crispy01]

Yeah, I understand that the be-all-end-all argument is simply "DM's choice", as with most things, its just that usually we have an agreement that we only house rule something which does not have specific rulings. He just seems a little arbitrary at times with the scent ability, maybe forgetting that it exists or just ignoring it in order to have an encounter work more how he planned or something. I was mostly posting this to see if there was some rule, or maybe attribute where you could tell which creatures or such things have scents, how strong the scents are, etc... which I have just been missing.
I have to admit, after reading many Discworld books recently, I may be over-interpreting the power of the scent ability.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Scent, according to the SRD, should allow you to detect creatures within 30', 60' or 15' depending upon wind. Move action to determine direction. You'd pinpoint the location of anything adjacent to you. The game mechanic should allow you to do this. There really isn't a limit in the feat to certain creature types not having a smell. They should all have a smell, unless stated otherwise, according to the source material.

Is it possible that your DM doesn't want you to be able to do this? Perhaps he or she feels this is over powered, inconvenient to the storyline or simply isn't used to or willing to pay attention to that detail. I'd encourage the two of you to sit down and talk about this. According to official game mechanics, most things being Odorless is not how the Scent feat works.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Your DM doesn't like you having the Scent ability, and it's unlikely that anything you can say or do will change his attitude about it.

 

[doghead]

As mentioned above already, have a chat to the DM about it and see if you can come up with a solution. So random suggestions:

1. It acts a perception bonus rather than all or nothing detect.

2. You have to have your nose to the ground to follow a scent (hilarious maybe, but not very cool).

3. You have to be familiar with a scent to recognise it (actually, this is in the RAW). Maybe greater familiarity increases the bonus.

If the DM just doesn't like it and doesn't really want to meet you half way, see if you can swap it out for something else.

thotd