Last Week: Absolute Timing; Chronolocation
Next Week: Affliction
This week we'll be covering
Acute Senses (Basic p. 35), though there will be heavy referencing of the Discriminatory Senses (Basic p.48) and Sensitive Touch (Basic p.83) Advantages; I vacillated between whether to cover them all at once or restrain myself and wait until later. In particular, there was some specific rules text that influenced me:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Powers p.47
If a high Sense roll is what matters, Acute Senses (p. B35) are more cost effective. Discriminatory Senses are priced as much for the ability to distinguish things non-visually as for their bonus to Sense rolls.
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Combined with the way the Advantages work suggests to me that ultimately Acute Senses and Discriminatory Senses may best be thought of as some multifaceted, multi-tiered "thing": the former provides simple bonuses while the latter also provides bonuses because it takes the underlying sense to its next logical level.
Acute Senses represents superior senses compared to the norm, so each level grants +1 for all Sense rolls you make that pertain to that Sense. Skills that rely heavily on a specific sense will also gain a similar bonus. In most ways an Acute Sense functions as an extremely limited, improved Perception score for that specific sense. Back in 3e, Acute Senses were capped at 5 levels: I was unable to find such a rule for 4e but have a vague memory that could be based on 3e or could simply mean I embarrassingly and repeatedly kept overlooking it in my searching. You can buy an Acute Sense for any of the major human senses, and if a character possesses a non-standard sense (like Vibration Sense), with GM permission one can purchase the Advantage for that sense as well.
All Acute Senses have the same 2 points/level cost structure, and unless it involves an already Exotic or Supernatural Advantage, is Mundane. The four generic Acute Senses are:
- Acute Hearing
- Acute Taste and Smell
- Acute Touch
- Acute Vision
Of note, there is no distinction between primary, secondary or tertiary senses. Impairment of any of these senses is a Disadvantage, but the values are diverse: total Blindness (Basic p.124) is a -50 point Disadvantage while complete Deafness (Basic p.129) is valued at -20, No Sense of Smell (Basic p.146) is only worth -5 and Numb (also Basic p.146) is worth -20.
Similarly, the value of Discriminatory Senses (of which I would include Sensitive Touch as it provides similar bonuses for the sense of Touch as the others do for their respective senses) also vary, though significantly less. Discriminatory Hearing costs 15 points. Taste and smell are bundled together for Acute Senses but separate in this more advanced state: Discriminatory Smell is also worth 15 points while Discriminatory Taste is only worth 10 points. Taste and smell being combined into one Acute Sense both reflects their overlap in much of biology and perhaps suggests that separated out the two wouldn't be as valuable. In some creatures there are similar overlaps between other senses: apparently "smound" is a thing for at least rodents, where sound and smell are blended together in perception.
Sensitive Touch, as stated above, aligns with the Discriminatory "Sense" model. There is no equivalent for Vision. Powers p.47 suggests Hyperspectral Vision, but that seems more in line with hearing being augmented by Subsonic Hearing and Ultrahearing. A major point is that much of what a Discriminatory Sense adds is already part of standard vision.
So let us discuss the Acute Senses. Please share experience and thoughts over them. If someone has a list of Skills enhanced by Acute Senses handy,
please share them! I won't bother with excuses or explanations; I don't have such a list handy and it would be most conducive to this discussion. I am particularly interested in knowing if the experience (or analysis) of other players indicates that the Acute Senses are indeed evenly matched or if some are simply better than others despite being priced the same. How well they have performed in general is also quite pertinent; are all are some bargains or are they a waste and you should just invest in a better Perception or Skill level?