Scent-Hiding

[Colarmel]

What skill covers hiding one's smell? Camouflage seems to be unconcerned with anything other than visual. Survival? Tracking?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Stealth would cover being near a target and still going unscented - things like staying downwind, masking your scent with a stronger, common-to-the-area smell, and so forth would all be elements of Stealth. Stealth covers all senses, remember, not just sound. Actually, I could imagine an intelligent species whose sense of smell is their primary sense developing a "Smell-Camouflage" skill, whose role would be similar to Camouflage to humans: covering up the primary detection sense even when Stealth fails, so that opponents are aware of your presence, but still can't necessarily pinpoint your exact location.

Covering your scent against later pursuers would be a Tracking roll, which covers hiding tracks in general. If you had Discriminatory Smell, you'd get the usual +4 bonus for this, since it would let you precisely detect your own scent, thus letting you eliminate it more effectively.

[Refplace]

I would allow Stealth, Camouflage, and Survival as well as Professional Skill: Hunting to all work, subject to background and experiance.
But Stealth should definately work, as reference note that many predators have it and staying downwind is a tactic as can be hiding in scent emitting bushes.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I would allow Stealth, Camouflage, and Survival as well as Professional Skill: Hunting to all work, subject to background and experiance.
But Stealth should definately work, as reference note that many predators have it and staying downwind is a tactic as can be hiding in scent emitting bushes.

I ordinarily treat this as a perk per sense - it's a kind of Skill Adaptation to your concealment skills. Sure you normally learn the skill for your major sense(s), but if you know others exist and approximately how they work, most of the principles would still apply.

Smell would presumably be the most widely available one, but the same issue applies to infrared, radar or other high tech sensors once they're invented, and there's no reason you couldn't use the same approach for other senses (e.g. the recent discussion on how to avoid monsters with Sense Life). To be sure stuff that will camouflage you from gravity ripple para-radar is less likely to be lying around on the forest floor than stuff that will provide visual camouflage, but if there *is* something lying around and you have the perk, you'd roll at normal Camouflage skill to recognize and use it.

[Colarmel]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Stealth would cover being near a target and still going unscented - things like staying downwind, masking your scent with a stronger, common-to-the-area smell, and so forth would all be elements of Stealth. Stealth covers all senses, remember, not just sound. Actually, I could imagine an intelligent species whose sense of smell is their primary sense developing a "Smell-Camouflage" skill, whose role would be similar to Camouflage to humans: covering up the primary detection sense even when Stealth fails, so that opponents are aware of your presence, but still can't necessarily pinpoint your exact location.

Would stealth for things like this, especially using cover scents, be IQ based?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Colarmel

Would stealth for things like this, especially using cover scents, be IQ based?

Either that, or Per-based. Note, however, that I'd only call for a separate roll for "smell Stealth" if scent was really the only major way to give you away. Most of the time, keeping control of your scent would simply be part of the regular Stealth roll.

[Flyndaran]

There should be some nod to realism in how difficult it would be to hide from a sense the PC lacks. Or at least to notice that it's flawed.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

There should be some nod to realism in how difficult it would be to hide from a sense the PC lacks. Or at least to notice that it's flawed.

Stealthing your smell is a pretty big part of stalking deer, which is a major use for stealth in real life despite the fact that most people can't smell anywhere near as well as a deer.

Luke

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Stealthing your smell is a pretty big part of stalking deer, which is a major use for stealth in real life despite the fact that most people can't smell anywhere near as well as a deer.

Luke

Which is why I consider survival a valid or at least complimentary skill here.
You learn to know its important and things that are effective at masking your scent.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Colarmel

What skill covers hiding one's smell? Camouflage seems to be unconcerned with anything other than visual. Survival? Tracking?

Originally Posted by B222, Stealth

-5 to fool those with Discriminatory Smell (e.g., dogs).

So just use the regular skill, at a modifier.

Another useful skill is Disguise (Animals).