Alien Race that communicates via pheromones - how to stat it?

[binn05]

I'm building an alien race (let's call it alpha, as a placeholder name) that communicates via pheromones within its members and use a device to communicate with other races.
Without the device, Alphas are completely mute when talking to other races.

I stated them like:

1. Discriminatory Smell [15]

So they can smell each other pheromones and communicate.
But I keep looking at it and thinking that something is missing.

1. Cannot Speak (mitigator -60%) (-25*0,4) [-10]

And this to represent Alphas inability to talk with other species.

So, anyone can give me a hand here?

[ericbsmith]

This is essentially no different than a race that can only see with Infravision or that can only hear and communicate with Ultrasonic Speech. Canonically, having an alternate sense is a 0 point feature if it's their only form of that kind of sense.

If they have Discriminatory Smell on top of being able to smell each other's pheromones then it's an advantage. If the only form of "special" smelling they have is to smell each others pheromones then it's not an advantage.

Under no circumstances is Mute appropriate if they can communicate normally amongst themselves, any more than it would be appropriate to give a race with Ultrasonic Speech Mute and Deaf.

Now, realistically communicating via pheromones would have some serious drawbacks, not the least of which is a slow communication rate and limited physical range (though the ability to layer speech over time could have some advantages). That would probably be worth points similar to having a speech impediment such as Stuttering. Of course, realistically no race could communicate complex thoughts via pheromones, it's just not an effective way of communicating at all.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Under no circumstances is Mute appropriate if they can communicate normally amongst themselves, any more than it would be appropriate to give a race with Ultrasonic Speech Mute and Deaf.

If they are not the main or reference race (to borrow a term from GURPS Social Engineering) I would disagree on the "under no Circumstances" part.
Also if you had them but telecommunication I would allow Mute since voice has a lot of advantages.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Under no circumstances is Mute appropriate if they can communicate normally amongst themselves, any more than it would be appropriate to give a race with Ultrasonic Speech Mute and Deaf.

No circumstances?

Originally Posted by Space 221

Cannot Speak
see p. B125
Aliens with different mouth struc-
tures may be unable to pronounce
human languages, effectively giving
them the Cannot Speak disadvantage.
Others may actually be mute, unable to
produce sounds. In any society above
TL7, this can be mitigated by a com-
puter speech synthesizer, at a -60% cost
reduction. See Mitigator, p. B112.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

This is essentially no different than a race that can only see with Infravision or that can only hear and communicate with Ultrasonic Speech. Canonically, having an alternate sense is a 0 point feature if it's their only form of that kind of sense.

If they have Discriminatory Smell on top of being able to smell each other's pheromones then it's an advantage. If the only form of "special" smelling they have is to smell each others pheromones then it's not an advantage.

Under no circumstances is Mute appropriate if they can communicate normally amongst themselves, any more than it would be appropriate to give a race with Ultrasonic Speech Mute and Deaf.

Now, realistically communicating via pheromones would have some serious drawbacks, not the least of which is a slow communication rate and limited physical range (though the ability to layer speech over time could have some advantages). That would probably be worth points similar to having a speech impediment such as Stuttering. Of course, realistically no race could communicate complex thoughts via pheromones, it's just not an effective way of communicating at all.

The same can be said of speech and sight which can be enhanced by technological upgrades. "Writing" is certainly possible by perfuming an object meant to carry such marks.

Also communicating by smell is not necessarily the only mode of communication.

[ericthered]

Yep, telecommunication sounds right. I wish we'd get some sort of pyramid article giving actual guidelines for telecommunication that's not one of the basic types given. It doesn't come up much, but when it does, you really want it.

I don't know if 5 or 10 is the right amount for this telecommunication. Its not secure, and its quite close range. It does stick around, which is worth something. I lean towards 5 rather than 10. Still if you ever need to modify it, it gets sticky: cross-world pheromone communication is quite cheap with this build.

I don't think simply adding to mute to a creature who can pheromone but not speak in any case where the campaign isn't very human-centric. Though I suppose the voice synthesizer is reasonably appropriate. Ultra tech does funny things to trait values.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Yep, telecommunication sounds right. I wish we'd get some sort of pyramid article giving actual guidelines for telecommunication that's not one of the basic types given. It doesn't come up much, but when it does, you really want it.

I don't know if 5 or 10 is the right amount for this telecommunication. Its not secure, and its quite close range. It does stick around, which is worth something. I lean towards 5 rather than 10. Still if you ever need to modify it, it gets sticky: cross-world pheromone communication is quite cheap with this build.

Yeah its a tough call. 5 seems fair but on the other hand you could leave messages on trees without needing writing materials.
Kind of like ant trails. They can degrade of course but a lot of what would mess with smell would ruin paper.
I would like to see an article like you describe, I have created a few new Telecommunication advantages for my fantasy settings. Dreamspeaking being the most broadly useful one.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Refplace

They can degrade of course but a lot of what would mess with smell would ruin paper.

Paper is hardly the only way to leave lasting messages. Arranging rocks and sticks, scratching or carving into surfaces, paint, embossing, embroidery...

[Refplace]

What your missing there is a method to speak. Discriminatory Smell is more akin to the ability to hear.

For that I would go with telecommunication.
EDIT: Just checked several books and could not find this in 4E. I have thought about this a few times but never gotten around to writing a race up with it.
I would go with 10 points, its fairly short range but you could leave messages as if writing.

[whswhs]

Looking at the RaW, I see that Cannot Speak is -15, and Mute is -25. But both of those are mundane physical traits; that is, they apply to normal human beings who lack pheromones, chameleon skins, electrical pulses, telepathy, and so on, and thus are limited by not having speech.

For comparison, Subsonic Speech is 10 points if you can also speak at normal frequencies, but 0 points if you can only speak at subsonic frequencies. The 0 points applies even though you speak more slowly and can't convey as much information. So it appears that (a) being unable to speak at audible frequencies is not a limitation if you can speak at other frequencies, (b) being able to speak at other frequencies is not an advantage if you can't speak at audible frequencies, and (c) the differences in the details of how things work are usually treated as a wash.

So let's consider some examples:

You can communicate by chemical signals. I think that's worth 0 points if that's your only way of communicating, but 10 points if you can also speak. The 10 points includes the ability to detect a wider range of chemical signals than a human being can and/or to detect them at a greater distance. By itself this is worth 5 points, just as Subsonic Hearing is worth 5 points (less than the 15 points for Discriminatory Smell; it wouldn't give you the full benefits, but it might give you the lesser bonuses for Sensitive if you were close to the subject). In any case I'd say "chemical signals" rather than "pheromones," as the latter is a technical term and describes things other than cognitively based communication.

You can communicate via a cable jack. This is worth 5 points if you can also speak, but I think 0 points if you can only use a cable jack.

You can communicate by changing skin color in patterns. I think that the ability to see those patterns is free as a part of human level vision. I might charge 5 points, to represent the difference between only being able to see and also being able to generate patterns, and include one level of Chameleon; or I might charge 10 points, with 5 points for the basic chromophores and 5 point for a level of Chameleon. But if you can't talk, I'd either drop the cost to 0 points (including a level of Chameleon for free) or drop it to 5 points (just for the level of Chameleon).