Discriminatory Smell

Cost: 15 points

Discriminatory Smell is a Physical exotic Advantage that grants the ability to distinguish subtle smells, including ones hidden under other, more powerful smells. This is often used for tracking by smell--a character with this advantage will have a much easier time finding targets who have run behind cover, hidden in a crowd, or have rapidly put on a disguise.

Bloodhounds et al

Discriminatory Smell is an exotic trait for humans, but is fairly common in the animal kingdom. Predators like wolves and bears have it, and land-based scavengers like hyenas need it especially for tracking weakened or wounded prey. If a creature, real or fictional, can track by scent, it probably has Discriminatory Smell, with more potent versions (like bloodhounds) having layers of Acute Smell on top of it.

Alternatives

• Acute Smell is cheaper than Discriminatory Smell, but isn't as "discriminatory", meaning it can't overcome complex smells or track by scent. It can be layered with Discriminatory Smell, however, meaning one's sense of smell is even more reliable.
• Equivalent traits for vision and touch are Hyperspectral Vision and Sensitive Touch

See Also

• Discriminatory Senses
  • Discriminatory Hearing
  • Discriminatory Taste

References

• Mentioned in GURPS Powers, p.17 and p.161