In SR4A, some critters have the Enhanced Senses power. For example, dogs have Enhanced Senses (Smell). What modifier does this give the dog? The power's description makes no mention of game mechanics for using this power.

GM Fiat/Call. Really situation dependent.

Example1: Dog tracking a person through the woods (+2 to its perception check due to the enhanced sense of smell, my call) to track the person gains a bonus.

Example2: Bat flying hunting for insects near an outdoor rock concert (-2 to its survival heck due to the enhanced sense of hearing, my call) gains a penalty for the distraction.

Thanks, Warlordtheft. That sounds about as good as any ruling I could fathom.

Critter and adept powers are assumed to be as strong as the best tech version, so enhanced sight would give you +6 (as that's the max cyber or glasses would give you). There's no reason enhanced smell should be weaker, so I'd advise on giving out the full +6 as well (really, 2 dice isn't even a success on average).

darn double post...

Is that stated in a book somewhere, or did you glean that from reading these forums?

If you grab your handy copy of Running Wild, and turn to page 205, you will see that it was cleared up.

The Dog would gain a +2 dice pool modifier, and could use the Scent tracking (Tracking + Intuition) based on the thresholds and modifiers from page 206.

A Bat's echolocation functions as Ultrasound, and would suffer identical penalties to ultrasound usage.

Awesome; thank you, BishopMcQ. I guess I should finish reading Running Wild!

It's actually written somewhere, but I don't quite remember where. If I had to guess, I'd say it's in the errata for the adept version of enhanced senses, although I'm not sure.

+6? Isn't it +3 (at least audio/vision enhancement is max +3)?

Bye
Thanee