Sniffing Potions

[Voxumo]

Let me provide some context.

The suggestion to be able to sniff such concoctions arose from finding a box full of poisons, 90% of which had labels, while 2 didn't. I contacted someone I knew who had high herbalism, and they were able to identify one of the two through sniffing, which turns out it was a drink laced with something, however the other one couldn't be sniffed since it was the actual base poison.

I think if you can smell that a food or drink is laced, you should be able to gather similar information from smelling the actual base product.

[Starstarfish]

In theory in that case though, if you are someone who has a high enough level in Herbalism to sniff and know what something else, you should be able to peek at the recipes to compare what something looks like, right? (Though that doesn't help if it's retooled something weird from the base object.)

Perhaps a better question is - should you be able to sniff out poisons you don't know the Herbalism recipe for and/or have a tolerance to?

IE - should you only be able to sniff temijul in something when you don't have the appropriate skill level in Herbalism to have opened those crafts?

[Geras]

I'm with Vox. If I can recognize the smell of poison in my coffee I should be able to recognize the smell of that poison on its own.

[Evrald]

I'd have to go with Star on this... If you want to sniff out what a poison is, i'd say you need to know how to make it via Herbalism. Same goes with other potions. If someone leaves a magical potion on the street and you pick it up, can sniff it and go, "Oh. This is that magic potion that makes my invulnerable! I'll keep it in my pocket." Seems kinda metagamey. But if you find a potion on the street, sniff it with high herbalism and can't figure it out, "Oh... This is magic... it's a good chance it will kill me. Might wanna turn it into the Inquisition like a good Davite." Unless you're a mage with high enough Magecraft to figure out what the potion is.

Poisons that aren't laced into something should require high enough Herbalism to sniff them when they aren't laced. Kinda hard to figure out what's trying to kill ya if you don't have actual knowledge of it, no?

Potions that aren't laced into something should require high enough Magecraft to sniff them when they aren't laced. That's magery being able to know what magic potion does what when ya ain't a mage, you dirty mage sympathizer.

[Taunya]

I'm not too familiar with magic potions, but it's already the case with herb stuff. If your rank is too low, then you might smell something is 'a bit off', but if it's high enough you have a chance to identify the ingredient it's been laced with.

[The_Last_Good_Dragon]

I definitely think things should be consistent across the board. If you can identify ingredients in something when it's laced, you should be able to identify ingredients when they are not laced.

From a Gameplay approach, I'd argue that this information should be heavily restricted, perhaps a GM-level ability; this solely to increase the chance someone might "make a mistake" with them or otherwise misidentify them, esp. with magical potions/poisons. You shouldn't be able to, with herbalism, sniff something and tell "o shit this might have a magical somethin' somethin' in it", imho.