Super Senses

Senses keener than those of a human. Origins can be genetic, natural, training, supernatural, or cybernetic. The classic five manifestations are: Sight: Also known as Telescopic and Microscopic Vision, these enhancements let you see things far away and of minuscule size. Less often, it's also "snapshot" precise, letting you see in slow motion or in "Bullet Time". Also has "Night Vision" and "Infra Red" flavors, allowing the hero to see in low light or by heat signatures. Smell: This lets you smell as well as or better than a dog (not that difficult if you're a Beast Man). It's useful for lots of things: tracking, finding poisons, telling impostors, and reading emotions. A favorite phrase for tough guys with super smell is "I can smell your fear." Hearing: Lets you hear things both far away and soft, as well as widening audible range to such degrees you can hear in the ultrasonic and tectonic ranges. Expect this to be the most headache-inducing power of the set. Possibly useable for sonar in a pinch. Taste: Perhaps the most hedonistic of the super sense powers, conferring less noticeable benefits than the others. Nonetheless, Super Taste lets heroes notice everything from chemical and genetic composition, toxicity (better hope you got super immunity, too!), origin (both geographical and biological), to age. Touch: This can be the most sensual of the super sense powers, bordering on the clairvoyant. It lets supers notice intricate details of whatever they touch, including reading words from print through touch alone. The less well-known human senses, of body position (proprioception) and orientation, are generally not addressed by this trope, but may be subsumed into Super Reflexes and other agility-related powers (which they're Required Secondary Powers for, probably). In most cases, they completely ignore the drawbacks of super senses. The characters are rarely overloaded by too much sensory information (a crowd of people all talking at once when you have super hearing is really overwhelming) or by experiencing some unpleasant stimuli much more intensely (e.g., if you have super smell, how do you react to a skunk?). And when it comes to pain... yikes! This may be explained by Required Secondary Powers of sensory fine-tuning, where (for example) a super-hearer can either consciously or reflexively tune out certain amplitudes or frequencies of noise — but don't expect this to be treated as anything more than a Hand Wave. However, some works will explicitly lean into this as a way of providing an Achilles' Heel for these characters, and will portray intense or negative stimulations of their super-powerful senses as significant weaknesses for individuals with these abilities. See also Animal Eyes, Being Watched, Spider-Sense, Vein-o-Vision, X-Ray Vision, Blindfolded Vision, The Nose Knows, Fluorescent Footprints, Bizarre Alien Senses and Mysterious Animal Senses. This trope is key to a certain gag. Beware of Sensory Overload. If the super sense is lost, expect the character to feel Sense Loss Sadness. This often overlaps with Sense-Impaired Monster, as these creatures' remaining senses will often be extremely perceptive in order to make up for the missing ones. Truth in Television with certain conditions such as hyperacusis (unusually acute hearing) and supertasting. In addition, many animals are better at sensing certain things than humans, especially smells (however, humans have better color vision than the majority of mammals). For extrasensory perception, see Spider-Sense, Supernatural Sensitivity, and Psychic Powers. Compare The Dead Have Eyes. Sometimes overlaps with Hyper-Awareness. See Bizarre Alien Senses when this applies to other species.