Animals and their Tricks

[Richard Loh]

Animals and Their Tricks

Monday, March 11, 2013

One thing the Venture-Officers and I have noticed is that there tend to be questions that continually come up on the messageboards about pushing animals to do something, animals using trained tricks, and other such issues regarding animal companions, familiars, etc. The newly released Animal Archive added several new tricks that a lot of GMs were hand-waving. I received numerous emails asking for clarification. Instead of replying to each email separately, I thought the community could be better served with a blog post.

The Ontario Venture-Captain, Adam Mogyordi, has written Mergy's Methods in the past and posted on both paizo.com messageboards and the Southern Ontario Pathfinder Lodge website. Not only have these been popular, but players have advised they have been very helpful articles to explain confusing rules and the like. I reached out to Adam and he was thrilled to write something to help clear up some common confusions players and GMs might have about animal companions. Thanks, Adam! Below is the article he wrote for the Pathfinder Society community.

Animal Archive gives druids and other pet classes a wide range of new options. To utilize these options, a review of the basics is a good place to start. Today I want to go over some of the rules that go with handling an animal for GMs and players. There are some benchmarks Handle Animal users need to meet, and I also have some tips for handlers and their GMs.

New Tricks: There are 18 new tricks available in Animal Archive, and some of these may be taken more than once! But while you now have much more freedom in what your pet can know how to do (my personal favorite new one is Bombard), there is also a side to this that some players may find displeasing. The addition of a Flank trick and an Aid trick means that pets do not, by default, know how to perform these, even if they know the Attack trick. If you command your companion to attack, it will take the most direct route. If you want your companion to always flank, you now need the Flank trick. If your companion doesn't know one of these tricks, pushing your companion with a successful DC 25 Handle Animal check is also an option.
Handling Your Companion: Some players and GMs hand-wave this, but it's important to note that just because your pet knows a trick doesn't mean it can perform the trick on command. Animal companions certainly cannot read your character's mind, and that's why we need to use the Handle Animal skill. A trick the animal knows is DC 10 and is a move action. A trick it does not know is a full-round action at DC 25.

[/color] There are, however, a few ways to make this easier.

Druids and other classes with the animal companion feature get a +4 circumstance bonus when handling their own companion from the Link class feature. This also allows them to handle an animal as a free action, or use a move action to push the animal. Keep in mind you may still only perform the free action on your turn, so even if your animal wins initiative, it's not going to automatically do what you want before can you order it.With Link, we can set some benchmark numbers a companion class needs. The DC to command an animal to perform a trick it knows is only 10, but this increases to 12 if the animal is injured or has taken nonlethal or ability score damage. With the +4 bonus from Link, the magic Handle Animal modifier you want to hit is +5. If you have a +5 modifier at level 1, you are guaranteed to always command your uninjured animal companion (the number for an injured companion is +7). GMs may wish to log what the player's Handle Animal skill is at the start of the game so that they know when to ask for a roll.

Smart Kitty: If you have increased your animal companion's intelligence score to 3 using various means, then great! You can now have your companion learn any feat it can physically perform, and it can put ranks into any skill. What this increase does not accomplish, however, is any advantage in commanding your companion whatsoever. It's still the same DC 10 to handle and DC 25 to push. It may still only learn six tricks plus your druid bonus tricks. However, for every point of Intelligence it gains above 2, that is three more tricks it can learn. [/b][/size]A smart animal will have more versatility without needing to rely on pushing.

Why druids don't dump Charisma?: So how do we reliably overcome DCs like 25 at reasonable levels? I think Skill Focus (Handle Animal) is certainly an option for some druids who see themselves as dedicated animal companion users. There is also the training harness item from page 76 of the Advanced Race Guide that will give you another +2 bonus on these checks. The most important thing is to not dump Charisma. If your druid has a Charisma score of 7, you are likely looking at a 20% chance of your animal ignoring you at 1st level. If you want to reliably push your companion, you are going to make it much more difficult with a negative Charisma modifier.

If you have other questions not addressed here, please feel free to reply in the comments below. Adam and I will do our best to try to answer those in a timely manner.

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator[/quote]

Ladies & Gentlemen, the above is an excerpt from PFS blog dated 11 March 2013 in regards to handling of Animal Companions. GMs, please read it up and apply it to your games. Thanks!

Blog link: paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/pathfinderSociety

Regards,
The Administrator

[secane]

Noted.

[nightdeath]

For those interested.

Handle Animal Skill

If you have no ranks in Handle Animal, you can use a Charisma check to handle and push domestic animals, but you can’t teach, rear, or train animals. A druid or ranger with no ranks in Handle Animal can use a Charisma check to handle and push her animal companion, but she can’t teach, rear, or train other nondomestic animals.

Putting no ranks in Handle Animal is a bad idea. Dumping Charisma is fine, the most is your animal companion ignoring you.

Animal Companion

Bonus Tricks

The value given in this column is the total number of “bonus” tricks that the animal knows in addition to any that the druid might choose to teach it (see the Handle Animal skill). These bonus tricks don’t require any training time or Handle Animal checks, and they don’t count against the normal limit of tricks known by the animal. The druid selects these bonus tricks, and once selected, they can’t be changed.

See above. The animal Companion doesn't start with tricks except the bonus trick it gains per level. The rest must be taught.

[nightdeath]

For the interested. Broken up for easier reading.

How can I teach tricks to an animal using Handle Animal?

You can teach any animal a trick so long as you follow the rules for Handle Animal on pages 97–98 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.

A GM must observe your Handle Animal check, and must initial what tricks the animal gained in the "Conditions Gained" section of the scenario's Chronicle sheet. The first time a character with levels in druid, ranger, or any other class that grants an animal companion gains an animal companion, the animal enters play knowing its maximum number of tricks as dictated by the animal companion's Intelligence and the character's effective druid level. If the character replaces the animal companion for any reason, the new animal starts with no tricks known, save for bonus tricks granted based on the PC's effective druid level.

Once per scenario, you may attempt to train the animal companion a number of times equal to the number of ranks you have in the Handle Animal skill. Each success allows you to teach the animal a single trick; a failed attempt counts against the total number of training attempts allowed per scenario, and you may not attempt to teach the same trick until the next scenario.

Alternatively, you may train one animal for a single purpose as long as you have enough ranks in Handle Animal to train the animal in each trick learned as part of that purpose. You may take 10 on Handle Animal checks to teach an animal companion tricks.

Pazio FAQ

[alexender]

While we are on the subject of animals and their tricks, I would like to touch a little on animals and their attacks, extracted from Paizo PRD paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/universalMonsterRules.html

Natural Attacks Most creatures possess one or more natural attacks (attacks made without a weapon). These attacks fall into one of two categories, primary and secondary attacks. Primary attacks are made using the creature's full base attack bonus and add the creature's full Strength bonus on damage rolls. Secondary attacks are made using the creature's base attack bonus –5 and add only 1/2 the creature's Strength bonus on damage rolls. If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature's full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 the creature's Strength bonus on damage rolls. This increase does not apply if the creature has multiple attacks but only takes one. If a creature has only one type of attack, but has multiple attacks per round, that attack is treated as a primary attack, regardless of its type. Table: Natural Attacks by Size lists some of the most common types of natural attacks and their classifications.

Some creatures treat one or more of their attacks differently, such as dragons, which always receive 1-1/2 times their Strength bonus on damage rolls with their bite attack. These exceptions are noted in the creature's description.

Creatures with natural attacks and attacks made with weapons can use both as part of a full attack action (although often a creature must forgo one natural attack for each weapon clutched in that limb, be it a claw, tentacle, or slam). Such creatures attack with their weapons normally but treat all of their natural attacks as secondary attacks during that attack, regardless of the attack's original type.

Natural Attacks by Size
Natural Attack
Base Damage by Size*
Damage Type Attack Type
Fine Dim. Tiny Small Medium Large Huge Garg. Col.
Bite 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 4d6 B/S/P Primary

Claw — 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 B/S Primary

Gore 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 4d6 P Primary

Hoof,
Tentacle,
Wing — 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 B Secondary

Pincers,
Tail
Slap 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 4d6 B Secondary

Slam — 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 B Primary

Sting — 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 P Primary

Talons — 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 S Primary

Other — 1 1d2 1d3 1d4 1d6 1d8 2d6 2d8 B/S/P Secondary
* Individual creatures vary from this value as appropriate.
The Damage Type column refers to the sort of damage that the natural attack typically deals: bludgeoning (B), slashing (S), or piercing (P). Some attacks deal damage of more than one type, depending on the creature. In such cases all the damage is considered to be of all listed types for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

Some fey, humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and outsiders do not possess natural attacks. These creatures can make unarmed strikes, but treat them as weapons for the purpose of determining attack bonuses, and they must use the two-weapon fighting rules when making attacks with both hands. See Table: Natural Attacks by Size for typical damage values for natural attacks by creature size.

EDIT: My Lion could have kicked the skeleton's ass in Jade Regent Claws do B/S and Bite does B/S/P, we did put up a struggle though