First World Problems

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Illustration by Emily Fiegenschuh

In the forthcoming Pathfinder Campaign Setting book, Fey Revisited, we examine ten classic fey creatures in the context of how they function and fit into the world of Golarion. Each article presents details on the ecology of the creature (life-cycle, habitat, and so forth), its aspect of nature, and a sample creature of the type as well as a description of the sample's home. We also provide some background about each fey creature's real-world mythological origins and the fairies' tokens.

A fey token is an item, generally crafted by the fey giving it, that can be provided to another creature as a sign of the fey's blessing or approval for a short period of time. Each fey creature in the book has different conditions upon which it grants its token, and each has a limited magical effect that generally lasts about a day before its magic fades. As an example, here's the token granted by the evil water fey known as nuckelavees.

Illustration by Helge C. Balzer

Token of the Nuckelavee
Nuckelavees are rarely pleased by anything other than bloody vengeance, but occasionally they take a liking to a mortal—usually one with some connection to nature—who has a reputation for being a friend of the waters, perhaps by virtue of clearing a river of debris or driving a coven of polluting hags from a shore. In such instances, the nuckelavee bestows its token upon the do-gooder. The recipient awakens one day to find a bracelet made of cold, gray skin that smells of brine and constantly drips water. (Some say the nuckelavees craft these bracelets from strips of their own skin, which is why they have none left to wear.) Upon donning the bracelet, for the next 24 hours the recipient gains the ability to make contaminated water clean enough to drink (as per the spell purify food and drink, but only for water). However, the fey token has a cost. For the same duration, the water inside the recipient's body becomes tainted, lowering his or her Constitution by 2. When the token's power expires, there is a chance that the devil of the sea comes after the recipient to reclaim the bracelet.

Ok, so maybe that's not the fey token most PCs would want, especially given that last bit about the nuckelavee maybe coming for them. The rest of the tokens presented in the book totally don't have hitches and gotchas like that, though. I swear. Really. Why wouldn't you trust a fey creature not to try to trick you?

Fey Revisited is available for preorder now and will start shipping to subscribers this month!

Mark Moreland
Developer

Animals and Their Tricks

Monday, March 11, 2013

Illustration by Emily Fiegenschuh

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. 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. 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