Ranger - Wild Empathy


Classes: Barbarian, Fighter, and Ranger

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Postmonster ate my first try at this...

The one ability the ranger in my campaign said he would probably never use was Wild Empathy, mostly because it took so long to use. If it were a standard action or even a full-round action he said he might use it. Maybe the root of the problem is this: With Diplomacy, it presumes that you are taking time to converse with a person, and you make the Dip check as part of your conversation. The problem with Wild Empathy is, even if you decide you want to use it, how do you hold the animal's attention for a solid minute? Is the ability only meant to apply to non-aggressive animals, or only when you have speak with animals going?

Maybe a clarification you could make in how you describe the wild empathy power could be to:

1. Say what happens to the animal while you're trying to make the check. Describe whether the effect forces the animal to pay attention to you for the minute required to make the Wild Empathy/Dip check. Ideally, the dire hippo won't be chewing your head off while you are trying to calm him down.

Is the animal you start using wild empathy on essentially fascinated by the ranger, like bardic music fascinates a creature? If so, can the animal resist? Would it be a Will save vs. the ranger's wild empathy check?

I realize there's some overlap here with the calm animals spell, but by the same token there is overlap of bardic fascinate with hypnotism.

2. Make it a quicker action, a standard action like bardic music.

3. Add a feat that improves wild empathy (could be a reduction in time needed, or expand the effects to things like vermin, fey, elementals, or perhaps your favored enemies).

Scarab Sages

Heck, put in a rule whereby the Ranger can rush the check by providing something the animal likes. "Here boy, have some steak! Good boy, now don't eat us!"

Gotta go, Stargate Atlantis is on.


One thing I was never clear about, whas that Wild Empathy is described as being just like how Diplomacy works.

Does this mean it is considered a sub-skill OF Diplomacy (i.e. any Diplomacy Ranks or bonuses also apply to Wild Empathy?) or is it completely distinct? Clarification one way or the other would be great. Including it with Diplomacy makes a certain sense, to me.


Quandary wrote:
Does this mean it is considered a sub-skill OF Diplomacy (i.e. any Diplomacy Ranks or bonuses also apply to Wild Empathy?) or is it completely distinct?

This is how we play it, it's never broken anything mechanical in our games so far. It's not an easy choice for rangers (skill wise) and if the animal is just a little ticked off, the DCs can be pretty much a pipe dream at low levels. I'm sure that's not how it was intended but I support this line of thinking.

Peace,

tfad

Sovereign Court

We need more detail about how the power is used , much more than is presented in 3.5.

Details such as "You cannot use Wild Empathy on an animal that is hostile". Wild Empathy refers to Dipolmacy for how it is used in 3.5, but we don't have to have that vague a discription in 3.P.

Using the Dire Hippo as an example. The PCs jump into the Dire Hippo's river, Dire Hippo is hostile and attacks, No Wild Empathy here.
The PCs are about to cross the Dire Hippo's river but they spot the hippo and wisely stop, the Dire Hippo snorts at them from the water being unfriendly but the Ranger can move within 30' of the hippo and use Wild Empathy the cause the Hippo to become indifferent allowing the PCs to carefully cross the river.

If we can agree that this example shows how Wild Empathy is intended to be used then our game designer can combine the previous(3.5) description of Wild Empathy and Dipolmacy to write up a description of the how that power can be used.

Another helpful item could be examples of uses for Wild Empathy. Improving an animal's attitude to get better results from a speak with Animals spell for example.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Andrew Phillips wrote:

We need more detail about how the power is used , much more than is presented in 3.5.

Details such as "You cannot use Wild Empathy on an animal that is hostile". Wild Empathy refers to Dipolmacy for how it is used in 3.5, but we don't have to have that vague a discription in 3.P.

Using the Dire Hippo as an example. The PCs jump into the Dire Hippo's river, Dire Hippo is hostile and attacks, No Wild Empathy here.
The PCs are about to cross the Dire Hippo's river but they spot the hippo and wisely stop, the Dire Hippo snorts at them from the water being unfriendly but the Ranger can move within 30' of the hippo and use Wild Empathy the cause the Hippo to become indifferent allowing the PCs to carefully cross the river.

If we can agree that this example shows how Wild Empathy is intended to be used then our game designer can combine the previous(3.5) description of Wild Empathy and Dipolmacy to write up a description of the how that power can be used.

Another helpful item could be examples of uses for Wild Empathy. Improving an animal's attitude to get better results from a speak with Animals spell for example.

In my mind, and I've played a number of 3rd Ed rangers and druids, I always felt like Wild Empathy should be useful for calming hostile animals and perhaps getting them to do something for you. If the best you can manage is "if you're already non-hostile, I can keep you non-hostile" then I would argue whether it's really even worth listing as a specific class feature. Shoot, make that an application of the Handle Animal skill and let it go at that.

The ability is already pretty limited:
1. It only affects animals (and, at a penalty, low-INT magical beasts)
2. It only affects one creature "an animal"
3. Of course, the long time needed to use it
4. The fact that, even if you make an animal 'friendly' or 'helpful,' what can you actually DO with that (in particular, how is that different from 'indifferent') unless you can cast speak with animals (which wouldn't help with magical beasts anyway). You have an ability you can use at will that is partly dependent on being useful on the ability to cast a supporting spell.

Also, I should note, when you are a 1st-3rd level ranger, you can't even cast SwA at all.

The bardic fascinate idea I threw out before was kind of just a thought off the cuff, but as I think about it more I think it may actually have some real value. Think about this:

1. Instead of a vaguely worded ability you can use whenever you want but doesn't really do that much (WE), you could have an ability you could use N times per day, with a specific defined effect (BM-fascinate).

2. We can actually mirror the benefits that BM would give you with WE.

a. At 1st level, fascinate scales with level (1 target + 1/3 levels thereafter)
b. At 3rd level, inspire competence in an animal/magical beast (so you could use WE to spur on your mount to big jumps or swimming or whatever else)
c. At 6th level, suggestion answers the question of what you can make an animal do. You could rule that your empathy is enough to implant the suggestion (and the animal empathically understands what you want it to do), or you could require speak with animals to make a suggestion beyond the simplest possible notions (attack, stay, guard, pretty much anything you could do with a trick)
d. At 9th level, inspire greatness in an animal (or more than one)

On and on up the levels. The beneficial bardic musics make perfect sense, and really the negative-effect bardic songs work as well - if you have these empathic powers, you could just as well make animals feel scared (dirge of doom) or confused (discordant performance) as to make them happy and confident and obedient.

Basically, I could see wild empathy working just like bardic music (using Handle Animal as the required minimum skill for ranks instead of Perform), with the stipulation that it works only on animals & magical beasts (who get +4 to any saves).

The ability is nice, but hardly overpowered (very few targets, requires concentration to maintain most effects, and most directly to the point affects only animals and magical beasts). It uses a clear and simple rule set that is already in the game, but it doesn't really infringe on the bard's territory since their abilities affect either EVERY kind of creature, or else are language-dependent and wouldn't work on animals & low-INT magical beasts anyway.

It consolidates abilities to work together on one subsystem rather than having separate rules for each. You could say the same about Diplomacy, but Diplomacy with an creature that is minimally intelligent and may not even be able to communicate is... rather fuzzy to adjudicate. The bardic music rules create simple, direct effects.

So, take that as a suggestion. I'm going to be starting a new campaign soon, and I think I will introduce this as a house rule and see how it plays.

Sovereign Court

Very impressive expansion on you idea. I like the direction you have taken WE and how well thought out the effects on game balance are.

My only concern would backward compatability, BUT as always it is much easier to add, change the lack-luster oft ignored ability to an ability that still has a very narrow application should be OK.

Lets see what our designer has to say.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Andrew Phillips wrote:

Very impressive expansion on you idea. I like the direction you have taken WE and how well thought out the effects on game balance are.

My only concern would backward compatability, BUT as always it is much easier to add, change the lack-luster oft ignored ability to an ability that still has a very narrow application should be OK.

Lets see what our designer has to say.

Thanks! I would also say, as far as backward compatibility goes, I think I've seen WE used maybe once or twice EVER in all the time I've played or DMed 3rd Ed. Maybe others see it used more, but it seems more like buffing up a dusty, cobwebbed corner and coming out with something fun and useful where before there was, well, pretty much nothing.

Paizo Employee Director of Game Design

I agree that Wild Empathy could certainly use some clarification, especially considering the changes to Diplomacy. This is something I will look into.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing


Jason Bulmahn wrote:

I agree that Wild Empathy could certainly use some clarification, especially considering the changes to Diplomacy. This is something I will look into.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Additionally, considering the changes to Bardic Knowledge, it seems that the general move is taking these obscure "additional" numbers and folding them back into skills. So, if you don't want to use something akin to bardic music, how about saying that Druids and Rangers gain an additional use for Handle Animal, where they can use the skill like a diplomacy check on animals. Furthermore, Druids and Rangers always have max ranks in Handle Animal (much like the bard always has max ranks in his chosen knowledge specialty). This way, rather than having Handle Animal and a separate ability that parallels Handle Animal, you just use Handle Animal.

Alternatively, if you decide to go the Bardic Music parallel, then I still suggest getting rid of this additional number so that it doesn't need to be tracked anymore.

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