Hey, all,
I'm wondering how everyone else handles animal companions.
Previously, we've always just let the player with the animal companion more or less control the critter, moving it around on the map and deciding when it should attack, that sort of thing. It's always been the responsibility of the player.
But recently I was rereading the druid section for a new player making their first real character, and noticed the notes about handle animal. So apparently you literally have to HANDLE ANIMAL on the critter to get it to do stuff. But even in Society play I've never seen this done.
So I'm curious, how do the rest of you handle this?
And how do you handle an increase to the animal's intelligence score? That's usually what we do in our groups. Any time the druid or ranger's pet gets an ability score boost, it goes into intellect. Moving out of the "animal intelligence" threshold and into the "human intelligence" threshold gives a much better bonus than a simple +1 to attack rolls, but I'm wondering if anyone else thinks it should come with... added benefits (or is aware that that should happen). It was pointed out to me recently, for example, that the increase makes the creature sentient, so it should be able to improve as a normal animal (or better) rather than just an animal companion. Any thoughts on that?
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Considering any combat animal companion is going to be trained with combat tricks, the DC to Handle them is 10, which Druid can do as a free action and get a +4 on.... which quickly makes this a check that the Druid can't fail.
So, in my groups, Handle Animal checks are required only when pushing an animal to do something that hasn't been trained, and is outside of the animals reasonable instincts.
Ultimately the GM allows that player to control the animal and retains the right to over-rule player initiated action that shows an over-abundant degree of perspective on the part of the animal companion. Most of the 'druid' (i.e. animal companion having class) players tend to narrate their logic behind the animal's action while making it, allowing the GM an easy means to interrupt and overrule without slowing play.
Design Manager
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Our group is pretty similar to MC T's. As long as the druid's companion has all the standard tricks, we pretty much handwave the checks that she usually can't fail anyway and execute the AC's turn as though it were a PC. There's always a few quirky situations (like the double Attack training required to make animals attack unnatural creatures) but typically making the druid roll every single check isn't doing anything but slowing the game down, often for no other real impact.
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I would consider any GM who felt a need to take over the animal companion from the druid player to be exercising unnecessary and game-degrading control over the AC.
In the vast, vast majority of cases run by the most strict RAW possible, a druid is going to auto-succeed on any trick they ask the AC to do.
On occasion, under special circumstances, it is fine for the GM to say "that's not something your animal companion would do, so you'll need to attempt to push it." Leaping over hot lava is the last example of such a situation our group encountered.
Good call AD and MCT.
That makes sense, and those seem like pretty fair rulings to me.
So how do you guys handle the animal's autonomy? How strict are you with the player being strategic or tactical with their animal companion, such as readied actions or moving to flank, or focusing fire, et cetera?
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Design Manager
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That makes sense, and those seem like pretty fair rulings to me.
So how do you guys handle the animal's autonomy? How strict are you with the player being strategic or tactical with their animal companion, such as readied actions or moving to flank, or focusing fire, et cetera?
The Guard trick covers most readied actions fairly well and at DC 20 might be okay to make them roll for. Tactical movement is still just movement though, and telling the animal companion to move to a certain spot isn't worth adding unneccessary complexity. Tactical movement should just be a normal part of having an animal companion, not something requiring special adjudication.
Alright, cool, that sounds good. So no one is really of the opinion that we're overly lax that with how we let animal companions work, then? I'm glad for that. I really wanted to just let the player have at it and enjoy.
Thanks oodles, everyone. :)