Retraining animal companion tricks


Rules Questions


Question A)
A Druid in a game that I'm GMing wants to know if he can teach his animal companion a new trick if it forgets an old trick so that it does not exceed the maximum number of tricks it can know (which is 6 tricks in total because the animal has an intelligence of 2). This question is specifically referring to normal tricks, not Bonus Tricks. There are several things to consider:

1. "Combat Training (DC 20) An animal trained to bear a rider into combat knows the tricks attack, come, defend, down, guard, and heel. Training an animal for combat riding takes 6 weeks. You may also “upgrade” an animal trained for riding to one trained for combat by spending 3 weeks and making a successful DC 20 Handle Animal check. The new general purpose and tricks completely replace the animal's previous purpose and any tricks it once knew. Many horses and riding dogs are trained in this way." [from http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/handle-animal]

In the situation above, it is explicitly stated that teaching an animal this new set of tricks included in the Combat Training Purpose replaces any tricks it previously knew. Is this a precedent for replacing tricks with new ones, or is it an exception?

2. "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." [from http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions]

Above is the description of Bonus Tricks. Every statement in the description seems to be defining the differences between Bonus Tricks and normal tricks (i.e. they don't require training time, Handle Animal checks, etc.). The last statement mentions that they can't be changed. This would suggest that this characteristic is different than normal tricks, against pointing towards the possibility of changing normal tricks.

3. There are rules for retraining a player's feat, skill, archetype, or class ability in the Ultimate Campaign rulebook (starting on page 188). Therefore, it should be reasonable to create rules to retrain a pet's tricks. It is likely that this just hasn't been developed by Paizo yet.

I am inclined to develop rules for retraining an animal companion by modifying the rules used for retraining some aspect of a character to make it a little less costly. For example, to retrain a Druid's Nature Bond class ability from having a Domain to having an Animal Companion, it takes 8 hours a day for 5 days, plus a monetary cost of 10gp x Character's level x number of days necessary to retrain. Retraining an animal companion's trick is only changing 1 aspect of the class ability that gives you an Animal Companion, and should certainly not cost as much as changing that class ability entirely.

Question B)
This question is regarding Bonus Tricks. Can a Druid teach their animal companion a Bonus Trick that the animal already knows as a normal trick (to get the benefits of it now being a Bonus Trick)? And if so, does that create an empty slot in the normal amount of tricks that the animal can learn?


Not sure if I would allow something like this in my games:

Reason being that AC are animals. They are much more set in the things they learn and its extremely hard, if possible at all, to retrain them to act differently.

That said, if I were to incorporate it to my games I would remove the monetary cost completely and instead multiply the time, by a lot. Also really high handle animal checks would play their role here


Its a fairly common practice that you can swap out a known trick for another known trick with training. The animal should have 7 tricks: 6 for its int and 1 for a bonus. Generally you want combat training and attack a second time. (otherwise the animal won't attack many monsters). If the player needs raw support, combat training effectively replaces everything and leaves the critter with a blank slate to train over the other tricks again. .

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

What's the difference between a player retraining a single trick from his animal companion by using the handle animal skill required for learning the trick and forgetting a trick at the same time, and the same player releasing his animal companion and obtaining a new one so he can teach it the tricks as he wants them?

If the answer to this is anything other than the amount of time and rolls required, please point out where exactly in the rules those differences are so I can use that knowledge for my own hunter and druids.

Edit: better wording (I hope)


Question A -

Apologies for glossing over the details of the question, but I could have sworn that I read you can teach an animal a new trick to replace the old one. The only exception is the Bonus trick which isn't taught and once chosen can't be changed.

Even if it isn't written, there's no reason to stop someone from retraining their animal so long as they take the time and make the rolls.

Question B -

Not understanding the question. The Bonus trick comes for free. It's chosen from the same pool of tricks that all the other tricks are picked from. The only possible benefit of the Bonus trick is that if your animal has its intelligence sapped, you'd still get the Bonus tricks. The benefit of the non-Bonus tricks is that if your animal loses HD, it would only lose the Bonus Tricks.

There's no reason why you can't teach an animal to do the Bonus Trick as a normal trick. From a game fairness perspective, I'd say your giving up more than you're getting, so I would definitely allow it as a GM.


Damanta wrote:

What's the difference between a player retraining a single trick from his animal companion by using the handle animal skill required for learning the trick and forgetting a trick at the same time, and the same player releasing his animal companion and obtaining a new one so he can teach it the tricks as he wants them?

If the answer to this is anything other than the amount of time and rolls required, please point out where exactly in the rules those differences are so I can use that knowledge for my own hunter and druids.

Edit: better wording (I hope)

Yeah, the rules are kind of silly regarding this because this is also a cheap way to retrain feats. Chose a feat that you realize was a mistake? Release the animal and get a new one and re-choose everything.


Oops, my original statement

bsheffield87 wrote:
against pointing towards the possibility of changing normal tricks.

should have said "again", not "against."

shroudb wrote:

Not sure if I would allow something like this in my games:

Reason being that AC are animals. They are much more set in the things they learn and its extremely hard, if possible at all, to retrain them to act differently.

That said, if I were to incorporate it to my games I would remove the monetary cost completely and instead multiply the time, by a lot. Also really high handle animal checks would play their role here

Why do you think animals would be more difficult to retrain than humans? I'm especially focusing on mechanics here, and there is already a mechanic to get an entirely different pet (or a slightly different pet). There is also at least 1 example of retraining an animal (the Combat Training Purpose I mentioned above), yet there is no extra cost for this. I don't see why retraining 1 single skill would be more expensive (in terms of time and Handle Animal checks) than retraining an animal for an entire purpose.

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Its a fairly common practice that you can swap out a known trick for another known trick with training.

Do you mean that it is common practice in your experience, or that this is generally accepted throughout Pathfinder games and players? It seems reasonable to me, but I just can't find any rules on it.

Damanta wrote:

What's the difference between a player retraining a single trick from his animal companion by using the handle animal skill required for learning the trick and forgetting a trick at the same time, and the same player releasing his animal companion and obtaining a new one so he can teach it the tricks as he wants them?

If the answer to this is anything other than the amount of time and rolls required, please point out where exactly in the rules those differences are so I can use that knowledge for my own hunter and druids.

I think you're right, the only difference is the time it takes and the number of rolls to retrain the new pet. Let's say, for example, that there is a 2 month period (in game time) between 2 different scenarios. A player could simply release their pet and get a new one, make enough Handle Animal Check rolls, and they could have a pet with the exact same skills, feats, stats, tricks, etc., except for one trick that they changed. Or they could have a totally different animal with totally different stats, skills, etc. There is no cost here, except for the time and rolls it takes, so it seems like a player should be able to simply take 1 week to change 1 trick, since in 6 weeks they could have a completely different animal companion.

N N 959 wrote:

Apologies for glossing over the details of the question, but I could have sworn that I read you can teach an animal a new trick to replace the old one. The only exception is the Bonus trick which isn't taught and once chosen can't be changed.

Even if it isn't written, there's no reason to stop someone from retraining their animal so long as they take the time and make the rolls.

Yes, it makes sense to me that learning a new trick would simply take a successful roll and the week to train it, as long as it replaces an existing trick so the animal doesn't exceed it's limit.

Regarding my original Question B, let me clarify. As an example, let's say that the player has taught their animal companion the Fetch trick as a normal trick. Then the animal gains the ability to learn a new Bonus Trick. Could the player teach the animal Fetch as a Bonus Trick so that they don't have to make Handle Animal checks to order the animal to use the trick? And if so, would that remove Fetch from it's slot in the animal's normal known tricks, thus allowing it to learn a new normal trick in it's place?


Your question for B brings up an interesting ambiguity in the rules. You are no doubt reading this:

Handle Animal excerpt wrote:
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.

I read that as the Bonus Tricks don't require Handle Animal checks to teach the animal the trick i.e. no training time and no learning check.. You're reading it that they Bonus tricks are always automatically performed. I've never seen that interpretation before.


Oh wow, I never realized that it could be referring simply to the initial Handle Animal check required to teach a trick. I always assumed it referred to the checks that you have to do to give it a successful command. This really is totally ambiguous because a "Handle Animal check" could refer to either situation.

The plural form of "checks" in the definition of Bonus Tricks led me to assume that it was referring to the many checks that would otherwise be required to command an animal to perform the trick if it was a normal trick. But it could also be referring to the multiple checks that would be required to learn the multiple tricks that would, over time, be taught as Bonus Tricks. Ah! They really just need to add a phrase to clarify that.

This all becomes a bit pointless once a Druid puts even just a single skill point into Handle Animal and has a decent Charisma ability. For example, with a Charisma bonus of 2, 1 rank in the Handle Animal skill, the additional bonus of 3 because it's a class skill, and the Druid's class ability Link (another +4), they will guarantee a successful check for any trick that is known because there is only a DC of 10, right?

However, my Question A is primarily based on the assumption that the main benefit of a Bonus Trick (after the skill is learned), is that it wouldn't require Handle Animal checks to command. But if it turns out that the initial rule was intended to simply mean that no Handle Animal checks are required to train the animal, then it doesn't make much of a difference for the reasons above.

My question now is: how can I suggest a rules clarification to Paizo haha


You can post a FAQ. Another option is to seek unofficial answers from Paizo staff who have threads. J Jacobs and Mark Seifert have ongoing threads in which they answer questions. But neither of them provide "official" Paizo rulings. You just get an informed (or possibly biased) opinion as to what the rule should be.

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