Just look at the handle animal skill
The main differences between a bought animal and an animal companion are thus:
-need a move action to use handle animal instead of a free action
-only 6 trick max (if its int is 2)
-does not advance at all.
Mostly...yeah, possibly a waste of money, although it might be...vaguely useful at low levels and pocket change at higher levels.
You might find use out of it if you have some kind of Speak with animals ability. Feral Speech from the witch or wizard gives you the ability to speak with it at will (witch can be done with a 1 level dip) ...although both those classes have the option to get familiars....
Still, you could use it as a scout if you can talk to it.
And those would be stuff like fetch, detect, seek, track, and entertain for some of the obvious tricks that do some of those roles. In that regard, where the hawk is not being relied upon for actual fighting, it does fine.
If that is all worth 18 gp and some skill points in handle animal, then that is great.
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The only problem is GMs severely impairing animals.
One time, my animal companion and I walked into a room. The first thing that drew our attention was a flying box that circled the room then went behind a table or something. I then fought with the GM about whether an animal of 2 Int. was smart enough to know that the tricks I was telling it to do (seek, fetch, hunt, detect) were at the obvious flying box. Sometimes, GMs would completely disregard RAW in the tricks, saying the animals were too stupid. A lot of what Detect says is completely rejected.
While hunt might be a bit..meh... seek and fetch seem to be fairly in line with RAW, since seek includes things that are obviously 'animate'.
I suppose this is definitely something to talk out with your GM. And hey....maybe using another character with good charisma and no handle animal ranks and then just buying a little pet might be a good test run for your GM. So you know what you are getting into before you try to go with something like a hunter that relies heavily on animal companions.
The only problem is GMs severely impairing animals.
One time, my animal companion and I walked into a room. The first thing that drew our attention was a flying box that circled the room then went behind a table or something. I then fought with the GM about whether an animal of 2 Int. was smart enough to know that the tricks I was telling it to do (seek, fetch, hunt, detect) were at the obvious flying box. Sometimes, GMs would completely disregard RAW in the tricks, saying the animals were too stupid. A lot of what Detect says is completely rejected.
The "attack" trick is often misunderstood, because a lot of people miss the second part of it: "Normally, an animal will attack only humanoids, monstrous humanoids, giants, or other animals. Teaching an animal to attack all creatures (including such unnatural creatures as undead and aberrations) counts as two tricks."
So if your hawk only had "attack" once, then your GM was correct. You might try telling the animal to "defend"--that way, if the flying box attacks, then the hawk will attack it back (unless it has some Unnatural Aura ability).
With "seek", yes your hawk would absolutely let you know that there was something moving around in the area, but it still won't attack it.
I wouldn't let you use "fetch" on any animate object or animal.
Are "detect" and "hunt" from Animal Archive or Familiar Folio? Those tricks are not showing up in the PRD search. ("Hunt" is listed as a general purpose training, but that doesn't sound like what you're talking about here.)
I'd recommend reviewing your animal's tricks with the GM before the game starts. If you get the GM to give you rulings in advance, you won't be caught by surprise when he rules something doesn't work the way you think it does. And you will be more likely to convince the GM you are correct when you're not trying to keep the game moving and he doesn't have 6 other things he's tracking in his head at the same time.
Also, by RAW, only paladin's mounts and druid's animal companions are run by the player. All other animals are technically NPCs that are run by the GM. Most GMs are pretty lax about that and let players run their own pets. However, if you start insisting that animals be run strictly by RAW, the GM should take over your animal completely.
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Yeah, seek is from the Animal Archive and as noted above would totally work in this case as it's exactly what it's for.
Seek (DC 15) The animal moves into an area and looks around for anything that is obviously alive or animate.
Also, by RAW, only paladin's mounts and druid's animal companions are run by the player. All other animals are technically NPCs that are run by the GM. Most GMs are pretty lax about that and let players run their own pets. However, if you start insisting that animals be run strictly by RAW, the GM should take over your animal completely.
And when it's the GM that doesn't know how pets work, how do you propose the player handle that situation? I have no problem me giving my commands to the GM and the GM handling the pet, but if he doesn't know how to handle it that obviously becomes a problem. (as this case was)
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I can't remember where the tricks are from. As the GM kept blocking the tricks I was saying, I was getting annoyed and desperate.
Me: Fetch!
GM: No line of sight to target. Animal is confused.
Me: Seek!
GM: The animal finds your teammate.
Me: Detect!
GM: This entire room is unnatural and strange, and the animal has no way of telling you if it found something.
Me: Hunt!
GM: You can't attack teammates.
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I can't remember where the tricks are from. As the GM kept blocking the tricks I was saying, I was getting annoyed and desperate.You could do what you're supposed to and have a copy of the material at the table.. (i.e. animal archive right in front of you)
I did and showed him. I don't remember the source now but I had it then.
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I did and showed him.I can't remember where the tricks are from. As the GM kept blocking the tricks I was saying, I was getting annoyed and desperate.You could do what you're supposed to and have a copy of the material at the table.. (i.e. animal archive right in front of you)
Then you need to report him to your local VO. He was disregarding rules that are legal per the Additional Resources.
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Then you need to report him to your local VO. He was disregarding rules that are legal per the Additional Resources.I did and showed him.I can't remember where the tricks are from. As the GM kept blocking the tricks I was saying, I was getting annoyed and desperate.You could do what you're supposed to and have a copy of the material at the table.. (i.e. animal archive right in front of you)
He is a venture captain AND the store owner. I don't play there anymore.
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Then there must have been more going on than just that. If he's the Venture Captain for the area then he obviously knows that if a player shows him the text then that's how it works.
If it was really that simple and he was just being belligerent then it's your duty to report the situation to Mike Brock. The system only works as good as it does because of the rules and standards set in place. Even though you, personally, don't have a title, it's still your duty to report shortcomings to those that can do something about it so that something can be done about it.
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I am fully for reporting wrong doings. The problem is that I don't have a fool-proof case. I say he wasn't following the text in the book; he says the animal of 2 Int reacted as an animal of 2 Int. Animal companions are considered really stupid fighters already so I have nothing to back it up. Also, Paizo releasing things that don't make work or make sense is kinda commonplace. He has a reputation of doing a lot of things wrong (charm person =/= complete mind control) but I haven't seen it and can't back it up. I'm also a bit discouraged because the last time I reported foul play from a GM causing a TPK through not following the book, it didn't work.
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The only problem is GMs severely impairing animals.
One time, my animal companion and I walked into a room. The first thing that drew our attention was a flying box that circled the room then went behind a table or something. I then fought with the GM about whether an animal of 2 Int. was smart enough to know that the tricks I was telling it to do (seek, fetch, hunt, detect) were at the obvious flying box. Sometimes, GMs would completely disregard RAW in the tricks, saying the animals were too stupid. A lot of what Detect says is completely rejected.
A situation like that is odd enough that you'd be using the pushing rules on Handle Animal.
Ordinary animals don't take strange things well. They don't have that bond with their masters that comes with being an animal companion or familliar. So yeah, expect their utility to be very limited.
That sounds reasonable enough, though I would fight it.
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I never told the animal companion to attack the box.
2 Int doesn't make it a genius but it doesn't mean it is too stupid to understand tricks it was taught.
Also, pushing is for getting it to do a trick it doesn't know how to do. Natural prey has nothing to do with trained animals that were raised in captivity and were taught to do tasks for food. Strange things also aren't that big an issue when in a world filled with magic, there are strange things everywhere.
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Bird was an example of a bought animal. Here's the basics.
Zanbato13 brought his animal companion stegosaurus into a room. Both player and stegosaurus recognized the particularly strange oddity even among the unusual surrounds (which would only seem unusual if you knew what was in the room and its purpose. Cough cough peracountess' bedchambers cough.) Player said seek. GM had the stegosaurus act like it had a Wisdom of 2 (the common sense stat). Stegosaurus seeked teammates instead of the less obvious.
I wouldn't let you use "fetch" on any animate object or animal.
This does bring up some problems. When does a moving object stop counting for fetch? What if it was rolling down a hill?
I would generally use fetch against anything that was not acting intelligently enough to 'run' or 'evade' (think ioun stone). If it was just spinning in a circle going at a rate that was too fast/high for me to catch it, but not my hawk, then I think fetch might work.
But even if it is actively dodging, I think pushing it to do a maneuver (grapple) would suffice. Tackling it to the ground for long enough for me to grab it seems like it should work.
Bird was an example of a bought animal. Here's the basics.
Zanbato13 brought his animal companion stegosaurus into a room. Both player and stegosaurus recognized the particularly strange oddity even among the unusual surrounds (which would only seem unusual if you knew what was in the room and its purpose. Cough cough peracountess' bedchambers cough.) Player said seek. GM had the stegosaurus act like it had a Wisdom of 2 (the common sense stat). Stegosaurus seeked teammates instead of the less obvious.
that...is not right at all. Did he really say that?
Any companion with 2 wis would be horrible. Anything could dominate it to hell and back. Animals have around 10-13 wisdom most of the time (stegosaurus certainly does). It is certainly high enough that it would get the general gist if you said 'find the thing'.
It would not have any idea what the thing is, but it was kind of blaringly obvious. Now, if there were three things, and you wanted one in particular, and they were being too sneaky to point them out... yeah, 2 INT would be a problem. That is when you need to raise its int to 3, have it take linguistics so it know what 'red' means when you say 'get the red one'.