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Let me be clear here. Wild Empathy is a lovely ability with a lot of versatility and a lot of flavor. It can be tremendously useful, assuming the GM has the sense to include a few animal-based encounters where the animal isn't automatically attacking.
But why is it so hard to be good at it?
Plenty of druids, hunters and rangers don't have high Charismas. Their players either want to have a low Charisma (the characters they are designing are doormats, socially incapable, or otherwise intended to be poor communicators with humanoids), or they simply can't afford to have a high Charisma because they need to invest in other abilities (like Wisdom for spells and special abilities, Strength for melee, Dex if they're an archer ranger, Con for basic survivability...).
Wild Empathy, however, is based on Charisma rather than Wisdom. Plus, since it isn't a skill (anymore? I could swear it was in 3.5), there is almost no way to boost it. There is an obscure Ultimate Magic feat that allows you to bring it up, but it doesn't come in until 5th level, and still advances your bonus at a slower rate. If a PC chose to dump Charisma and doesn't want to spend feats, it's fairly unlikely they'll be befriending anything major until mid-levels.
I know that's not a terribly long time, but it seems counter-intuitive to me. Contrast it with Diplomacy. Diplomacy exists to ruin things. Depending on how poorly the GM moderates its usage, it can really wreak havoc on a game. That's because, ultimately, the PC is exerting their will over an NPC with a single check (and possibly some roleplay if that's how the group plays). Even if you impose sensible limitations, it still tends to feel a bit too easy unless you make the player think of things to say. And that can make the skill feel slanted against the more socially awkward players. Meanwhile, Wild Empathy is much more thematic and often a bit more believable. The player doesn't need to say anything—the druid can just walk up to the animal and quietly pacify it within a minute.
It's a cool, nonviolent way for a class to shine, and it'd be great if it was doable from the get-go. You could still impose sensible limitations (-20 vs. owlbears, or what have you), but I think it being Wisdom based, or being treated like a skill with regards to Skill Focus, would be a major improvement.
What are your experiences with Wild Empathy? Do you prefer it being Charisma-based? I'll admit I hadn't seen the existence of Greater Wild Empathy before making this thread. It was encouraging, even if druids are kind of feat-starved to begin with. And they have bigger feats to take at level 5 than this one. ;P
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They should toss its mechanics and just make it so that they can make diplomacy checks against animals.
Plus, since it isn't a skill (anymore? I could swear it was in 3.5), there is almost no way to boost it.
3.0 D&D. It had already been removed as a skill in 3.5 D&D.
Here, I'll give an example of a fictional "druid" I don't think would work with a high Charisma score.
"Tom" is a local hermit featured in Midsomer "last bastion of britishness" Murders. Although highly alert and attuned to the forest (animals follow him around, and he easily avoids police looking for him right up until they bring out tracking dogs), Tom suffers from mental illness and is almost entirely unable to communicate effectively—especially when under pressure. This causes a lot of trouble when the police attempt to interrogate him and he can't even explain where he was at the time of the murder. Even though he's innocent and knows he is, he can't communicate this due to prolonged social isolation, and this puts him in more and more trouble.
The entire source of conflict with Tom is his disorders and prolonged isolation, which have combined led to him having a sharply negative Charisma modifier. He's wise, but has absolutely no idea how to handle people.
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For a wild empathy focused druid, click the link. It can be absolutely broken under the right circumstances.
Bullettes LOVE when you rub their bellies by the way.
Its not really the roll thats hard to make, losing a few points from charisma by being raised by wolves isn't a big deal, its the TIME that it takes to do it without fast empathy that makes it almost unusable. if an animal is willing to have you stand there for a minute without eating you you could have just walked around it, and if its attacking faster than that you can't wild empathy them
Funny enough, I originally had Fluttershy as another example of a low-Charisma druid.
Again, the GM has to include some gray animal encounters. They can't all be rabid wolves. Have a normal wolf pack approach. As long as they don't immediately attack, the druid should be able to engage in Wild Empathy.
Wild Empathy and Diplomacy are often misrepresenting as "the enemy must be willing to stand still for a minute regardless". That's a simplification. The enemy must be willing to listen. That means they stop what they're doing and give you a few seconds of thought. And from there, you engage in a conversation that lasts about a minute, trying to convince them that you are a Cool Gal.
A bear you use Wild Empathy on isn't going to stand still for a minute normally. It's deciding whether or not to attack you. Wild Empathy means you make it give the prospect more thought than, "Hm, um, yes."
Troglodytes that surround the party and order you to surrender? You can generally try to diplomatize them (though they may be diametrically opposed anyways if you're trying to get something like "Let us into your nursery"). Troglodytes that surround the party and start shooting? Yeah, you're too late.
Plus, Wild Empathy isn't just for averting fights. It isn't at all.
EDIT: Also, bear in mind that roughly +9 of that build's bonus (+5 from not dumping Charisma, +4 from favored class) comes from highly specialized sources: A high Charisma (hard to achieve), and being human. It also requires no fewer than two expensive magic items, including one that only affects mammals. At level one, even with all this investment, you're only getting a +5—or a +2 if you assume a more realistic Charisma score.
Kobolds have some amazing favored class bonuses, among them is +1/2 wild empathy for druid. Vanaras get the same, and +1/2 Handle Animal at the same time.
The DCs are not that hard. Even a dire tiger has just a Cha mod of +0. So if he is unfriendly, you roll 1d20 + druid level + your Cha mod against 20. Makes a 77.5% chance at level 4, with Cha 12 (10.5 + 4 + 1). Without investing much, just not dumping Cha.
Yeah, hostile animals and especially magical beasts are more of a challenge, but a low level druid (etc.) is not supposed to dominate nature just by appearing.
I think it's ok when low Cha druids (etc.) have problems to deal with animals. Dumping a stat should have consequences.
But animals are different from people. Why is the same dumped stat affecting both relationships? It completely bars a certain type of PC.
I will never understand this "people who dump stats need to suffer for it" mentality, either. It seems like it's linked less to cause-and-effect and more "Yes, make that powergamer pay." Even if the low stat is chosen because it better matches a concept.
To clarify, this isn't a complaint from a balance perspective. It's a complaint from a concept perspective. I don't know if Wild Empathy is OP or UP—I only know that, as-is, it's not very good at matching a large number of concepts.
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Funny enough, I originally had Fluttershy as another example of a low-Charisma druid.
And yet she got snagged pretty much out of crowd for a career in fashion, can intimidate a dragon, win a staring contest with a cockatrice and make the immortal incarnation of chaos himself cry at the thought of losing her as a friend.
I think that pretty much means she's shy as a matter of personality, not ability. Summing up all of someone's attributes in 7 statistics probably isn't possible, so if someone is showing most of the hallmarks of a high ability but only missing one or two chances are the score is pretty high but it just doesn't fit how they want to run the character.
Fluttershy has a high Intimidate and is well-liked, but she has no ability to exert her will outside of that Intimidate skill. People have no respect for her most of the time, and walk all over her—even if they like her, they don't take her seriously or give her agency, because she is unable to claim it.
I find it interesting, too, that you bring up her being brought into a career in fashion, since that is a profession she expressly despised. She was pressured into it by her friend, and was rendered entirely unable to exert any will during it. She was engaging as a model strictly because people found her terror and shyness interesting, not because she had the "attitude and pizzazz" she was originally attempting to project.
Charisma is about the ability to get across what you want to get across. If you want to be trusted, people should see you as trustworthy. If you want to be respected, people should see you as competent. Fluttershy is entirely incapable of managing how others see her. High Intimidate, for sure, that's a but low as hell Charisma if ever I did see one.
If I didn't have a 6-year-old daughter I'd have no idea what you're talking about. But I do, so KC is right.
All it really needs is a feat akin to Skill Focus. And maybe a cantrip such as this:
Beast Whisper
Divination
Level: Drd 0, Rgr 0, Animal 0
Components: V, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Short (25 ft + 5ft/2 levels)
Duration: 1 min/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes
This allows the caster to empathise with one specific animal, allowing better basic communication. This gives him a +4 insight bonus to Handle Animal, Ride and Wild Empathy checks.
Agree with over-all query of Wild Empathy.
Indeed, if you could simply treat it as a skill, that would help alot/ be reasonable:
even if not allowing taking ranks, but for skill focus, skill re-rolls, etc.
In fact the line "functions just like a Diplomacy check" MIGHT even mean it should benefit from Skill Focus Diplomacy, etc.
(IMHO that's not totally an implausible reading, but it's not exactly indisputably RAW functionality)
Honestly, taking away the level scaling bonus, the core function of the ability seems like something Handle Animal should allow:
"A druid can improve the attitude of an animal. This ability functions just like a Diplomacy check made to improve the attitude of a person (see Using Skills)."
Handle Animal allows "rearing" wild animasl and training them, and what Wild Empathy does would seem to be a central part of that.
(or alternately, using Intimidate)
So why not roll Wild Empathy into Handle Animal and give Druids a fat bonus/ faster action time?
(even if non-Druids could not use it fast enough for game-scenes, e.g. hours or days instead of 1 minute,
at least the mechanic and effect would be unified and clarified, benefitting from skill boosts, etc)
Which gets into issues of Handle Animal itself, namely never specifying attitude-state dependence.
If Handle Animal worked like the "Request" function of Diplomacy, it would have minimum states/modified DC depending on state.
But nothing actually spells out such a correlation AFAIK.
In the absense of which, why even bother with Wild Empathy?, just use Push: Move/Lay Down/Hide/etc vs even Hostile animals?
The human druid bonus to change the attitude of everything is pretty clearly meant for wild empathy and raw works for it. (also makes you a pretty good diplomat)
A circlet of persuasion will give the most dour dwarf around the same charisma score as the average human.
The one minute time is not that useful if hostile. I have not seen wild empathy be played by RAW in any home game either. If the animal is indifferent towards you then why do you really care what it does. I don't think it gives you that good command even if you did make them helpful.
One minute won't help much if hostile as you don't want it going on that long. I mean you could surivive if it is way under CR like a local rulers hunting dog starts trying to bite and attack you. Well I would maybe try to subdue the dog with grappling or nonleathal damage. I don't know the last time I encountered an unfriendly animal.
How as a GM would I describe an unfrinedly animal. A rat, squirel, or raccon at night moves towards the parties supplies and tries to nibble on your food?
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Hostile doesn't mean auto-attack, bear in mind. That's why a Diplomacy DC exists for it. Back in 3.5, there were descriptions for each attitude, and Hostile was just "Will take risks to hurt you."
That can mean, "Will risk getting fired to make you look bad in front of the boss." It can mean, "Will surround you, demand your surrender, and be prepared to fight to the death if you fight back." It certainly can mean, "Will do utmost to kill or capture you," but that's not the only meaning. When a creature plans to immediately attack, of course you generally can't Diplomacize or Empathize it. But not all Hostile creatures are dead set on violence.
A wolverine trying to drive you out of its territory is Hostile, but might not immediately attack if it thinks it can scare you into fleeing. That's an opening to try to "reason" with it, though it will be pretty difficult for a novice character (DC 25, to be precise—quite challenging for your average low-level druid).
A coyote pack that sees you standing over a dead elk is Hostile—they want that elk, and will take risks to force you off it or even kill you. To them, you are an enemy. But they will also be reluctant to attack (since coyotes are generally fairly scared of humans in worlds with guns/magic), so they'll delay and hope you just decide to flee first.
Other, non-Hostile encounters could involve a herd of wild horses just when the party needs mounts, a hungry black bear, a curious shark, a glutted and temporarily languid dire boar, et cetera.
A half-decent GM can easily offer opportunities to use Wild Empathy—encounters that could go either way. Wolf packs don't generally like to prey on humans, but might be interested in their pack mules. If the PCs need to get a key at the bottom of a lake, they might be able to persuade the giant octopus to get it for them instead of having to fight it.
It's up to a thoughtful GM and a creative player.
+1
Wild Empathy simply doesn't work when Combat has already started anyways, because it works like Diplomacy which says:
So non-combat, or pre-combat meanings of "Hostile" are really the ONLY contexts that should be considered to begin with.
And it should enable you to get animals in a better state to "Push" them to do any trick you want, although as I mentioned before (I believe I have a previous post in other thread going into more tangential evidence I found) there isn't much clarity per RAW re: requirements/benefits of different attitude states vis-a-vis Handle Animal.
Actually, I did realize that Wild Empathy SHOULD probably benefit from any effect which increases the number of steps which Diplomacy can change attitude, since it "functions just like Diplomacy" (for purposes of changing attitude). Effects which change the time needed for a Diplomacy:Change Attitude check should also apply to W.E. (both have a default time of 1 minute)