Handle Animal: Does Defend Trick Include Heel?

[Allen Cohn]

Hello, brain trust!

If one has commanded one's animal to Defend *and* one moves, does the animal follow?

If so, then it seems to me that most of the time one would not bother with Heel and just leave the animal in "Defend mode."

And then I also wonder why there's even a Heel trick...except for those situations where one wants to make sure the animal is on it's "best behavior."

Am I missing something?

Many thanks,
Allen

[Craglansun]

Defend wont stop your companion from attacking an enemy, but heel might.
Do you want to keep someone alive for questioning?
"Heel!"

Want your pet t-rex to stop eating the dead, and very poisonous toad? (because they have to eat)
"Heel!"

Your companion wont go into the smelly troglodyte lair because it just threw up?
"Heel!"

You know there are traps to avoid and you're worried your companion might stray too far?
"Heel!"

You can probably use 'Come' for a lot of these, but 'Heel' encourages the animal to follow by your side, not just spend a round at your side before going back to chasing the mail-man, or going to hunt whatever is still shooting arrows at you :-)

I'm sure there are other uses out there.

[David knott 242]

First off, Heel has a lower DC.

Secondly, there could be many reasons that you would not want your animal companion to attack everything that attacks you.

Finally, tradition. "Heel" is one of the few dog commands that virtually everybody knows about.

[Allen Cohn]

Thank you for your replies!

Allen

[magispitt]

David knott 242 wrote:

First off, Heel has a lower DC.

Secondly, there could be many reasons that you would not want your animal companion to attack everything that attacks you.

Finally, tradition. "Heel" is one of the few dog commands that virtually everybody knows about.

Heel has a lower TRAINING DC. All tricks have the same DCs to use, he ones listened beside them are the training DCs