CipsioN's page

There is a large exploitable loophole in regards to purchased Animals. You can purchase an Animal that puts a class provided Animal Companion to shame (at low levels). There is a simple fix for this fortunately and here it is (don’t forget the maxim KISS)

FAQ for “How many Animals can I have”
The first sentence should read:
“During the course of a scenario, you may have one combat animal UP TO ONE HD HIGHER THAN YOUR CHARACTER LEVEL and as many noncombat animals as you like.”

That’s it! Insert those 9 little words and everything is fixed.

Animals available for purchase and level available as a result
1st-Heavy Horse, Riding Dog
4th-Bison
5th-Tiger
7th-Wooly Rhinoceros

Any animal that is purchased will not outshine an Animal Companion because of all the bonuses inherent in being an Animal Companion. People can still buy animals if they like, it wont be unbalancing, everybody wins!!

@Tsriel No my original death happened in my home area right before Gen Con. I've loved every Gen Con, I can't wait for this years. I agree communication can always help. A few sessions ago we were at an effective character level of 7. The lvl 8's didn't want to loose money and play down if possible and I as a lvl 6 wasn't opposed to playing up and making a little extra, but I wanted the GM's opinion before we decided. He told me that when he had played he played as a Pregen and that they had not had any difficulty. I asked him again if this was a deadly mission and if he thought we would be likely to survive if we played up because I didn't want people to die. He said yes it shouldn't be a problem, so I figured this would be a more RPG & skill focused scenario. So we decide to play up based on this information. In the second combat of the adventure we first come try an empty building and so were confident the bad guys are in the next building. We break in the door since we have to capacity to open locks. We roll initiative. I have a -2 Init and rolled poorly so I was going last. One of our party of 5 moves in and attacks one of two techno golems. He is then attacked by an invisible guy with sneak attack and is dropped to 0 so he is staggered. Our next player moves forward to cure so HP. Our next player comes in tries to attack another golem but misses(this player is playing a Pregen, he had hoped to play with a lvl 5 character but was one exp short, he chose to apply it for this character). The next player casts Haste on us. The GM now casts Phantasmal Killer from the sorcerer and the Pregen fails his rolls, I gave him my re-roll and he fails again so he dies. He then has the golems attack. They kill our first character. Now my turn. So our party of 5 is down to 3, we have no way of seeing invisibility or canceling it. The rest of my team are both lvl 8's at full health. I yell out retreat and start to fall back to look for town guards and aid. The two players who are dead are packing up to leave already, they have no way to raise themselves and do not need us to recover their bodies. Now back to top of the Init for turn 2. The GM's invisible guy 5 foot steps forward and drops our character who had moved forward to heal. The guy is 2 HP from flat out dead. The other player ends up with no way to save him and retreats as well. So before any of us had a second turn 3 people are dead and the other two are running for our lives. He then spends the next hour trying to convince us to stay and fight them again. I told him that I would not, it was a death sentence. He finally let us go. I barely survived. The 3rd character to die was able to be raised after receiving assistance from the GM and myself. After the adventure I asked the GM why he said what he said at the beginning when this was clearly a deadly scenario. His reply was that when he had played he had this other player that was able to shut down the fight that had obliterated us singlehandedly. He went on to inform me that it's not his responsibility to inform us if a mission is dangerous. This is the same GM who is past 30 PC kills I believe and likes to say well I still don't have as many as this other local GM. So communication can help but it has to be honest communication. I had a Tiger for this mission, there were no complaints about the Tiger. I still think the rules should be changed.

@gnoams let me break down the futility of your mean fix. Now let us examine what Charm Animal actually does. First is the enemy caster or any of its allies attacking the target because if they are it gets a +5 on its saving throw, yes the Tiger would get a saving throw to resist the spell. If it fails that save then its attitude towards the caster is friendly. This means that it continues to treat all other enemies as enemies and friends as friends. In the Attack trick the very first sentence states quite clearly: “The animal attacks apparent enemies.” So its pool of potential targets includes only the remaining bad guys minus the one guy who cast Charm Animal. Charm Animal also states “Any act by you or your apparent allies that threatens the charmed animal breaks the spell.” So if any of those other bad guys attacks, the spell is broken. Now if you decide as GM you are not going to be bothered with the RULES in your quest for TPK’s and ignore all the previous information I have provided then you would still need to make a DC 10(DC 12 if the Tiger has been hurt) handle animal check with the character that cast the Charm Animal. One last hiccup would be the fact that the tiger is also trained with the Exclusive Trick: “The animal takes directions only from the handler who taught it this trick.” It also goes on to say “An animal with the exclusive trick does not take trick commands from others even if it is friendly or helpful toward them (such as through the result of a CHARM ANIMAL spell).” Now there is clearly a lot of ambiguity in those quotes so I’m sure a creative GM could still find ways to ignore this and get those TPK’s that seem to be your primary concern, as opposed to trying to create an enjoyable experience for the PC’s sitting at your table. I have to say that my original reason for using Tigers was this TPK scoreboard obsession like the one displayed in your comment.

Well I figured I would add my two cents as I am referenced several times in this thread as well as the flatteringly titled “Silliness of buying high CR animals.” Hello Derek, Will and Dan. I started out playing in this area about 4 ½ years ago, I was going to be playing PFS at Gen Con for the first time and wanted to see if I could try to gain a level or two before I went. On my first day ever with this gaming group the other table playing that day had every player killed at the table or as it is called by our GM’s a TPK. So I knew that this was no joke and that things could be dangerous here in PFS. I like animals and using them in Pathfinder, not every class gets an awesome AC but fortunately there are animals you can buy and train yourself. I played this character 6 times before I went to Gen Con, 4 of those times the other table that day had characters die, 2 of those were TPK’s. During the 6th game I played there was a player at our table who had clearly been killed several times over as he was trapped behind enemy lines for several turns, the GM however did nothing about this. Then as we are about to kill the final boss who is lying prone on the ground stands up, ignores the creature attacking it in melee and shoots past his wife at me in the back with 2 Scorching Rays. I point out that he is 10 feet short of the spells range, so he says ok, moves the bad guy forward 10 feet, again this is after he has stood up from prone, and then casts the spell and kills my character. This happens one week before Gen Con. I played at Gen Con 2012 and then didn’t play in this area again for 2 years because of the bad experience. Once I decided to come back I did not want to be in a situation where it is difficult to get a 3rd level character. So I spent my hard earned money and bought more books and after reading them discovered that there were more animals that I could purchase, the two most powerful being a Tiger and a Wooly Rhinoceros. I settled on a Tiger as it was much cheaper and would be able to get to many more places to be usable in combat. So my character that was designed to use the riding dog works just as well for using a Tiger. I have success and don’t die at early levels, there are different GM’s here now but some still like to compare how many kills and TPK’s they have with other GM’s. I have lots of fun; I am now level 7 and want to try out Bonekeep; my party survives! We now have difficulty organizing Bonekeep 2, and I don’t want to level out so I have to make a new character to keep playing PFS. At this point I have had one character the whole time. I have purchased Rise of the Runelords and in my free time had come up with my theoretical party of 8 (4 Main characters and 4 Cohorts). Part of this party’s shtick is that they all invest in Charisma and have animals. So I make the other 7 characters that would make up this party. I want my characters to survive to higher levels if I can help it so I’m going to buy the legal Tiger over the legal riding dog. Now of these 8 characters of mine that I plan on using the Tiger; one is still level 7, one is 6, one 2, one 1 with 2 exp, two are 1 with 1 exp, and the last 2 I have not played yet. So I have played a total of 4 characters where I had a Tiger in the game. I have not gotten to use them in every scenario. I prefer (especially at low level) to use them in case we get into trouble and it looks like someone might die. I know of several occasions where other people were happy that the Tiger was there and we didn’t end up dying. As for the Tiger “hogging the spotlight” I know of only two people I have played with that as PC’s chose to disengage from the game and not contribute because to the Tigers presence, both are local GM’s and both have made comments on this and the previous thread. As for “killing the fun” the only people who have ever mentioned anything negative about the Tiger are the GM’s. I have heard from some of our newer players that they are scared of playing with some of our GM’s because of their propensity from killing them. IMHO a GM should not try to measure their effectiveness by them number of peoples creations they are able to destroy but by how fun they make it for the PC’s, reading the scenario before running it and being prepared can really go a long way in that regard. Now that I have had a chance to address some of our local issues I will address the topic of this thread.

The current rules for purchased animals are broken. I should know; I’ve been exploiting it to give myself the highest survivability possible for my low level characters. There is an easy fix for this and fortunately it does not require a sloppy meat cleaver or “let’s ban everything” as a solution. Under the FAQ for “How many Animals can I have” the first sentence should read “During the course of a scenario, you may have one combat animal up to one HD higher than your character level and as many noncombat animals as you like.” This fixes every problem with purchased animals that the current rules allow.

My fix may not be what PFS decides to implement to fix this problem, and let me reiterate it is a problem, but I will voluntarily be using this for the 8 characters I plan on using purchased animals with. I will even encourage other people in our gaming group to do so as well. This means my two characters that are high enough level will continue to use their Tigers, for all the rest I will be going back to riding dogs.

When I play PFS I want to have fun, I want the other players to have fun and I want the GM to have fun. It would have been nice for the GM’s, people I see once or twice a week, to have consulted me. Instead you went with the much more mature route and I end up having to read inaccurate assertions about me on this O so private forum. I will make sure that I bring up any concerns I have as a PC with you in person, and approach it in a constructive and collaborative manner.

Looking at your build it seems ok, there are a few things I would point out however.

1. Your feats for Summon-Noir include two Extra Evolution feats. You can only have one for every 5 levels, and since you would have received your feats at lvl 1, 3, 5, you would have to select the feat as your 7th lvl feat.

2. Doing the math on your HP 8+5*5.5+12=47.5 which rounds down to 47.

3. Not certain what evolutions you took but it looks fine.

I would be interested to see the ruling on having each act on an independent initiative roll for PFS. I was not aware that you could have multiple positions on the initiative track.