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As Serum said if a player wants an animal to do something it would have to be Pushed. Without pushing it, it would be friendly towards the sorcerer and by extension it would probably not be hostile to the rest of your group. But it may be potentially unfriendly, such as a dog that bites at anyone other than its owner if stroked. Depending on the animal it may try to groom the sorcerer as its natural friendly greeting response, or something far more inconvenient, such as initiating mating rituals! It might be worth researching/imagining the typical friendly response of the animals likely to be encountered and having them prepared.

Thanks for the advice--I'll definitely do more research to figure out what kind of reaction the various creatures might take once charmed--that will add some fun flavor. For example, a feral chemosit seeking the taste of human flesh, once charmed & friendly towards the caster, might be more difficult to keep away from the rest of the party due to its voracious appetite to kill.

I would argue that unless the creature has the ability to reason and interpret higher level suggestions such as a humanoid would (i.e,. "stay away from my friends"), despite the fact that it would understand the caster's language, its natural instincts would influence how it reacts to the situation. Just because the serpentine bloodline arcana allows you to influence these types of creatures using spells normally geared towards humanoids, that does NOT mean that the affected creatures automatically react to the spell as if they were humanoids with a higher intelligence and can interpret more advanced requests of the caster.

I know there's been a LOT discussed about Charm Person (thanks, Serum, for linking to previous threads--I'm a newbie GM and just starting to review the forums). Sorry if this is going on a tangent, but how do these rules/suggestions relate to the Serpentine Bloodline Arcana in which "Your powers of compulsion can affect even bestial creatures. Whenever you cast a mind-affecting or language-dependent spell, it affects animals, magical beasts, and monstrous humanoids as if they were humanoids who understood your language?" I have not seen much discussion regarding this "flavor" of Charm Person.

I'm running the Serpent's Skull APG, and have a sorcerer in the party who can use this power to Charm Person on nearly every creature the party comes across. (In a primarily jungle setting this ability is proving quite powerful--perhaps too much so). When used on an animal, should I require him to make a Handle Animal check when trying to "convince" the animal to act a certain way, or does the opposed charisma check take precedence? If the animal or magical beast has an intelligence of 2, should it naturally be more difficult to get the creature to behave in a certain way, because it lacks the ability to reason?

Any advice would be helpful, as I am a new GM, new to the forums, and want to make the campaign fun for my players.

This should really be posted under "Advice" as a new thread, as you aren't asking about rules.

With that said, don't change/add rules. If your players aren't being challenged by the encounters, try adding some monsters that have high(er) Will saves, or other ways of not getting charmed.

And no, your players are incorrect in their assumption that friendly toward the caster = friendly toward everyone.

--Thanks for the feedback. I'm new to the forums as well as being a newbie GM, so I'll browse the "Advice" section for suggestions also.

Any suggestions for how NOT to let a character with the Serpentine Bloodline completely take over by casting charm spells at every combat? (FYI Serpentine Bloodline Power--"Your powers of compulsion can affect even bestial creatures. Whenever you cast a mind-affecting or language-dependent spell, it affects animals, magical beasts, and monstrous humanoids as if they were humanoids who understood your language.)

I am a brand new GM running the Serpent's Skull APG, which until now pretty much completely takes place in a jungle setting. Almost every encounter includes creatures of the types listed above. Although I am happy to reward XP for encounters that are completed via creative means, I don't necessarily want the sorcerer in the party to dismiss every possible combat by "befriending" every creature they run across (it would get old after a while).

What recommendations would you advise for making it a bit more challenging/exiting? Requiring Handle Animal to prevent the charmed creature from attacking the rest of the party? Right now the players assume that once the creature is friendly with the caster, it is automatically friendly with the entire rest of the party (as long as they stop threatening the creature). How does the creature's intelligence & ability to understand commands or prevent leashing out against the rest of the party fit in? I am open to suggestions.