The recent thread I started about the wild empathy spell got me to thinking: there is nothing in the rules, I don't believe, to say that wild empathy would not work on a savage animal or low intelligence savage magical beast. All the same, I find the idea pretty preposterous. "It's ok, little monkey...owww! He bit my hand off!"
So what does everyone think? Apply serious penalties to the roll or (more likely) just laugh if a foolish PC tries it?
Well, if I recall, you can attempt to use your wild empathy on a magical beast, but at a -4 penalty. For them damn dirty dirty savage apes, I would give an additional penalties, depending on the circumstances. Basically, make it difficult, but not 100% impossible.
If he does "domesticate" the lil beastie have the monkey bite the cleric when your animal tamer needs healing!
We call em' pus monkeys in my campaign!
Per the rules, if the savage creature's type doesn't change, then savage animals can still be wild empathied.
But consider this: savage creatures are ALWAYS hostile to all non-savage life. This makes the DC annoyingly high, especially at low level.
Additionally, because they are hostile, the PC would have to make a rushed wild empathy check, suffering an additional -10. On the whole, these two factors make wild empathying the savage animals a long shot, at best, especially considering there is no auto-success on skill checks with natural 20s.
There's curently another thread dealing with a homebrew spell that would be useful in exactly this situation. If not, well, there's always dinos on the Isle for empathizing with.
Hope that helps!