Wild Empathy / Diplomacy

[Xedrek]

Can I use both wild empathy and diplomacy if I can speak with the animals or have something like elven serenity?

Elven Serenity:

Benefit(s): You gain a +2 trait bonus on Diplomacy and Handle Animal checks to calm other creatures. You need not speak the same language to attempt a Diplomacy check in this manner.

Wild Empathy:

Wild Empathy (Ex)

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. The druid rolls 1d20 and adds her druid level and her Charisma modifier to determine the wild empathy check result.

The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly.

To use wild empathy, the druid and the animal must be able to study each other, which means that they must be within 30 feet of one another under normal conditions. Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time.

A druid can also use this ability to influence a magical beast with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, but she takes a –4 penalty on the check.

[VRMH]

Don't see why not.

[Chess Pwn]

What do you mean by use both? Do you mean that you can pick either one, or are you asking if you can use both to succeed twice?

[Xedrek]

Both and succeed twice

[Chess Pwn]

I think you can only do one since wild empathy functions as a diplomacy check. And you can't do multiple diplomacy on the same person.

"You cannot use Diplomacy to influence a given creature’s attitude more than once in a 24 hour period. If a request is refused, the result does not change with additional checks, although other requests might be made. You can retry Diplomacy checks made to gather information."

[Xedrek]

It says it functions as a diplomacy check. Which gives me reason to believe that they would be seperate entities. Neither one being able to be used on the same dude twice individually but one can be hit with them each once

[Chess Pwn]

When I read "functions as" that means "it's the same as" meaning it'd count for if you've done the check already or not.

Also I don't think you can use diplomacy because their INT would be to low to qualify for the diplomacy check.

[N N 959]

Per the PRD on Diplomacy

DIplomacy wrote:

You cannot use Diplomacy against a creature that does not understand you or has an Intelligence of 3 or less

The "or" clause means that no, you cannot use Diplomacy on a typical animal, even if you can Speak with Animals.

In the absence of Wild Empathy (or a similar ability), you cannot influence an animal's disposition.

[N N 959]

Chess Pwn wrote:

I think you can only do one since wild empathy functions as a diplomacy check. And you can't do multiple diplomacy on the same person.

"You cannot use Diplomacy to influence a given creature’s attitude more than once in a 24 hour period. If a request is refused, the result does not change with additional checks, although other requests might be made. You can retry Diplomacy checks made to gather information."

That's little misleading Chess. You can do multiple Diplomacy checks on a person. However, you can only do one check to influence attitude. Per the rules, once someone is at Indifferent, then you can makes requests of them. Each request is another Diplomacy check. But once you fail, you cannot make that same request with another check. You could make a different request with another roll.

[Chess Pwn]

I'm sorry, You're right N N 959. Your answer is clearer.

[BigNorseWolf]

You can use one or the other, but I'd probably throw in the +2 bonus. Its never exactly clear what diplomacy related abilities do or do not apply to wild empathy.

[N N 959]

As an FYI to Xedrek, the Handle Animal skill does not allow one to "calm animals." The feat is poorly written because it seems to suddenly convey the Wild Empathy ability. I can only surmise that:

a) They actually wanted to allow Diplo and Handle Animal to do what they specifically can't with regards to creatures of 3 INT or lower;

or

b) The author meant to write Wild Empathy instead of "Handle Animal";

or

c) As written, but you still can't calm creatures of 3 or lower INT, though you do get +2 on Handle Animal.