Mites (Bestiary) have Vermin Empathy as a racial ability and I was wondering how this works and whether it raises any special concerns should a Mite be advanced, as might happen if a player chose mite as a race for their character (not recommended, I know).
my questions are:
1) what is a vermin's starting attitude?
2) the description of Vermin Empathy seems to indicate a greater degree of control with a successful check than one would get with an animal. Any idea how this would work? What DC would be needed to gain a vermin as a mount, for example? Would handle animal be used to train the mount?
What about getting a vermin (or swarm) to attack a creature?
3) does the vermin empathy check use the mite's HD as a bonus? The stat block implies this (as the mite has a Cha penalty), but would it include all subsequent HD (class levels) or just the racial HD?
Vermin Empathy
This ability functions as a druid's wild empathy, save that a mite can only use this ability on vermin. A mite gains a +4 racial bonus on this check. Vermin are normally mindless, but this empathic communication imparts on them a modicum of implanted intelligence, allowing mites to train Medium vermin and use them as mounts. Vermin empathy treats swarms as if they were one creature possessing a single mind—a mite can thus use this ability to influence and direct the actions of swarms with relative ease.
Wild Empathy
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.
1) what is a vermin's starting attitude?
Being mindless, it would probably be Indifferent unless it viewed you as a thread or a food source, in which case it would be Unfriendly or Hostile.
2) the description of Vermin Empathy seems to indicate a greater degree of control with a successful check than one would get with an animal. Any idea how this would work? What DC would be needed to gain a vermin as a mount, for example? Would handle animal be used to train the mount?
The impression I get is that Vermin Empathy can give the mite a foot in the door by making a giant insect Friendly or Helpful, but not much more than that. He still has to train the creature if he wants to use it as a mount, and that would follow the normal rules of Handle Animal. The "instilled intelligence" is what bends the rule that Handle Animal can't be used on a mindless creature.
Note that the mite does apparently have 1 rank in Handle Animal. (1 rank -1 Cha = +0 bonus)
What about getting a vermin (or swarm) to attack a creature?
I'd view it as though the swarm had been trained to attack (see Handle Animal). The mite spends a move action to give the swarm an attack order.
3) does the vermin empathy check use the mite's HD as a bonus? The stat block implies this (as the mite has a Cha penalty), but would it include all subsequent HD (class levels) or just the racial HD?
It looks like the mite adds his racial levels to his Vermin Empathy. Thus, only racial levels count towards it. Whether or not that stacks with the Wild Empathy of druids or rangers, I guess is up to you.
It looks like the mite adds his racial levels to his Vermin Empathy. Thus, only racial levels count towards it. Whether or not that stacks with the Wild Empathy of druids or rangers, I guess is up to you.
Thanks for the reply, your take on it seems very sensible.
This last point would really make the race pretty ineffectual vermin controllers, though. Sure, most vermin have serious cha penalties, but even so, a mite that maxes their Cha (16) will only have a +8 modifier without any real opportunity to advance this ability. against a indifferent vermin with 2 Cha, that succeeds 85% of the time but against unfriendly it is only 60% and hostile 35%. Given that the vast majority of vermin encounters will be aggressive, that isn't really viable, unless it stacks with wild empathy, as you say.Other racial abilities (e.g. SLAs) operate using total HD, why is this different? Not being argumentative, just curious if I missed something in the rules.