I will be playing a Druid for the first time in a Kingmaker campaign starting soon, and I find that I have a lot of annoying, miscellaneous questions about Druid's abilities with animals.
I usually like to do as much of my own homework as I can before starting a thread, but I don't have a Bestiary of my own, and I haven't been finding answers to my questions in the places I've looked so far, so try to forgive me if this is all very obvious stuff!
1. Monster summons come from other planes, and if they get reduced to 0 hitpoints they go back where they came from, only to reconstitute 24 hrs later. Where do animal summons come from? Are they ordinary animals? Or extra-planar magic animals that can't die? My new character is neutral-aligned with goodish leanings, so she's willing to do a necessary unkindness on occasion - but it seems counter to veneration of nature to summon animals to die for one's cause, if that cause is not specifically related to protecting Nature.
2. Treantmonk's guide to Druids suggests taking Undercommon and Fey in order to be able to communicate with the most summons. But how much do summons understand, assuming we do speak the same language? Do I need to cast Talk to Animals, then speak, say, Undercommon, to give my summons instructions? How intelligent does a summon need to be to know not to attack my allies? In the levels before I acquire wildshape, if I send a summoned eagle to scout ahead, will I be able to ask him what he saw, and will he be able to tell me?
3. I gave up my animal companion in order to have more castings/day; my group needs a viable caster way more than it needs another tank. But if I max skill in Handle Animal, how plausible is it that I could simply charm/raise wild pets that, while not magically bonded to me, would still accompany me and protect me? I don't know if/when my friends and I will need to build a castle, but I have a picture in my mind of a garden courtyard full of stalking, roaming wild animals, who all love me! Muahaha! That's probably over the top. But will it be effective for me, given downtime, to raise some wild animals for protection / companionship?
4. A campaign trait would allow me to start play with a horse, and our gm has said she'll allow three weeks of prep / downtime before we leave on our adventure for Handle Animal checks to teach the horse tricks. I had assumed this horse (the guide doesn't describe it; it just says 'a horse') would be one sturdy enough to ride, and that if I successfully taught it to be a mount, I could use it to get from place to place, and it'd be just combat-competent enough to not buck me off when it gets scared. I was not picturing a fancy warhorse - the kind you would need for attacks and charging. Just a faithful steed to ride around on. But the gm says this is probably a third, cheaper kind of horse, maybe even too light to be burdened by a rider + gear; I could use it as a pack animal. That's what the wizard is going to do with his.
I am somewhat disappointed by this revelation, because I wanted the horse so my Druid would have an animal to relate to and look after. She comes from a somewhat barbaric background, and riding horses fit really well, in my mind. (I'm probably being 100% derivative from the Lord of the Rings, but still...) I still like that picture, but now I have some decisions to make. I don't know if my Druid cares that much about having a mere pack animal, even if her strength is low enough that it'd make a difference. If she acquires the horse anyway, but it's not fit to ride, what tricks should she teach it instead? And is it worth continuing to want a Real Horse as soon as she can afford it at later levels, when she might just be wildshaped a lot of the time? How much use would a casting Druid get out of a decently-trained riding horse? Are there any advantages/disadvantages to being mounted (off to the side) in combat that I don't know about yet? If we get attacked and I get down off my horse to go wildshape, can I tell my horse to hide and stay out of trouble? Or will it need supervision, LOL?
5. Final question: what is the likelihood of finding a baby [exotic creature] and hand-raising it to be a mount? Is anything fancier than a horse implausible? Can Charm or Dominate animal be used to tame them, or will any Charmed and Dominated animals revert to hostility as soon as the spell wears off, regardless of your Handle Animal skill?
Thanks in advance for entertaining my questions!
-Just a Gnome
Read his 3rd point.
-- david
Papa.DRB
why not make the horse your animal companion, and use the trait for something else?
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I think that, at this point in your questions, talking to the DM is what you need to do. Each DM bases these kinds of things based on his or her own prerogotive.
I would say, though, that regarding having trained animals permanently, one PC can quickly get out of hand, both by being overpowered compared to other individual PCs and by one Player having too much to do each turn in initiative.
Where do the animals come from?.... Well, for Druids it's always been implied that they come from the area around the Druid -- the Druid calls and a lion or bear or whatever hears it and comes running. The problems, of course, are the places where an animal couldn't reasonably arrive on the Druid's turn in initiative (to a specified square, no less) next round and, of course, that Druids are just calling their soulmates to die.
Lots of DMs have said that the animals a Druid calls come from an Outer Plane full of animals such as Elysium and when they die they just go back to their Plane.
. . . .
I've always felt that a Druid has a Supernatural Communion with Nature and thus communicates with animals and trees in the Druidic language. Rothe don't speak Undercommon; they communicate with the Nature "language" of Druidic.
So, a Ranger or Barbarian is taught that this plant is called a rose and it needs lots of sunlight and phosphate; that animal is a badger and you approach it this way so it won't thrash you.
A druid, on the other hand, may have never seen a rose and have no idea what the humans call that plant, but they know instinctively, intrinsically, what it is -- beyond any "name" humanity has given it.
As to whether or not using summon nature's ally is something a druid would do, consider what a druid's task is. Why is your character a druid? What is his/her goal as a steward of nature? What is/are his/her deity's goal(s)?
Once you've got that figured out, figure out how you can further that goal through spell casting, training animals, and summoning animal spirits from whatever plane they go to when they die. Why does your deity allow you to do this?
Note that there are spells on the druid list that harm plants and animals as well as those that empower and heal them. Nature is about life and death, growth and decay, eat or be eaten. It's a cycle. Our group had a dislike of druids because people that played them thought they had to talk down and drive off wild animals instead of killing them, until my girlfriend decided that, in nature, an animal would defend itself and fight back.
There are several interpretations of what being a druid is about. A blight druid can be a good druid, if the goal is to preserve that natural cycle of life and death and not just burning down every forest it comes across.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
My take on your questions as a GM in KM and a player who is a druid-afficionado:
1. Animals summoned also come from another plane and return there upon dismissal/reaching 0 hp/end of spell duration.
2. speak with animals is for the occasions the animals are not intelligent enough to speak in the sense humans/dragons/magic beasts/whatnot with INT>2 do. If you can communicate in a language with the critters, casting the mentioned spell is not necessary.
Problem with the summoned animals is not the ability to communicate, but that the summons is of such a short duration, that their, say, scouting ability is only for short range (in case of the eagle you would need to have speak with animals active) - keep in mind that your GM might rule, that the animal is not intelligent enough to relate information to you in the way it is crystal clear what it saw.
3. Consider, that you do not need to take a combat machine as AC - the mentioned eagle can also be your companion. If you are in desperate need of a caster with a nature theme, why not take a cleric of Erastil or a nature oracle?
Giving up one of the iconic class features is a personal no-no for me.
Downtime is there to suit your needs, but I would guess your personal zoo would be up to GM approval.
4. That is kinda silly of you GM - a horse is a horse from the beastiary (light horse for 75gp with 2HD). Period. As others have called it, it will be a liability after lvl 3 (latest).
Taking it as your AC will remedy all your concerns. And KM is one of the fewer APs were being on horseback will happen fairly often due to the sandbox nature of the AP (what happens after you get teleport
or overland flight in your group is a different story).
5.
Final question: what is the likelihood of finding a baby [exotic creature] and hand-raising it to be a mount?
By advise would be to talk to your GM - the possibility is there.
Can Charm or Dominate animal be used to tame them, or will any Charmed and Dominated animals revert to hostility as soon as the spell wears off, regardless of your Handle Animal skill?
Yes.
Ruyan.