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One of my fellow players (a cavalier) recently upped his animal companion's intelligence to 3. This makes his steed sentient, but as far as I can tell, does not grant any additional languages known.
Throughout today's game he constantly told his mount to do this and that, which I pointed out may not be possible due to lack of known languages.
How does one communicate with a sentient creature that has no languages? Will he have to have SPEAK WITH ANIMALS cast or some similar effect?
I imagine he could still direct his mount to do tricks just as he could before increasing the beast's intelligence, but if you are still limited to tricks even after adding sentience, I wonder what is the point of making it sentient in the first place.
What do the rules say about making a creature sentient? Our group is wholly unsure of how it should be handled. Our initial reaction was that it would no longer need to know tricks or need to be handled as a move action or free action, but we are beginning to second guess ourselves.
Any input would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you think it worthy, please FAQ this post.
Once they break the Int 2 barrier the animal could take a rank in linguisitics to learn a language -- I could still understand saying the animal can't speak said language, but then they would be able to understand it. Without this rank the animal will probably rely on its training and sense motive to figure out what it is that the alpha (read the PC) is trying to convey to it.
While I would also understand that with "only" and Int of 3 the animal might misunderstand things, or not understand big words, I would generally allow the animal to understand what is required of it.
As an animal companion I would generally have the AC act like what it is -- a class feature: Meaning that with a lot of compelling justification I'm not going to railroad the player with what the animal will or won't do, or demand it act in certain ways all the time. After all when a player develops a character with an animal companion (familiar, etc) they generally develop the animal companion too as part of that character (including background, personality, etc). To not allow the player a broad spectrum of use of this class feature would be like saying to the witch player with the healing hex that they can't go through the entire town healing each person once a day, or the cleric can't channel positive on the town several times a day (etc).
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One of my fellow players (a cavalier) recently upped his animal companion's intelligence to 3. This makes his steed sentient, but as far as I can tell, does not grant any additional languages known.
Throughout today's game he constantly told his mount to do this and that, which I pointed out may not be possible due to lack of known languages.
How does one communicate with a sentient creature that has no languages? Will he have to have SPEAK WITH ANIMALS cast or some similar effect?
I imagine he could still direct his mount to do tricks just as he could before increasing the beast's intelligence, but if you are still limited to tricks even after adding sentience, I wonder what is the point of making it sentient in the first place.
What do the rules say about making a creature sentient? Our group is wholly unsure of how it should be handled. Our initial reaction was that it would no longer need to know tricks or need to be handled as a move action or free action, but we are beginning to second guess ourselves.
Any input would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you think it worthy, please FAQ this post.
To directly answer the question; You would command your sentient creature the same way you would prior to the int bump, with tricks. The creature still has X number of tricks is does and can learn.
The real benefit from bumping them to 3 int is the free choice to place skill ranks in whatever you wish-Including Linguistics, which allows the creature to learn to read, write (kinda silly but it is RAW) and understand said language. At this point tricks are wholly unnecessary as the animal can now understand what you are telling it in (forgive the pun) plain English (Or Dwarven, or Abyssal). It does not however give it the ability to speak which is important to note.
Once played a Dwarf Ranger with a pet Ape named Charles. Charles had 3 base intellect, and I have him a Headband of Vast Int. Charles had multiple ranks in linguistics, disable device, and craft (Bows). He had his own little pickpockets outfit and a handy haversack.