Druid animal companions and skills

[Twig]

The rules state:

Skills: This lists the animal's total skill ranks. Animal companions can assign skill ranks to any skill listed under Animal Skills. If an animal companion increases its Intelligence to 10 or higher, it gains bonus skill ranks as normal. Animal companions with an Intelligence of 3 or higher can purchase ranks in any skill. An animal companion cannot have more ranks in a skill than it has Hit Dice.

is this the total of all skills? Example: at level 1; one point in perception and one point in climb for a total of 2

or is this the total of one skill? example: at level 1; two points in perception and two points in climb for a total of 4

i find the text very confusing...

[Thomas LeBlanc]

Twig wrote:

is this the total of all skills? Example: at level 1; one point in perception and one point in climb for a total of 2

This. An animal has 2 + Int modifier skill ranks per HD. Since an animal has a 1 or 2 Int, that is a -5 modifier. All creatures receive a minimum of 1 skill ranks per HD. So the animal companion gets 1 skill rank per HD. Unless you boost the Int to at least 10, then you get 2 since there is no modifier.