The situation is that a Darkmantle surprised the druid grabbed and constricted so that the druid was disabled. This was in the surprise round. Next round the Darkmantle constricted again and so the druid is dying. Now finally its the druid's turn. Didn't stabilize. I'm wondering what to do with the animal companion. "Attack" was its bonus trick but obviously no one can give the command. Does it just stand there? If so I think "guard" is way better as a first trick now, lol.
Am I correct that animal companions only start play with 1 trick total, the bonus one?
Also, if the druid totally dies, what happens to the animal companion? I know its a GM discretion thing, just curious how people would handle it. This is in a 1st level dungeon.
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As a DM I usually assume that the animal companion instinctually attempts to defend the druid against any threat that an animal would normally fight (as defined by what it will attack with Attack trained once) unless given orders otherwise. The "Guard" trick is to get it to guard other people.
However, you are NOT correct in assuming they only start with 1 trick total. They can be trained normally to do the other tricks (you DID take Handle Animal, right?) and they get up to Int Score * 3 tricks that way. The bonus tricks are above and beyond this and also do not require making a handle animal check. If they only received the bonus trick it would make your AC *dumber* than normal animals. In fact, it would be dumber until about 15th druid level.
So, assuming you have enough handle animal to reasonably be able to train them, your AC would have been trained off-screen before the start of the campaign to have 6 tricks + 1 bonus trick.
Well, it looks like a bad situation all-round.
First, the animal companion thinks of its druid as a friend, and so would generally do what any creature with a friend in trouble would do - try to help out, if it can. Just because it doesn't know a given trick doesn't mean it can't do things. Animals are actually pretty wise, usually, and can use that to make good decisions on a local short-term level even when they're not intelligent enough to know the full ramifications.
If the druid dies, the animal companion... is an animal. A druid can call or dismiss an animal companion at any time with nothing special happening... the animal basically reverts to a wild pre-companion state in that instance, so it probably does in this one too. It probably looks on the once-druid's friends favorably (as it's been with them for a while, presuming they haven't treated it cruelly), but otherwise it's just an animal and will likely eventually go its own way, unless given reason to stay.
EDIT: and stabbity doom answered everything about the tricks :)
The number of tricks they know is determined from here:
An animal with an Intelligence score of 1 can learn a maximum of three tricks, while an animal with an Intelligence score of 2 can learn a maximum of six tricks.
The bonus tricks are tricks past that limit.
Most sane GMs will allow you to start out with 4 (3+1) or 7 (6+1) tricks already known, as long as your character has had the companion for long enough.
I don't think many GMs actually enforce the handle animal rules, due to all the extra work, but you'll get a spirited defense of using those rules.
Thanks for response. I did mean defend, not guard, in the OP.
So, I can assume the animal companion starts with many tricks? The druid did max handle animal and even took skill focus (handle animal).
I seem to remember in 3.5 they started with multiple tricks but I couldn't find anywhere that said so explicitly.
If the GM ruled that your animal companion just stood there, watching a darkmantle eat you, then the GM needs to be Gilliganed.
If your character has had the animal companion for a while, there's no way you haven't taught it tricks.