How does a Druid/Ranger/etc direct an Animal Companion to hide and stealth? There is no appropriate trick under Handle Animal.
I'm hoping to see if RAW provides a way to allow PCs to have their Animal Companion stealth.
If there is no trick for it i would say nothing RAW that I know of.
If there is no trick. Id say a normal handle animal check?
Isn't stealth a class skill for animals? By that logic it should be possible.
Is it complicated enough to warrant a trick? GM call, I guess.
Common remedy is to bump its INT up to 3 so that it is above animal intelligence and tricks aren't required anymore.
It's a class skill for animals, so it's something they "can do".
If you're moving stealthily *with* the animal, then I'd say it would fold into "heel" or "stay", but in general I think it would be covered by "perform".
My ranger's large wolf companion, as an similar example of an animal using a skill on command, is maxed on Intimidate (max ranks, Intimidating Prowess, Skill Focus: Intimidate - all available for animal companions), and it's simply a matter of commanding the animal to "perform" its skill.
Beyond that, I'd tend to argue that a stealthy animal tends to move stealthily anyway, even without being commanded - the trick aspect is called for when it's something unusual, like directing an AC to move into a surprise attack with stealth or the like, or to hide when *you* are not hiding.
Isn't stealth a class skill for animals? By that logic it should be possible.
Is it complicated enough to warrant a trick? GM call, I guess.
Common remedy is to bump its INT up to 3 so that it is above animal intelligence and tricks aren't required anymore.
Sadly this is false by the rules Int 3 for animal companions is different than for everything else they still need tricks and handle animal to function.
Use the stat increase to increase Int by 1, use the 1 skill point to learn linguistics, teach it common, then give it the direction.
Genius!
Isn't stealth a class skill for animals? By that logic it should be possible.
Is it complicated enough to warrant a trick? GM call, I guess.
Common remedy is to bump its INT up to 3 so that it is above animal intelligence and tricks aren't required anymore.
Sadly this is false by the rules Int 3 for animal companions is different than for everything else they still need tricks and handle animal to function.
Nope.
Even according to the failblog, that started bringing in feats and skills that act differently between whoever uses them (which is unsupported by the rules) as well as intelligence values, you could do that. And it is still an easy task to make an AC more intelligent than your group Fighter.
I think this has been discussed to death but the main point of the blog was to say that if the animal doesn't know what it is after increasing its int you still have to use handle animal. So if you tell it to smith a weapon for you it won't even know what that is.
But even that is a lame argumentation. Everything in D&D works on the basis that you SUDDENLY know something noone can ever learn in less than years as soon as you level up, gain a statbooster, whatever.
Not to mention that there are no rules about this. It would be way complicated now anyway trying to put reason into the rules and rule who can open a door and who cannot. Can your Unicorn open a door? Can your Dragon? Can your Solar? Hard to tell. Who knows how they grew up and whether they know the concept of a door. Not to speak of weird Outsiders made up out of Planestuff that are rather otherworldly. Can they grasp that concept?
Handle Animal states:
Teach an Animal a Trick: You can teach an animal a
specific trick with 1 week of work and a successful Handle
Animal check against the indicated DC. 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. Possible tricks (and their
associated DCs) include, but are not necessarily limited to,
the following.
So, with DM's approval, you can pretty much teach it anything (within reason). There are tons and tons of youtube videos and articles on amazing animals doing amazing things, and animal companions are, if anything, the best spceimens of their kind.
There are parrots that can dial 911 and cry help when they see blood. Directing an animal to be sneaky should be easy enough. Hell, even my mouse can fetch me toothpicks.
Handle Animal states:
Teach an Animal a Trick: You can teach an animal a
specific trick with 1 week of work and a successful Handle
Animal check against the indicated DC. 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. Possible tricks (and their
associated DCs) include, but are not necessarily limited to,
the following.So, with DM's approval, you can pretty much teach it anything (within reason). There are tons and tons of youtube videos and articles on amazing animals doing amazing things, and animal companions are, if anything, the best spceimens of their kind.
Ssssshhh... don't tell Paizo that my cat (and almost any) can open closed doors by jumping onto the handle.
Because even an Int 8 Animal won't know how to open doors!Didn't you read the blog... ts...