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Hey another animal companion question!
This one's pretty strait forward:
- When an animal companion gets an ability score increase, can it be put into Int? I know nothing seems to say "no" to that question, but the description of the Animal type on page 304 of the Bestiary 2 says that "(no creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher can be an animal)." Also, if the answer is in fact "yes it can be put into Int" does that mean when doing so the companion gets another 3 "trick slots?" All the information about tricks in Handle Animal says 3 tricks for Int 1, and 6 tricks for Int 2; in other words there's nothing in there that says "and so on"
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You can, and SHOULD add it to the creatures Int, every time, until he is at least up to 3 int. They are now capible of taking any skill, or feat they qualify for.
I recommend putting the skill point in linguistics and learn that pet a language so you don't have to rely on tricks or handle animal for your pet.
Unless it's a bonded mount, in which case it's Int should already be a 6.
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Int increase to 3 does not change it's type. It remains an animal. The greatest advantage is that they can select feats beyond what is listed in the companion area and allows it to take linguistics and learn to understand a language. It does not give literacy or speaking. I believe it also removes the trick cap, letting you teach it whatever you have time to. This does not, however, remove the need to still use handle animal.
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You can, and SHOULD add it to the creatures Int, every time, until he is at least up to 3 int. They are now capible of taking any skill, or feat they qualify for.
I recommend putting the skill point in linguistics and learn that pet a language so you don't have to rely on tricks or handle animal for your pet.
No matter what the animals intelligence becomes as long as it is of Type=Animal you are still required to make handle animal checks to control it.
You can bump it's intelligence to 300 if you want you will still be required to use handle animal to get it to do ANYTHING.The only advantages to raising it's int past 2 is to give it 3 more tricks it can learn (not an issue if you are a ranger/druid since they already get bonus tricks) or to make it eligible for for a specific feat(s) that you want it to have.
Under "Animal Feats" in the Animal Companion description of the Druid class.
Animal companions with an Intelligence of 3 or higher can select any feat they are physically capable of using. GMs might expand this list to include feats from other sources.
Actually this is an interesting role playing question.
Who controls the animal's stat boost? Is it applied because the animal would want to improve in some area, or because the druid would? Is the choice a player call or a GM call? After all an AC is technically an NPC...
Who really "owns" the decision of what to boost?
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Actually this is an interesting role playing question.
Who controls the animal's stat boost? Is it applied because the animal would want to improve in some area, or because the druid would? Is the choice a player call or a GM call? After all an AC is technically an NPC...
Who really "owns" the decision of what to boost?
No, an animal companion is technically a Class Feature and PC's have control over those.
No, an animal companion is technically a Class Feature and PC's have control over those.Actually this is an interesting role playing question.
Who controls the animal's stat boost? Is it applied because the animal would want to improve in some area, or because the druid would? Is the choice a player call or a GM call? After all an AC is technically an NPC...
Who really "owns" the decision of what to boost?
Hmm... it's a creature too, and creatures fall into two and only two categories, "Player characters" and "Non Player Characters".
Still I get your point. But even then the role playing question applies. Would you apply the point to what the animal would want to boost, what the druid would want to boost or what the metagaming player would like to boost?
I went with "druid" and boosted int. But now I'm thinking "wow, that was really a metagaming moment now that I think about it."
Not a big deal, but I usually am aware of those things, somehow this one slipped past me.
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High INT animal companions are weird - kind of like intelligent weapons in that regard. Generally, most "bestial" creatures with a base INT of 3 or higher are magical beasts, and you need to use Diplomacy with them rather than Handle Animal. After all, a wolf with INT 6 is perfectly capable of learning to understand human speech (though it may lack the biological or supernatural ability to speak itself).
I think this is going to be one of those case-by-case, talk-to-your-GM situations.
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High INT animal companions are weird - kind of like intelligent weapons in that regard. Generally, most "bestial" creatures with a base INT of 3 or higher are magical beasts, and you need to use Diplomacy with them rather than Handle Animal. After all, a wolf with INT 6 is perfectly capable of learning to understand human speech (though it may lack the biological or supernatural ability to speak itself).
I think this is going to be one of those case-by-case, talk-to-your-GM situations.
Actually not really, the DEVS have come down very definitively on what happens to an animal when it's int goes up. No matter what as long as it's type stays Animal you still need to use handle animal to convince it to do ANYTHING.
Here's the blog post on how they've ruled this.