These are required for creatures with animal intelligence (1 or 2). 3+ int the creature can understand a language.
Eidolons have enough intelligence to understand direct commands, so you don't have to use handle animal or teach them tricks.
What about my summoned monsters?
Summon Monster: "It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions."
If it doesn't have a language, or you can't speak it's language, you could probably use Handle Animal to get it to do something, but it might depend on the critter and GM.
Default behavior as stated in the spell summon monsters (insert lvl here) is to attack :"It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability".
Then it states : "If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions."
So to the question "does it require a Handle Animal check to send it into combat?", the answer is no, as the summoned creature does so by default.
However if you want a better control over the creature actions or tell it not to attack, you need to be able to make it understand you.
For outsiders, elementals and some magical beasts, you have to speak a common language, for animals (celestial and fiendish ones) a handle animal check is required.
DC 10 for simple tasks that it knows ("do nothing" is one), DC 25 for tricks it doesn't know.
|
These are required for creatures with animal intelligence (1 or 2). 3+ int the creature can understand a language.
Eidolons have enough intelligence to understand direct commands, so you don't have to use handle animal or teach them tricks.
Careful, based one what you've said here one might think that if an animal companion had at least 3 Int, they wouldn't need to make handle animal checks. It has been stated by the devs officially that even if the animal somehow had an intelligence of 20, it'd still need handle animal checks to be used.
Just a side note.
EDIT: That being said, summon monster "animals" have the celestial, fiendish, resolute, or entropic templates on them, making them no longer animals but outsiders I'd argue. Now as for summon nature's ally animals...I dunno.
PRD states : "Creatures of animal-level instinct have Intelligence scores of 1 or 2. Any creature capable of understanding speech has a score of at least 3."
So I assume that an animal with an intelligence of more than 3 can be taught a language, especialy considering that a druid can have a animal companion with int 3 and give him a rank in linguistics.
Thing is, I can't find a creature with 3 or more int that doesn't understand a language. Even big T knows Aklo.
After a quick search I found this have already been debated for animal companions
I'd like a quote on that if you mind :)
He was paraphrasing, but the FAQ on Intelligent Animals (Paizo blog) says that "While a very intelligent dolphin might be taught to understand Common" (but not speak it), "The Handle Animal skill functions similarly no matter how intelligent an animal becomes. A character must still make Handle Animal checks to train his animal and get him to perform the appropriate tasks."
I flavor this that even if you speak with animals, and tell the squirrel to go run over that funny looking spot on the floor, you still have to convince him to actually do it. Basically, using handle animal as diplomacy rather than translation.
|
|
Keep in mind I am fairly new less lawyer speak and more actual what I can do on my turn. k
Short of it, no, eidolon's aren't animals and don't use handle animal to be used. They're simply directed by the player as if they're a second player character they're in control of.
EDIT: (I THINK...I've never actually played a summoner myself)
To sum it up :
- eidolon : has human level intelligence (a PC can lower int to 7), so you can talk to him and give him orders as you would the next commoner, just don't try to debate philosophy with him.
- monster summoned : most of them speak a language, if you know that language as well you can order them what to do. If the monster is an animal with the celestial or fiendish template, and has 1-2 int, it has animal level instinct and can be directed with handle animal checks. Otherwise, it just attacks your nearest ennemy.
Keep in mind I am fairly new less lawyer speak and more actual what I can do on my turn. k
You can telepathically communicate with your Eidolon, so you do not need to use handle animal on it.
If you summon a creature that can understand a language, and you can speak that language, you can speak to it to command it. Examples are Elementals.
If you summon an animal that doesn't understand a language (about all of them), you need to use Handle Animal to get it to do anything but attack your enemies without your say in it.
Keep in mind I am fairly new less lawyer speak and more actual what I can do on my turn. k
"It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability."
This means the creature will attack whatever seems to be your enemy, as best it can, without any involvement from you.
"If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions."
This means that if you speak the creature's language you can use a free action to speak and tell it what to do. The creature then may choose to do what you've said.
If you don't speak it's language, or if it doesn't have a language, you can use the Handle Animal skill to command it. If you command it to perform a trick it knows, it's a move action, and DC 10 (or DC 12 if it has taken damage). If you try to 'push' it to perform a trick it doesn't know, but is capable of performing, it's a full-round action and DC 25 (or DC 27 if it has taken damage).
A summoned Astral Deva knows Celestial, Draconic, Infernal, and has truespeech, so it will understand you regardless of your languages.
A summoned Celestial or Fiendish Dire Rat does not know any languages, and is not capable of understanding speech, so you must use Handle Animal to command it.
There will be some table variation in what the creatures will do on their own, subject to GM interpretation.
Unfortunately, no, that's not correct.
That used to be correct in a previous version of the game, but it no longer is.
|
Thank you everyone. You guys are awesome. Our DM is cool but I wanted to make sure I understood the rule. I sent him a link to this thread. I did not want him to think I was talking out of school or anything. I have two kids (10 year old boy and 14 year old girl) as well as myself in this Pathfinder Society game and we are having fun. Last session my "dragon" eidolon ate a panthers face off. I felt like I hogged the encounter a little so the next encounter I left the Eidolon put away and just called an Eagle. We had bad guys running away and the eagle caught up to them. We did not do a DC check to see if the eagle could fly past the said baddie to attack. So we will fix that next time I summons something. It is good to know I don't need DC checks with the Eidolon though. If our DM is reading this. You are doing a great job.
Terry Sr.