Animal Companion- Druid

[Donnovin]

Just wondering how DMs handle skills with animals. I have an ape and at my level he gets 6 skill points. Extremely low. Do they get any just inherit abilities?
acrobatics,climb,intimidate,Perception

I cant imagine my ape needing to climb up a rock wall and cant do it because he has like a 3 in climb, or needs to jump 10 feet and falls to his death because of his 2 in acrobatics.
the frail wizard out climbs my ape. lol

Any info or suggestions ect would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Elamdri]

Your Ape has a Climb Speed of 30 ft. Creatures with a climb speed gain an automatic +8 to their climb checks and can always take a 10.

Climb is also a class skill for animals.

at 6th level, your Ape should get the following bonuses to climb

+6 from Strength, +3 from Class Skill, +8 From Climb Speed.

So if you have 3 ranks

You have a climb of 20 = 3 Ranks, 3 Class Skill, 6 Strength, 8 Climb Speed.

So you get a +20 and can always take a 10, so unless you are coming up against DC 31+ climb checks, your Ape Auto Succeeds.

And since your Ape has a climb speed, each time he succeeds, he moves his climb speed, which is 30 feet, rather than 1/4 his normal speed, like the rest of the us.

So your Ape can automatically scale a 30 foot wall in one move action and doesn't even have to roll

Meanwhile, a human needs 4 climb checks and 4 move actions, at minimum, to scale the same wall. (he can reduce this to 2 climb checks and 2 move actions if he takes a -5 on his checks).

EDIT: Note that the Climb Speed giving you a +8 to Climb also applies to Swim Speed and Swim Checks.

Fly Speed can give you a bonus or a penalty to your Fly checks depending on how well the creature flies.