Animal Companion with no handle animal

[Shar Rakka]

I'm joining a Kingmaker Game as an inquisitor of Erastil. This lets me get the animal domain and consequently an animal companion. As exciting as this is, how do I command it without having Handle Animal. Looking threw traits I can't find any that give me the skill and make sense. I'm not a gnome nor was i on any Savannah(and anyone who says otherwise is a damn liar!)

It's also a trained only skill so am I just missing something painfully obvious or did I find something the designers missed... LOL j/k right so what's the painfuly obvious thing I'm missing here. XD XD XD

[Michael Sayre]

Animal companions all have the Link ability:
Link (Ex): A druid can handle her animal companion as a free action, or push it as a move action, even if she doesn't have any ranks in the Handle Animal skill. The druid gains a +4 circumstance bonus on all wild empathy checks and Handle Animal checks made regarding an animal companion.

[Shar Rakka]

Does this mean I can put points into handle animal as well?

[Shar Rakka]

Well if not Serpent’s Band seems to mostly solve my problem, otherwise its a feat, which is fair considering 1 feat makes my companion as strong as a druids. I'll drop 9 grand on top of that

[StrangePackage]

Put points into Handle Animal?

I'm not sure what the problem here is.

[Michael Sayre]

You can always put points into Handle Animal, you just don't get the +3 bonus for it being a class skill. Trained Only just means you typically need to have at least one skill rank in the skill to use it.

[Shar Rakka]

I thought trained only meant i could not put points into it unless is was a class skill.

EDIT
Now it's coming back to me, i need to put skill points into it to use it... 3.5 strikes again.

Ignore the newb here people, move along nothing to see here---

[StrangePackage]

No.... trained only means that you can't use it unless you have points in it - ie, that you have trained in it.

[Michael Sayre]

Shar Rakka wrote:

I thought trained only meant i could not put points into it unless is was a class skill.

No. Trained Only means you have to have put ranks into the skill to use it. You can put ranks into any skill you want, you just get a bonus when you've put at least one rank into a class skill.

Trained Only: If this notation is included in the skill name line, you must have at least 1 rank in the skill to use it. If this notation is omitted, the skill can be used untrained (with a rank of 0). If any special notes apply to trained or untrained use, they are covered in the Untrained section (see below).