Combat Trained Bison

[pad300]

Ok, according to the animal archive, a Combat Trained Bison is 75 gp... Well within the purchase price of a 1st level pc.

This thing is a CR 4! Melee gore +10 (2d6+12) AC 17 HP 42...

Handle animal to get this to attack something is DC 10...

Is this a typo, or did the weapon of choice of low level PCs become the Bison!

[Krodjin]

Google "Guy on a Buffalo" for giggles.

[pad300]

Bump, anyone actually care to weigh in on the actual topic? A combat-trained CR 4 animal for 75gp isn't a significant balance problem? Note that this is currently legal for PFS play to boot...

[Whale_Cancer]

Most animals are a balance problem. This is known. Elephants are nuts.

[DonDuckie]

It's not really a balance problem, since it's available to all. It could make encounter design more difficult, but 1st level characters still drop fairly fast, negating their awesome-powers-of-magnificent-bovine-mount.

[David_Bross]

I tell you whats fun, it doesn't say that the owner of that Bison is the only one who can make handle animal checks...

Bringing animals into scenarios is potentially very unbalancing, and if you enjoy finding a 75gp creature to solo all the combats in a 1-5 why are you playing PF instead of doing something more productive with you time?

[Name Violation]

as someone who dm's and plays a mounted character i can tell you some things....

its not an animal companion.

there are required actions to make it do things, even things you think it should just do. Those things ARE (unfortunately) tricks.

if its a mount, then things get slightly different. you can make it move into flank without a handle animal check but ride rules apply

now its not impossible to do things with the bison, but it often eats up important actions you could be using.

AWESOME meatshield though