In the bestiary it states that a creature with int higher than 2 can never be an animal. In the druid companion pages it is 100 percent clear that an animal companion should be permited an ability increase to int, even upwards of int 10. How is this conflict resolved in the rules.
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An animal starts with an int of less than 3. If it gains more int it doesn't change its type so it remains an animal. It continues to act as an animal just smarter, you still need to use animal handling to direct it.
The basic idea in the bestiary if that it represents species of creatures rather than individuals. Those species that have an int > 2 are not animals and must be magical beasts/aberrations/something else.
I do wish that there were some better rules or guidelines for how animals with int of 3 or higher are supposed to interact with their friends, companions or, in some cases, masters. It seems silly to assert that an animal raised to an int of 8 still needs a "handle animal" check to get them to, for example, flank. Even an int of 7 is well within the "normal" humanoid range. An int of 3 is supposed to be able to learn a language.
In our games we treat animals with an int of 3 as being able to understand not only speech, but to have some basic reasoning capability. There have been times when the animal's master has been incapacitated and another party member has asked the animal to do something. We don't normally roll a "handle animal" check on that, the GM decides how reasonable the request is, and if it's pretty obvious and simple (like "go flank the monster that just knocked your master unconscious" so I can kill it better") the animal will just do it.
At some point as the intelligence score moves upward "handle animal" should give way to "diplomacy" or even "bluff".
As Taenia pointed out, an animal that started with an INT of 2 does not suddenly become a magical beast when its INT equals or exceeds 3; it's just an unusually bright example of its species.
In most cases I ignore the handle checks for animals that have an INT of 3 as long as they know the trick requested; the DC in that case is a 10, and the animal's 'master' is probably going to have bonuses to his roll that will make rolling unnecessary.
An alternative system that I've seen is to allow an animal to have 'mastered' two tricks (single tricks, not training package) per point of INT modifier; when commanded to perform those tricks no roll is necessary as long as companion trusts the person giving the command.
Here is a blog on higher than 2 intelligence
A higher intelligence still requires you to make Handle Animal checks and really only lets them take feats they wouldn't have otherwise taken. Even a language is problematic since although they can learn a language itll take a lot of time.
- Gauss