I'm GM'ing a game and I have a druid PC with a cheetah companion. More or less, I've never made him roll a handle animal check for anything he has asked to do. If the party engages in combat, he says a few words and the cheetah attacks. If the cheetah comes in range of enemies, I'm supposed to let him know it detects them due to her scent. If he walks in to a room, he has the cheetah rolling perception. Etc, etc.
As a GM, when should I be making him roll handle animal to do things? I'm also unsure what I should be allowing as far as leniency in how the animal acts on its own? Should I be telling him that the animal actually does something contrary to what he wants it to do? As it stands now, it's essentially a second character that does whatever he wants all the time. This is fine if its supposed to be that way, but both of us are new and I wanted to make sure it's being played correctly.
Thanks!
If the druid has a +9 handle animal (11 when the critter is injured) and the right selection of tricks it pretty much is automatic.
Attack attack defend down guard heel and Seek.
So whats happening is the druid is (as a free action) telling the cheeta to "seek" but you're not rolling it because the druid probably can't miss the roll ( 1 rank in handle animal +3 trained skill +4 link almost gets you there)
The handle animal rules more or less make the critter function as a second character most of the time. Unless speak with animals is going though, the cheeta can only tell the druid "there's something there" not necessarily where it is or what it is.
Unless speak with animals is going though, the cheeta can only tell the druid "there's something there" not necessarily where it is or what it is.
Druids don't have empathic links with their ACs (something that my group missed for the longest time). So, when using Seek or Detect, my AC rolls perception and then indicates the number of enemies by "barking" that many times (i.e., it smells 5 enemies, barks 5 times).
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Unless speak with animals is going though, the cheeta can only tell the druid "there's something there" not necessarily where it is or what it is.
Druids don't have empathic links with their ACs (something that my group missed for the longest time). So, when using Seek or Detect, my AC rolls perception and then indicates the number of enemies by "barking" that many times (i.e., it smells 5 enemies, barks 5 times).
I personally wouldn't allow that as a GM unless the animal companion had bought up its Int score. Animals really can't count.
There is a lot of GM variation on what an animal can do. Personally, as long as it seems reasonable to me for an animal of that particular type AND the animal as the appropriate tricks trained then I allow it. But if the player starts to abuse things then I start to push back and require far more handle animal rolls. Yeah, a lot of that is subjective. A lion is NOT a bear and they'll sometimes react differently.
Note that Animal Archive has a lot more tricks. This is a two edged sword. Many new things can be done some old things now require a trained trick.
Unless speak with animals is going though, the cheeta can only tell the druid "there's something there" not necessarily where it is or what it is.
Druids don't have empathic links with their ACs (something that my group missed for the longest time). So, when using Seek or Detect, my AC rolls perception and then indicates the number of enemies by "barking" that many times (i.e., it smells 5 enemies, barks 5 times).
I personally wouldn't allow that as a GM unless the animal companion had bought up its Int score. Animals really can't count.
A 3 INT is enough to understand a spoken language, but a 2 INT can't count? Horses can obviously count, and how do you think wolves and other pack animals strategize their attack patterns? Hell, even roosters can count, and they're ridiculously dumb (seriously, never get a rooster).
Either way, it's not written in the rules, it's something we assume can happen. Although, it has screwed us before when it started barking and alerted everything in a cave to our presence.
More importantly: Does the animal companion has training. If it has a druid or ranger can command it do a trick as a free action, assuming the handle check is made. If it does not know the trick he can push an animal to do a trick it's physically capable off doing that as a move action, assuming the handle check is made!!!!
Also the animal does not come trained and the only thing the animal knows are the bonus tricks!!!! It is off course possible to train the animal, but that takes a couple of weeks (usually six)
So training it is a must and after that the druid/ranger can free action it around, assuming the handle check is made. Before that the druid/ranger can move action it around, assuming the handle check is made.
My ranger just got his wolf and is currently training it. So in order to make it fight I would have to 'push' it into action and it would take a free action and a succesfull handle animal check to succeed.
Also remember the animals will only attack humanoids, monstrous humanoids and other animals. If you want it to attack undead or dragons (or anything really) you need to spend another trick in attack.
So a standard combat trained animal needs to be 'pushed' into attacking a giant Spider (medium Vermin).