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The only issue I see is that the oracle revelation technically doesn't qualify you for Monstrous Mount, but other than that, you'd probably don't need it.You're going to have to explain to me how a feature named "Mount" gained from a class isn't a "mount class feature".
Because the class feature mount is only found with cavaliers and samurai.
The oracle revelation is called Bonded Mount.Only rangers, paladins, cavaliers, and samurai qualify for Monstrous Mount.
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The only issue I see is that the oracle revelation technically doesn't qualify you for Monstrous Mount, but other than that, you'd probably don't need it.You're going to have to explain to me how a feature named "Mount" gained from a class isn't a "mount class feature".Because the class feature mount is only found with cavaliers and samurai.
The oracle revelation is called Bonded Mount.Only rangers, paladins, cavaliers, and samurai qualify for Monstrous Mount.
Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. But until you can show me where you found the definition of "class feature" I'm disinclined to limit options that are well within reason.
My point is "class feature" is not defined. So if I get an ability (or feature) named "Mount" from my class, then I'm willing to allow it.
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So, I'm late to the party on Animal Companions, but ACs can only flank if they have some trick from Animal Archive? What fun-sponge rules goat thought that up? I suppose they need a trick to poop, too.
Seriously, there's a ton of holes and useful errata that could be made to Pathfinder, and that's the stuff that makes it into product sold for money?
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So, I'm late to the party on Animal Companions, but ACs can only flank if they have some trick from Animal Archive? What fun-sponge rules goat thought that up? I suppose they need a trick to poop, too.
Seriously, there's a ton of holes and useful errata that could be made to Pathfinder, and that's the stuff that makes it into product sold for money?
That's not entirely true. They can only knowingly get themselves in a flank position if they have that trick. That doesn't mean that they can't get the benefits of it if they find themselves in a flank. You can still spend time setting them into a flank (move here this turn, attack next turn) or if they're already engaged and something else moves into a flanking position with it.
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I had some GMs allow predatory pack type Companions to flank before Animal Archive, but it was a very small list, it was technically a house rule, and not all GMs agreed.
An Ankylosaurus, a Constrictor Snake, or a Horse is not going to naturally know how to set up or utilize a flank.
Luckily, now we have rules for it. I think that's a good thing.
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One thing that you have to realize is that an Animal Companion with an intelligence of 3 (or higher) and tricks trained out the wazoo is, in a great many ways, far LESS capable than a well trained animal is in the real world.
I've seen sheepdog trials, for example. The trainer just has to point and the dog will go to specific places by specific routes.
Or look what circus animals do.
Or a pride of lionesses bringing down a kill.
From a reality point of view, it makes little to no sense that a well trained animal wouldn't be able to take a nice safe route to a flanking position.
It is also the case that real world animals often have WAY better skills than do animal companions or animals. For example, a Tiger in the real world damn near has a climb speed, dogs have a MUCH better sense of hearing and smell than they do in Pathfinder, etc.
But they also are a VERY powerful class feature and are absolutely LOATHED by some GMs. So, for game balance reasons, they are fairly limited.
And there is a HUGE amount of table variation in how they actually work at a table
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"From a reality point of view, it makes little to no sense that a well trained animal wouldn't be able to take a nice safe route to a flanking position."- Paul Jackson
Actually Paul, there is very little in the way of 'reality' to believe this to be the case. I have worked with both Military and Police K-9 teams for many years and there are fundamental limits on they type and intensity of 'attack cues' that you can train a dog to act upon. Dogs (and by extension other animals trained to attack) are target driven. It is relatively easy to train a dog to attack a particular region (body part, such as an arm), but a very different thing to have them undertake 'maneuvers' when engaging a target. Also, while it can be done, it is also fairly hard to train a dog to readily recognize various weapon types- simply put, dogs (attack breeds) are aggressive and direct attackers.
In regards to dog trials and circus animals... typically those breeds (species) are not 'overly aggressive' and will typically run away (or bark from a distance) rather than engage and target. In regards to Lions, Tigers and Bears... oh my!, I would have to say I have NOT seen any that have been trained to operate as attack animals that will obey a humans direction- just some food for thought.
And with sheep dog trials... those courses rely upon specific markers indicated for the dog to react to as well as audible and visuals cues. If they are removed, the dog will not 'run the course' that they can not react to or perceive. Sure, you can train a dog to perform certain tricks and behaviors, but the more complex... the more time and often failure you will have.
But in the end, this is Pathfinder, not the 'real world' and its for exactly that reason that I enjoy the game. I would just caution folks from invoking the 'in the real world' justification in regards to most rules questions or complaints. The Pathfinder system is Fantasy... as are the concept of animals companions who magically follow around their druid buddies.
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Just put enough points into handle animal that you have a +26 bonus so you can reliably push your animal, even in combat.
That way you can make it perform any trick you can conceive.
Also, if your animal companion has (a) feat(s) that enable it to perform better when flanking, they will try to get into a flanking position in order to utilize their feat(s) without the need of the flank trick.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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I have said before and stand by it. Whenever I use my animal companion, she takes the most direct route to the target. She is a cheetah so she usually does this on a charge if it meets the criteria or else she is getting hit with AOOs. Then next round, if she has a flank buddy, then I give her the command to flank, then of course, I play her as a intelligence 1-2 creature, so she does not know the difference between 5 foot step and moving 5 feet. So she just moves the 5 feet as a move action and bites again.
People who plays their animal companion with too much finesse, do not truly now how animals attack. I agree with Pat. Most aggressive breed of attack dogs, are target based, meaning you line them up and the fur missile flies to the target and as long as it grabs something attached to the target, that is the only thing that matters(it will still get the kong ball whether he gets an arm or leg).
I do agree with Damanta, in regards to the feat, if it has the feat that makes it more effective combat, it usually knows how to get to use that advantage. Same thing with giving an Animal Companion power attack as a feat. If I am GMing and I see a animal has power attack, I'm going to use it every time because it is there to be used.
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Just put enough points into handle animal that you have a +26 bonus so you can reliably push your animal, even in combat.
That way you can make it perform any trick you can conceive.
That's burning skill focus territory levels of investment. Even at level 10 I'm pushing +20 (10 ranks +3 trained +3 charisma +3 circlet of persuasion, +1 trait)
+2 beast scent (sometimes), and +4 collar of obedience if the critter is large or smaller. Since you're probably not borrowing creatures in the scenarion, a training harness for +2 is probably on the menu. But +26 is not a very reasonable goal.
Also, if your animal companion has (a) feat(s) that enable it to perform better when flanking, they will try to get into a flanking position in order to utilize their feat(s) without the need of the flank trick.
ooo nice one.
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then of course, I play her as a intelligence 1-2 creature, so she does not know the difference between 5 foot step and moving 5 feet. So she just moves the 5 feet as a move action and bites again.
That is trying so hard not to metagame you wind up metagaming worse than you would if you were trying to metagame.
While the mechanics of a 5 foot step takes a human to understand. (even if with some players it takes them a LONG time to understand...) the in world justification for it does not require human intelligence or understanding to make use of it. A five foot step is simply a shift you can make WHILE fighting , whereas movement is something you do before you start fighting. The cat has moved so little distance that they still have time to use their claws and hasn't opened themselves up for an attack. The cat has both teeth and claws and will want to use them in combination when they can.
People who plays their animal companion with too much finesse, do not truly now how animals attack.
Or as druids and other wild based classes, are using a model of a more natural attack pattern than that of a trained animal. I have had many sets of bite marks on my rump that can attest to the idea that animals understand the concept of getting behind someone when they haven't had that instinct trained out of them.
As to finesse, I once saw a flock 6 of ravens taking a chunk of meat away from a wolf. Three flew down in front of him, three landed behind. The one in back picked at his tail, the one in front grabbed the meat and they all took off in a flurry of feathers.
In pathfinder terms, they synched initiative, flew down together, the two in back aided the tail lifters AC while the two in front aided the steal manuever. I WISH pathfinder parties had half that level of coordination.
The real break with reality isn't what animals do or don't do it's the consistency. Even the best trained animal can react oddly (one of my aformentioned bite marks is from a golden retreiver seeing eye dog of all things...wasn't anyone's fault it just happened)
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Just put enough points into handle animal that you have a +26 bonus so you can reliably push your animal, even in combat.
That way you can make it perform any trick you can conceive.
That's burning skill focus territory levels of investment. Even at level 10 I'm pushing +20 (10 ranks +3 trained +3 charisma +3 circlet of persuasion, +1 trait)
+2 beast scent (sometimes), and +4 collar of obedience if the critter is large or smaller. Since you're probably not borrowing creatures in the scenarion, a training harness for +2 is probably on the menu. But +26 is not a very reasonable goal.
True enough.
Though you are forgetting the link bonus, and there is no reason not to have a training harness on your animal companion, which would put you at the +26 at level 10 without using the beast scent and collar of obedience.
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More for the conversation than trying to argue what the rules say or how it should be done: but I've been using the flank trick for when you want the animal to do something that would be counter-intuitive to it. Like double-moving behind it when no one is threatening it so that when the character charges the flank is already set up, or for when it would need to provoke an AoO to get into flank, or when flanking would deny it a full-attack or a charge. Otherwise, it just 5 foot steps each turn to get into a better flank (because that is how I would run the tactics for any wild animals that attack the party.)
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Do we know how the Serve command works in PFS? (Sorry if this was taken care of elsewhere in the thread!)
My reading of the Animal Archive suggests that the Serve trick is taught per specific person, not for a generic number of people. For instance, Lini could train her cat Serve (Valeros) or Serve (Seoni), perhaps.
If that reading of the Serve trick is correct, that's...awkward in Pathfinder Society, where you might rarely be playing with the same people. It'd be nice to think that you could get a floating Serve trick that you could assign to another PC at the beginning of the scenario, but it seems like we'd need a campaign ruling for that.
Or maybe I'm just reading the whole thing wrong.
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Do we know how the Serve command works in PFS? (Sorry if this was taken care of elsewhere in the thread!)
My reading of the Animal Archive suggests that the Serve trick is taught per specific person, not for a generic number of people. For instance, Lini could train her cat Serve (Valeros) or Serve (Seoni), perhaps.
If that reading of the Serve trick is correct, that's...awkward in Pathfinder Society, where you might rarely be playing with the same people. It'd be nice to think that you could get a floating Serve trick that you could assign to another PC at the beginning of the scenario, but it seems like we'd need a campaign ruling for that.
Or maybe I'm just reading the whole thing wrong.
You're reading it correctly. It simply isn't well-suited well for PFS. However, if you have someone you know you'll always be playing with (me and my wife for example), then it can be very handy.
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You're reading it correctly. It simply isn't well-suited well for PFS. However, if you have someone you know you'll always be playing with (me and my wife for example), then it can be very handy.Do we know how the Serve command works in PFS? (Sorry if this was taken care of elsewhere in the thread!)
My reading of the Animal Archive suggests that the Serve trick is taught per specific person, not for a generic number of people. For instance, Lini could train her cat Serve (Valeros) or Serve (Seoni), perhaps.
If that reading of the Serve trick is correct, that's...awkward in Pathfinder Society, where you might rarely be playing with the same people. It'd be nice to think that you could get a floating Serve trick that you could assign to another PC at the beginning of the scenario, but it seems like we'd need a campaign ruling for that.
Or maybe I'm just reading the whole thing wrong.
I'd always assumed that, for PFS at least, one picks the character to be served at the beginning of the session. There are similar things (eg, a Mascot Familiar) that work the same way. I've seen it ruled that way a couple of times (including by the author of the PFS Animal companion blog)
I wouldn't be surprised if there is some table variation on that but its not as if a different interpretation of a single trick is going to be a huge deal anyway :-)
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I'd always assumed that, for PFS at least, one picks the character to be served at the beginning of the session.
Every time I read this, I wind up flashing to the Olympic coverage of beach volleyball.
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Thoughts on the Draconic Druid archetype from Legacy of Dragons?
Looks like a pretty strong upgrade to me. No need to train a Drake, just ask him to do something and he's smart enough to do it.
It's pretty rare that a properly trained animal companion can't do what they need to anyway, so thats not really a limit on most companions. haven't looked at the rest of the class though
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I'd always assumed that, for PFS at least, one picks the character to be served at the beginning of the session. There are similar things (eg, a Mascot Familiar) that work the same way. I've seen it ruled that way a couple of times (including by the author of the PFS Animal companion blog)
I wouldn't be surprised if there is some table variation on that but its not as if a different interpretation of a single trick is going to be a huge deal anyway :-)
I'm in the at the start of a session camp but there's a lot of different ways to read that.
For PFS there's going to have to be a specific ruling to allow it to work that way. That would make the most sense for PFS, but until then, doing it that way is out of line with what the trick actually says.
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For PFS there's going to have to be a specific ruling to allow it to work that way. That would make the most sense for PFS, but until then, doing it that way is out of line with what the trick actually says.
Completely wrong. The current situation is unclear so the GM HAS to decide.
Please don't reply with a long complicated argument showing that your interpretation is 100% crystal clear. It isn't clear. Reasonable people can disagree.
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For PFS there's going to have to be a specific ruling to allow it to work that way. That would make the most sense for PFS, but until then, doing it that way is out of line with what the trick actually says.
It most certainly is not.
Serve (DC 15): An animal with this trick willingly takes orders from a creature you designate. If the creature you tell the animal to serve knows what tricks the animal has, it can instruct the animal to perform these tricks using your Handle Animal bonus on the check instead of its own. The animal treats the designated ally as friendly. An animal can unlearn this trick with 1 week of training. This trick can be taught to an animal multiple times. Each time it is taught, the animal can serve an additional creature you designate.
There is nothing specifying how long it takes to designate another creature. It could be the week of training, or it could just as easily be the Free action it takes to issue a command to your animal companion.
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Looking at the serve trick I feel the trick is like attack.
Fluffy, attack that thing.
Fluffy, serve that guy.
Fluffy, serve that guy and that other guy too.
So it's at the beginning of a scenario you tell fluffy who it's going to listen too for the scenario, and you're free to change it whenever you want basically.
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For PFS there's going to have to be a specific ruling to allow it to work that way. That would make the most sense for PFS, but until then, doing it that way is out of line with what the trick actually says.Completely wrong. The current situation is unclear so the GM HAS to decide.
Please don't reply with a long complicated argument showing that your interpretation is 100% crystal clear. It isn't clear. Reasonable people can disagree.
Have you even ready any of my posts? Please go find a single post of mine where I wrote out a long convoluted response about why something works the way it does. I'm not going to call you names or stomp my feet because you disagree with me. That's just ridiculous. It's obvious we have differing opinions on how it works and that's just fine. I have no problem with there being table variance, just please don't assume that I do.
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Have you even ready any of my posts? Please go find a single post of mine where I wrote out a long convoluted response about why something works the way it does. I'm not going to call you names or stomp my feet because you disagree with me. That's just ridiculous. It's obvious we have differing opinions on how it works and that's just fine. I have no problem with there being table variance, just please don't assume that I do.
For PFS there's going to have to be a specific ruling to allow it to work that way. That would make the most sense for PFS, but until then, doing it that way is out of line with what the trick actually says.Completely wrong. The current situation is unclear so the GM HAS to decide.
Please don't reply with a long complicated argument showing that your interpretation is 100% crystal clear. It isn't clear. Reasonable people can disagree.
I apologize. Arguments that seem to hold one readers interpretation of the words up to some holy RAW standard that all players MUST follow get me irked and I thought your post was one such.
I obviously misunderstood you and apologize. I had thought you were saying that one could NOT rule that one could set the targets at the beginning of the session. If you're saying that there will be table variance on whether you can or not then we are in violent agreement.
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Have you even ready any of my posts? Please go find a single post of mine where I wrote out a long convoluted response about why something works the way it does. I'm not going to call you names or stomp my feet because you disagree with me. That's just ridiculous. It's obvious we have differing opinions on how it works and that's just fine. I have no problem with there being table variance, just please don't assume that I do.
For PFS there's going to have to be a specific ruling to allow it to work that way. That would make the most sense for PFS, but until then, doing it that way is out of line with what the trick actually says.Completely wrong. The current situation is unclear so the GM HAS to decide.
Please don't reply with a long complicated argument showing that your interpretation is 100% crystal clear. It isn't clear. Reasonable people can disagree.
I apologize. Arguments that seem to hold one readers interpretation of the words up to some holy RAW standard that all players MUST follow get me irked and I thought your post was one such.
I obviously misunderstood you and apologize. I had thought you were saying that one could NOT rule that one could set the targets at the beginning of the session. If you're saying that there will be table variance on whether you can or not then we are in violent agreement.
No worries, I obviously reacted strongly, too, but I was just making a point.
Jared brings up a good point, though, in that it has its own rule that untrains it, so as long as your Animal Companion doesn't die and you're filled up on training slots for tricks, you can simply teach it again (which in the end would make your interpretation and mine essentially the same).
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Serve specifically says you can untrain serve. So just untrain serve at the end of each adventure and retrain it back for your new crew. No table variation needed
Thanks for pointing that out, Jared. I don't know why I didn't pay attention to the untrain wording. Just to muddy the waters further, the Exclusive trick refers to Serve being a "command" that can be given, not a "trick" as a whole, which sounds more like what Thomas was saying.
Either way, it sounds like you ought to be able to move it around at LEAST at per-scenario speed (maybe only at the end of scenarios if we're being strict, which would be awkward). I wouldn't really want my wolf to have to pay attention to who can give it orders on a per-round basis anyhow, so that might be enough.
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So doesn't it take a week to train? for the untrain group, are they saying that you train it but don't designate anyone until the next scenario starts?
And if you thought I meant that you have to tell it each round to serve that's not what I meant. It'll serve until you tell it to serve someone else or to stop serving.
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I know this was asked years ago, but i never found it and it bothered me. I found it today looking for something else.
Under magic armor
Armor for Unusual Creatures: The cost of armor for nonhumanoid creatures, as well as for creatures who are neither Small nor Medium, varies (see Equipment). The cost of the masterwork quality and any magical enhancement remains the same.
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I would say that you can certainly use the between-scenario undefined time to untrain Serve, but to train it back, you would have to specify who the target is before you know your party. I can't think of any scenarios that give you enough time to train a trick after the briefing, which is presumably when you meet your party.