So, what exactly can I do using the Handle Animal skill with regard to wild animals? The skill description states that I can domesticate wild (infant) animals, but also that I can push an animal or teach it tricks.
This does not seem to imply that I can't teach a wild animal tricks, or push it... But at the same time it seems reasonable that the DC ought to be higher to push an angry grizzly than a tame collie.
There are also people in real life- "lion tamers" and so on- who handle and teach tricks to animals, though these animals would not be considered "domesticated" by any reasonable measure of domestication. Domesticated animals, in the normal sense, are "safe" around civilians and even children, and can share a living space with people.
Since the skill gives us no new technical definition of a "Domesticated Animal" I assume the normal definition applies. Since the skill says that one can teach tricks to Animals (as opposed to "Domesticated Animals") I assume that means any animal. Ditto with Pushing the animal.
This may seem overly powerful, and maybe it is. I propose higher DC's for wild animals (probably based on HD) to be pushed. But ultimately, the question is this; is there anything in the RAW (or FAQ) to stop Handle Animal being used to Push (or train) an adult wild animal?
Hmm... I'm a bit concerned that a question about something straight out of the core rulebook seems to have vexed the boards. Is it answered somewhere else? I didn't find anything on the FAQ, but maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Does nobody know or is this just uninteresting the majority of people?
I can't find any explicit text for this, but the gist of the tricks section seems to imply that an animal must be Friendly or Helpful before you can Handle or Push it. Otherwise you can order around wild animals with a flat DC 25 Handle Animal check, which just seems weird. Or command your enemy's animal companion instead of them (which is equally weird).
This is all from the text of the Exclusive trick, which says Exclusive wrote: An animal with the exclusive trick does not take trick commands from others even if it is friendly or helpful toward them (such as through the result of a charm animal spell), though this does not prevent it from being controlled by other enchantment spells (such as dominate animal), and the animal still otherwise acts as a friendly or helpful creature when applicable. So no handling or pushing an animal until you've at least made it Friendly, but the only way I know to do that is Wild Empathy. And Charm Animal, I guess. No clue how it works for horses and other animals you buy, presumably they're all trained with Serve (or the trainer puts in a good word for you with the horse).
I would assume you need wild empathy for it. But the rules are not clear on it. Seems you CAN use handle animal on a wild animal. But that might mean risking attack.
Looking at the definitions of Handle Animal and Wild Empathy, It doesn't look like it makes any easier or harder to Handle an animal because of its attitude.
If you're trying to teach a wild animal with an INT score of 2 a trick it isn't any harder than teaching a domestic animal with an INT score of 2. The only side difference would be training method used. Additional protective measures might be required in teaching a wild animal (Whip, protective armor/gear, chair, etc), but the difficulty in the actual training isn't any different.
Once trained, getting them to perform the trick they know is the same since they know what they're supposed to do, but again, may require extra caution and protective measures with the wild animal.
Pushing a wild animal to do something (within reason) is difficult, but possible if your handle check is good enough (I'd think of it as a semi Intimidate check to get it to do what you want). Fail the check and it ignores your attempt and attacks. succeed and you can coerce the animal to do something once, but will have to keep doing so each time until you fail and it attacks you.
The Wild empathy ability comes in handy to change the attitude of a wild animal such that if you fail your handle animal check to make it do something, it won't attack you.
think of the magicians Sigfried and Roy and their tigers.... I'd imagine they'd have some "Wild Empathy" going initially with their animals to calm them down so they're not apt to attack if their handle animal checks fail. they just get looked at by the animals in confusion trying to figure out what they want done...
Hmm... This is somewhat helpful, and sort of along the lines I was thinking, SeekerOfDragons. Unfortunately, Wild Empathy, like Diplomacy, only works for a few hours by RaW, unless the GM rules otherwise, which I assume should depend on the beast's long-term treatment, etc.
Assuming the animal was well-treated during downtime, I don't see a reason to assume that it would remain Unfriendly to it's handlers, which would be the only reason it might attack (these are the people feeding/taking care of it, presumably. However, I suppose on a botched roll... It is a wild animal, after all.). I don't assume that Sigfried and Roy had Wild Empathy, though- I just think really good Animal Handling. Lion tamers and stage magicians I think are probably Experts (*Maybe* bards in the case of world famous magicians, but clearly they have no actual magic), as opposed to Druids or Rangers.
Actually, looking up the Druid has yeilded something of an answer to what "wild animal" means, game mechanically. According to the Wild Empathy entry: "The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly." As far as I have found, this is the only reference to Wild Animals with any rules implications outside the Handle Animal skill itself. This seems to bear out what you are saying, SeekerOfDragons, though I would argue that with good treatment you could raise an animals attitude toward you... Unless maybe it's a reptile or something else with an Int of 1. They might be too dumb to realize that you are taking care of them and have relived them of the burdens of finding food/avoiding predators.
The wild elephant in the room, though, is that I can "push" the wild elephant in the room with a DC 25 check, same as my border collie that I've had for years...
EDIT: Thanks for the replies, everyone!
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Wild Empathy takes time.
Generally you attempt a DC 25 "Push" of the Down trick with the wild animal so they don't use you as a chew toy. Assuming you manage that, then a Wild Empathy check can convince them that you aren't a threat -- improve their attitude towards you.
At the point that the attitude is Friendly you have a pretty easy Handle Animal to make it go away.
Look at Rear a Wild Animal for the difficulty of training a wild animal.
Since Rear a Wild Animal assumes it is since infancy, you are looking at GM ruling or the Animal Companion class feature to convince an adult wild animal to accept you and get taught any tricks.
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