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Now a level one character with 2 prestige can buy a combat trained CR 4tiger. With little investment be able to control it to attack things as a move action.
Now it is illegal to have an animal companion more than 1 hd greater than you with the expense of feats and/or favored class bonuses.
So you can severely exploit what was meant to be fix for 2 PP at low levels?
As a player I hate games where a level 1 players brings in a pet that can kill the entire group. Why is my PC there? Part of me wants to get up and walk off the table as a player and DM when my 1-5 scenario has 1 or as i have seen recently four 4cr tigers.
Why is a player capable of using a device far beyond his power at such low levels? This is no fun and makes me want to stop playing low level games until these things stop wrecking it.
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I have known about being able to buy higher CR animals, but have never actually seen it happen in a game locally. I'm genuinely curious, how many people do this in your area, is this one person doing it or multiple people? And to the rest of my fellow forumgoers, how many of you have seen this happen? Does anyone in the boards participate in this practice?
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See The 100-gold leopard problem and Battle Cattle for earlier discussions of this issue.
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Do they have the Handle Animal trick trained? Can they make the DC 10 to get it to do a trick it knows? (Remember, the DC goes up by 2 if the animal is injured.) Are they taking at least a move action every round to make the animal respond?
And what are they doing with the animal when they aren't in combat? And do they have enough food for it? (The sheer weight of carnivore feed is usually enough to convince players not to drag along an animal that's not a bonded companion. Two days of carnivore feed will encumber most characters.)
Very often when things seem overpowered, it's because the players aren't following all of the "downside" rules.
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Now a level one character with 2 prestige can buy a combat trained CR 4tiger. With little investment be able to control it to attack things as a move action.
Now it is illegal to have an animal companion more than 1 hd greater than you with the expense of feats and/or favored class bonuses.
So you can severely exploit what was meant to be fix for 2 PP at low levels?
As a player I hate games where a level 1 players brings in a pet that can kill the entire group. Why is my PC there? Part of me wants to get up and walk off the table as a player and DM when my 1-5 scenario has 1 or as i have seen recently four 4cr tigers.
Why is a player capable of using a device far beyond his power at such low levels? This is no fun and makes me want to stop playing low level games until these things stop wrecking it.
I believe it was a mistake for PFS to set the upper limit of Animal companion power at one HD higher than class level; the bar should have been the effective druid level can never be higher than total character level.
Combat trained animals, on the other hand, really are a completely different issue despite superficial similarities. Animal Companion classes tend to come with mechanics that allow the critters to be logisitcally managed outside of combat. A combat trained tiger might plow a low level fight, but good luck having a non-animal companion class character getting his combat trained INTO the fight.
Furthermore, 500gp is a bad investment for a combat trained tiger. If you're so low level that it'll carry you in combat encounters (assuming you can get it to the fight in the first place), that's 500gp you're not saving towards your must-have magic items that will necessarily have to come later. If you're high enough level that 500gp is not a noticeable chunk of your WBL, the tiger probably isn't that big a combat asset. Nor will it scale with you as you progress. Come level 3 or 4, the thing is just waiting to die or be retired to your menagerie- either way it won't contribute.
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Very often when things seem overpowered, it's because the players aren't following all of the "downside" rules.
Quoted for truth. However, players in PFS can be fairly reliably counted upon to "conveniently" omit such things; if the GM doesn't enforce downsides, usually noone will.
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I have a younger player that likes having dogs. He usually brought a pair of them to scenarios (I didn't know about the one animal rule at the time). They were never helpful and usually got in the way more often than not. There was a scenario with a kennel in it so the npcs made him put his dogs in there. When they found them chewing on some fresh human bones later on he freaked out... The only "surviving" dog now wanders the waste of the Worldwound as an undead monster....
After that I only see horses now. Though my Co-GM wants a battle trained duck for his alchemist to deliver bombs somehow, he is still working out the details on the how.
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On the other threads that ZomB linked to, someone asked the question whether these animals are considered "always available" or if the purchaser has to have enough fame to get one.
Looking at the applicable text from Guide to Organized Play, it's not clear that animals from Chapter 6 of the Core Rulebook are always available, but because it references the entire chapter and the rather generic term "items", I'd say they probably are. However, I don't think the truly game-breaking animals from Ultimate Equipment and Animal Archive would be always available, because they are not "weapons, armor, equipment, and alchemical gear".
If your GM agrees, at the very least, the characters would have to have at least 5 fame to purchase an animal, which should restrict them to 2nd level characters, at least.
All basic armor, gear, items, and weapons from Chapter 6 of the Core Rulebook, including Small and Large-sized items. This does not include equipment made from dragonhide, but it does include equipment made from the other special materials, such as alchemical silver and cold iron (see the Special Materials section on page 154 of the Core Rulebook). All mundane (completely nonmagical) weapons, armor, equipment, and alchemical gear found in any other source that is legal for play are considered always available.
• +1 weapons (2,000 gp + 300 for the masterwork weapon cost + item cost)
• +1 armor (1,000 gp + 150 for the masterwork armor cost + item cost)
• +1 shields (1,000 gp + 150 for the masterwork armor cost + item cost)
• Potions and oils of 0- or 1st-level spells at caster level 1st (50 gp or less)
• Scrolls of 0- or 1st-level spells at caster level 1 (50 gp or less)
• Wayfinder (50% discount—250 gp; see page 299 of The Inner Sea World Guide)
Beyond the gear noted above, your character is restricted to purchasing additional items from his accumulated Chronicle sheets, or by capitalizing on his fame. Weapons, armor, equipment, magic items and so on that are outside of these lists are not available for purchase at any time.
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Very often when things seem overpowered, it's because the players aren't following all of the "downside" rules.Quoted for truth. However, players in PFS can be fairly reliably counted upon to "conveniently" omit such things; if the GM doesn't enforce downsides, usually noone will.
I agree, but I also think that is true of players everywhere, not just in PFS. It's easy to see a new-pretty-shiny thing and focus on the sparkles, without realizing you have to polish the dang thing three times a day to keep it sparkly. Players might easily run off and buy a pretty kitty without ever once referencing the Handle Animal rules or realizing there is a downside.
Also, most players consider it the GM's job to enforce the downside of things, and since PFS GMs are dealing with a completely different batch of characters at each game, it gets very hard to track these kinds of issues. In a home game, the GM can easily remember that Player 1 has an Oracle's curse that he forgets about and Player 2 has a tiger that she doesn't always buy food for," etc.
When you're up around "Player 30's 10th character", it gets a bit a daunting.
I have seen several players diligently tracking downsides and using up their resources with no GM reminders: it's probably not a coincidence that most of those players are also GMs.
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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One things I see a lot of people forget when it comes to purchased combat-trained animals is they have a specific list of things that they're trained to do.
Combat Training (DC 20): An animal trained to bear a rider into combat knows the tricks attack, come, defend, down, guard, and heel.
Note that attack is only listed once. If they want their animal to attack anything besides humanoids, monstrous humanoids, giants, or other animals, they have to make a DC 25 (27 if the animal is injured) Handle Animal check as a full round action. There's no rules for retraining tricks, and it'd take several scenarios to train an untrained animal to be able work in combat and until then its a waste of money or a danger until it knows at least attack, down, and heel tricks.
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I have a bison who pulls a heavy wagon, On the heavy wagon there's a traveling garden kit with a couple of goats. I am considering purchasing another bison and wagon with a mobile hospital kit and perhaps a third bison and wagon for a mobile prison kit.
After that I'm going to need three squire vanities to take care of them all.
I also have a mammoth (animal companion).
Only the mammoth is used for combat.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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I have a bison who pulls a heavy wagon, On the heavy wagon there's a traveling garden kit with a couple of goats. I am considering purchasing another bison and wagon with a mobile hospital kit and perhaps a third bison and wagon for a mobile prison kit.
After that I'm going to need three squire vanities to take care of them all.I also have a mammoth (animal companion).
Only the mammoth is used for combat.
Thats a nice little caravan you are going to have
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I know the handle animal rules very well. My complaint beyond this is that I have to teach everyone how to use their combat animal because most people do not and let their animals be moved willy nilly. I do not either way. It is not hard to make the dc 10 or 12 handle animal to get it to attack. You can have it defned you at the start of the day and when you get attacked it needs no roll or action, it just eats the guy unlucky enough to attack you.
If you use 2 PP that i thought supercedes the fame requirement. Then how could people buy their CLW wands after their first encounter.
One thing I do is I have them push the animal to do anything they do not have a trick for.
There is a local player that everyone one of his characters has one, and he also encourages and teaches other players to do it as well.
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Just to double-check how this works (not saying you're missing anything, just want to be sure I've got this right):
Character needs 2PP to get the animal, so they can't have it initially.
Once they earn 2PP, they can purchase the animal, bypassing any fame requirements.
Once they've purchased the animal, they can make one attempt per rank in Handle Animal to teach the animal a trick. Failure counts against the number of attempts. So only one trick when they first have the animal. The GM must witness and initial the check. The PC can take 10.
They have to have ranks in Handle Animal to teach the trick.
The DC to train an animal is 15 or 20. Presumably, they'd want Attack Anything as their first trick, which is DC 20.
So at level 1, they have one shot between each scenario to attempt to teach the animal one trick at DC 20.
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I'm not saying it's impossible, but these have to be Charisma-heavy characters to be pulling this off at level 1.
Here's a question: can someone take their 1XP character, rebuild him into 20 Cha at 2XP, make his check, and then rebuild him into a Cha 7 Barbarian at 3XP, keeping the trained animal?
I'd say no, but I'm not sure if the rules currently disallow such shenanigans.
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Redward, the loophole you're missing
Animal Price Price (combat trained)
Tiger 325 gp 500 gp
since you need to spend the 2 pp anyway , you get the combat trained one. It doesn't have attack twice, but will still claw up most of the dungeon for you.
If your players are doing this locally you could start running nothing but druid heavy scenarios....
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If your players are doing this locally you could start running nothing but druid heavy scenarios....
I believe this reference is to the fact that druids tend to have High handle animal skills, and can take over the animals of others. (Even Animal Companions). Watch out players of druids with low skills.
Link (Ex): A druid can handle her animal companion as a free action, or push it as a move action, even if she doesn't have any ranks in the Handle Animal skill. The druid gains a +4 circumstance bonus on all wild empathy checks and Handle Animal checks made regarding an animal companion.
Note that the free action to handle an AC, and the move action to push it only apply to your own animal companion. However, the +4 bonus is not restricted in that way. It's easy for an enemy druid to give commands, and those could very well confuse your companion into inactivity.
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since you need to spend the 2 pp anyway , you get the combat trained one. It doesn't have attack twice, but will still claw up most of the dungeon for you.
I'm aware they would be combat-trained. I just wonder if these players are cherry-picking scenarios without undead or the like or if they have a backup plan in place for when their tiger turns tail and runs.
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I was thinking more more the charm animal/dominate animal/wild empathy line of abilities. I consider controlling an animal companion or other animal that doesn't know you from adam table leaving level of rules lawyering cheese .
I agree with you; handle animal should never be used to issue orders against the owner's desire. Especially not on a combat trained critter.
I've actually seen players argue in a recent scenario that they should be allowed to try to hijack trained attack hyenas by beating the handlers' at Handle Animal checks.
If something is being done TO you, it's rules lawyery cheese. But if you're doing it yourself, it's just "system mastery".
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If its the scenario I think it is, that might work because i think the scenario spells out that the hyena would turn on its owner for a hamburger after some gross violations of druids local 704 rules...
Same goes for the player. If they use the tiger as a gnomish trap detector and the druid offers them 3 square meals a day and legalized catnip....a bought tiger is an NPC with no specially defined relationship to that character.
And there's plenty of scenarios in the undead chorus ensamble, followed by the abberation jamboree....
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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If your players are doing this locally you could start running nothing but druid heavy scenarios....
There's one scenario where the party gets attacked by bandits that are all rangers with favoured enemy animal. The two druids when I ran it thought their dual rhinos were cute, until they both got dropped in the first round ;-)
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It does. Fame limits gold purchases, not all purchases. That's why characters can get a wand of CLW for game 2.
I thought the reason for that was that wands are on the always available list, not because you ignore fame requirements when spending PP.
It's not clear whether animals are always available (particularly those outside Core Rulebook).
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I was thinking more more the charm animal/dominate animal/wild empathy line of abilities. I consider controlling an animal companion or other animal that doesn't know you from adam table leaving level of rules lawyering cheese .
Why? If no one else is ever supposed to control your animal, then why does the Exclusive trick exist? Security dog trainers often use random words for attack and down commands, specifically so that random people can't come along and order the animal to "kill".
If you have a high enough Handle Animal check and can beat the DC, why wouldn't you be able to tell a trained dog to sit, even if you don't know him?
Now, I can see restricting it to tricks the animal already knows (and you have to guess what they are and what the correct command is). I would at the very least make the DC higher for a bonded animal companion, and I'd apply a circumstance penalty if the new command directly contradicts the original one or if combat has already begun. (For example, if the animal is on a stay or a guard, getting it to attack someone or ordering it to heel is pretty doable. If it was ordered to attack you, then it will be much harder to get it to stand down.) If the owner is present, I would probably give him an opposed handle animal check to regain control.
Now if the animal is smarter than normal animal intelligence, that's a completely different issue. I'm not sure how I would deal with that.
Now, she knew the commands from spending the past few days with the knows, and she targeted a knoll she had seen have issues with the handler. She used bluff to help her mimic the handler's voice to get the hyena to attack. I wouldn't call that "taking over the animal" so much as "tricking it into attacking".
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I was thinking more more the charm animal/dominate animal/wild empathy line of abilities. I consider controlling an animal companion or other animal that doesn't know you from adam table leaving level of rules lawyering cheese .Why? If no one else is ever supposed to control your animal, then why does the Exclusive trick exist?
Because, like the exclusive trick points out, things like wild empathy and charm animal exist, and those CAN let someone else order your critter around. The trick changes the animal companion from gnawing on your fighter because his new friend asked him to to looking between his old friend and his new friend. Thats well worth a trick.
Security dog trainers often use random words for attack and down commands, specifically so that random people can't come along and order the animal to "kill".
And knowing the word is not enough. The animal has to know you.
If you have a high enough Handle Animal check and can beat the DC, why wouldn't you be able to tell a trained dog to sit, even if you don't know him?
I have no problem with a sit command, provided the animal is at least neutral towards you. Much harder to do while its chewing on your arm (i know, i've tried) The problem is that the mechanics for the sit command are the same as the mechanics for the attack command, which also don't distinguish between sit and and "attack your human". This gets problematic for a few reasons.
1) Because high enough is only a 10, a peasant with 1 rank can do it most of the time.
2) There's no mechanics for opposed handle animal checks.
3) Even with handle animal rules, the animal is still a character. It still has its own desires and motivations, it is not simply a computer program for anyone saying the magic word.
4) RAW silliness doesn't even distinguish between domestic and wild animals. You can command a charging lion to attack her mate instead with a dc 25 check.
5) Why would wild empathy and charm animal even exist if you can just start issuing commands? Making a mundane skill that takes 6 seconds to use more powerful than the quasi magical connection to nature that takes a minute to use was probably not the intent.
6) Relative to the text of handle animal, exclusive is a very recent addition. Its hard to believe its been rai this entire time for peasants to shoo off a knights horse with a DC 10 check.
Now if the animal is smarter than normal animal intelligence, that's a completely different issue. I'm not sure how I would deal with that.
Its almost standard procedure to up the int. Having a smarter animal is a GOOD thing. My velociraptor can provide a good game of checkers to the nagaji paladins...
Ah no, different scenario. Probably wouldn't let the player try it there. (but nice bluff/imitation check on the part of the player)
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Spells allow a person to do abilities without the ability and or skill requirements. A 5 cha druid can charm an animal with no training in animals. Because Magic
so what if a TRAINED peasant can do something most of the time if the animal is trained to do it. Thats how things are meant to be.
A trained animal has it's own urges traaned out and replaced with serving those tricks. Despite it's orginal desires before it was changed.
A 25 is a very difficult measure to reach. SO you are doing a great task to reach 25. A 25 acrobatics jumps them 6 feet off the ground. Plus a Dm is in his right able to make a charging lion harder than a DC 25.
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The cheapest one is a battle trained bison for 50gp. A group of level 1's can simply trample their way to victory with ease.
Keep in mind, characters have to participate in 3 encounters to get XP, and don't get any loot for encounters they miss. Standing back and watching your purchased pets do stuff does not count as "participating" at my table. Of course, I would tell the players that up front, not surprise them with it at the end.
(Sidebar: on the issue of "carnivore feed" - it's simpler to just buy goats, since goats can carry themselves and don't encumber you or your T-Rex...)
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I did end up purchasing a combat-trained Bison for my Dwarf Oread Cavalier. A Horse or Camel just didn't fit his theme. Plus he needed something to ride until level 7, when he gets his large-sized Owlbear.
I bought it without the intention of using it for combat. Just something survivable that he could use his Mounted Combat feats with, but at the end of one nasty Module the party was nearly TPKed, so I spent the move action and had the Bison go to town.
The only reason we survived was because of it, and nobody minded that the BBEG was gored by an NPC. If we didn't have it as a backup, we'd all be rolling different characters.
But I agree that purchasing such a critter for regular, repeated use is going over the top.
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The cheapest one is a battle trained bison for 50gp. A group of level 1's can simply trample their way to victory with ease.Keep in mind, characters have to participate in 3 encounters to get XP, and don't get any loot for encounters they miss. Standing back and watching your purchased pets do stuff does not count as "participating" at my table. Of course, I would tell the players that up front, not surprise them with it at the end.
(Sidebar: on the issue of "carnivore feed" - it's simpler to just buy goats, since goats can carry themselves and don't encumber you or your T-Rex...)
So, does "participate" include the Cleric, who rolls low on Initiative, at least relatively, every combat, so he never gets to act because the high Initiative blaster or TH meleer kills everything in one hit? How about if all the Cleric does is activate his wand of Bless, or the Bard does his performance?
If yes, how is it different if the meleer is a class feature (AC) or something someone in the party spent their gold on?
How about the goat/sheep trap finders? You know, where someone in the party buys a herd of sheep, then drives them through the dungeon in front of the party, to set off traps and ambushes.
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If it were that great an option everyone would be doing it.
You must have a very low opinion of humanity's capacity for good taste and/or self-control.
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If it were that great an option everyone would be doing it. And since I've only seen it once I'll assume it's just not that great an option.
You know what happens when you assume?
If three level 1's grab a combat bison - they can have them trample any any encounter for several levels is a single round if they're on ground level.
(Each of the bison has a trample which averages 19 damage with a Reflex DC 22 for half damage - and as a group they work against up to large targets. Even if they pass all two of the three saves (unlikely) they'd still take an average damage of 38hp.)
Yes - it's an extremely powerful option. I would never take it as it'd make combat encounters boring and I don't like to cheese that much - but that doesn't keep it from being powerful. (Actually - I would if I ever play Bonekeep. And I'd encourage everyone else in the group to spring for the 90gp for a combat bison with leather armor.)