Animal Companion Advice

[Baba Ganoush]

I need some advice on ACs (animal companions)- and nope this isn't a thread looking to select the best one or get it better feats. I need some advice on how to handle them at the table.

When I GM people seem to think it's cruel and unusual when I don't let the player of the druid/ranger/whomever move their AC about the battle map, maximizing strategy, choosing each target, moving to flank etc.

IF the character and AC can communicate WITH SPEECH I can see some of this (but an int 2 AC without skills points in linguistics?) and I don't have a problem letting the player of an unconscious character have the AC stay in the fight to give the player getting something to do. But I really dislike the expectation that a druid doesn't really need to put a point into handle animal nearly every level, and have to make a check to push the animal to attack unusual creatures, or fight near a large fire or while wounded, or that the AC will carefully circle opponents to avoid AoO while moving into a position that will allow the fighter to flank when he gets his turn, etc.

How do other's handle ACs a their table? Is it really standard to let players have a druid and full control of a creature that can probably beat an equal level fighter in a melee fight at least half the time?

[Deighton Thrane]

Well, a lot of these things are called out in the handle animal skill as things you can have your animal do with a free action handle animal check, which if they're trained in probably won't require a roll past the first few levels. Attack specifically states you can designate a target. The Flank trick is obviously there to allow the animal to move to a flanking position. There's a reason why you can take the Attack trick twice, so I don't see why an AC would have to be pushed to attack unusual creatures if it's taken the trick twice. And there's a -2 penalty for handle animal checks when the animal is hurt, you could probably use the same for distractions such as a fire. And ACs aren't mindless automatons, so I see no reason why one wouldn't avoid an attack if it was capable, or trained to do so (as in has ranks in acrobatics).

So yeah, everything you've mentioned is fine at my table, as long as the PCs can make the free action handle animal checks, which most auto succeed at. Quite frankly, I don't see the problem with these, if someone tried to have an animal start disarming, or using dirty trick, I'd have a problem with it. But not allowing a combat animal to be effective in combat because a PC might not outshine it isn't something that works for me. If an animal companion is a strong combatant, it's probably because the character sacrificed wealth and feat, and probably spells to accomplish it, so I see no reason to take that away from them.

So basically how I run them is the player can run the PC and AC unless he's trying to have it do something that no creature with animal intelligence could accomplish, at which point I'd adjudicate what the AC could actually accomplish, so far I've never had to so.

[Manwolf]

The druid doesn't have to have ranks in Handle Animal, even though the skill is "trained only", because of the special relationship with the companion. That doesn't mean they don't need to make the roll.

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.

We do have the player make the HA roll, DC 10 (DC 12 if the companion is wounded) per the table to have it perform a known trick or act in its trained General purpose, and if they succeed then why not let them play their companion as they want? It is their loyal companion.

Animals are smart enough in real life to try and find an opening to attack, as opposed to just blundering into its opponent's attack, and a companion is not a typical animal of it's type. Our rational is that it benefits from this magical bond to the druid as seen by the fact that it advances far beyond what it could otherwise be as a normal animal out in the wild. After all, a wolf is a 2HD creature as day long, until it is the companion of a 20th level druid and then it is a 16HD creature with some of the abilities of a rogue. It can hold its own for a couple levels but it shouldn't be beating up fighters after 3rd or 4th level unless the fighter is really crappy.

[Drakkonys]

Animal Companions are supposed to be handled by the GM since they fall into the non-sentient companions category according to Ultimate Campaign. Unless the master and the companion can communicate in some way, that is. Most of the time, the GM will leave the AC to be handled by whoever owns it, for practical reasons.

Quote:

Nonsentient Companions: a nonsentient companion (one with animal-level intelligence) is loyal to you in the way a well-trained dog is—the creature is conditioned to obey your commands, but its behavior is limited by its intelligence and it can't make altruistic moral decisions—such as nobly sacrificing itself to save another. Animal companions, cavalier mounts, and purchased creatures (such as common horses and guard dogs) fall into this category. In general they're GM-controlled companions. You can direct them using the Handle Animal skill, but their specific behavior is up to the GM.

Druids don't really need to put ranks into Handle Animal; their AC get bonus skills. Although, having no ranks in Handle Animal will make for a poor druid and it'll make teaching your AC additional tricks and pushing it that much harder. Still, you would get that +4 circumstance bonus.

An AC with an INT 2 wouldn't carefully circle an opponent to flank him; he'd provoke an AoO. That's where Mobility and Acrobatics come in. An animal is still smart enough to try and evade its opponents attacks with a successful Acrobatics check.

I love playing druids with animal companions, and it is kinda unrewarding if your GM is handling them. Feels like you don't own them :) But, if you're going to let your players have control over them, you have to be really careful not to let them exploit it and have their AC's do things a normal animal wouldn't. Yes, a druid's AC is special, but it is by no means a more intelligent member of it's species. Unless you boost it's INT to 3. However, training an animal to be smarter, more intuitive, or more self-aware is less easy to justify; except in the context where people can cast spells and speak with animals.

Some things are fairly obvious and instinctual for an animal; a lion will pounce and grab, a wolf will trip, a snake will constrict, etc. But having your lion circle around the enemy camp and sneak up on an enemy wizard or cross a Wall of Fire would require some handling, in my opinion.

Animal Archive and Ultimate Campaign both hold many useful information on Animal Companions and how to control them.

[Bob Bob Bob]

So both you and the players need to have a conversation about expectations (isn't that always the first answer to GM-player interactions?). By the rules, you're absolutely correct. Your players might just want to treat it as a second character (in which case the rules are getting in the way of their fun).

Personally, the druid in my game has forgotten his animal companion. If he remembers it (I'll remind him again) I'll probably run it like an Int 3 barbarian. "Here is the list of words Smashy understand. Point and yell the word you want. If it's fancy you have to explain it. Smashy will try to avoid dying but fancy thinking make brain hurt." With exceptions for certain things animals are specialized to do, like a wolf with trip or a tiger with pounce/rake. A druid with 10 Charisma hits the DC 10 Handle Animal check with only two ranks and taking a 1. The rolling for known tricks would just slow down the game. This is true of every class with Handle Animal as a class skill. Those without just take a few more levels (and still need to roll ridiculously low). I would still make them roll for the "push" use of Handle Animal though because it's not the ridiculous sure thing of known tricks.

So, short version, I ignore known trick rolls once they can hit the DCs all the time (or even almost all of the time) but make them roll push rolls. Otherwise I let the player control it but point out any instances of behavior that deviates too far from "not that bright barbarian/fighter" (Too smart or too dumb, "Would he really be smart enough to work the lever with no hands? Or recognize a lever at all?" or "She's a living creature with a functioning survival instinct, she's not going to throw herself into spinning blades to stop them for you").

[Onyxlion]

One thing to note here, and I'd suggest it for nearly any pet class, is that you can stat bump int of the companion. At 3+ int the companion is capable of putting ranks into any skill, including linguistics, and learning any feat it's body is capable of. Also buy putting a rank in linguistics and picking a language it is capable of understanding that spoken language.

[Dustyboy]

My favorite companion above all else would have to be the Ape, by RAW you can mount it, and with the right training it can wield weapons, which may seem a bit odd, but consider taking the first feat as a skill focus (Perception or climb?) and then buffing its int to 3, you can have the thing as an Arboreal mount or backup gunner, both if you want to make it some sort of a switch hitter.

you would need to be lightweight (Don't worry because druids, rangers, and hunters are all light armor types), and grab the thing some good mithral armor.

The other thing is that Apes are considered to have a certain aura of intelligence to them, and a totem ape would be fine as you're not worrying about multiattack if your ape has a greatsword or a longbow (Though i'd just give him EWP Double hackbutt)

My ranger at the time was actually a gnoll from a jungle dwelling tribe, citing the social interactions of hyenas being similar to old world apes and a jungle being too dense to cater to the needs of the Hyenadon, so Hyenas are reserved to the baser creatures.. Plus the idea of a tribal gnoll riding on a massive silverback shooting arrows from the treetops is great to me.

There's actually an archetype for inquisitor which grants all teamwork feats to ACs, and an archetype for druid which gives slayer talents (Including "Ranger combat style") as opposed to wild shape.

for your interest here's a list of good classes for Combat Beasts

Hunter: Gaining teamwork feats is brutal, plus having most of the good buffs of a druid is icing on the cake, you're not a switch hitter like a ranger but you have summons and a beefier animal companion, with skirmisher tricks and teamwork feats.

Huntmaster Inquisitor: Two Animal companions, what's better? Well see below

The dog lover build concept:

Human Huntmaster Cavalier 4/Huntmaster inquisitor: You get just as many teamwork feats, but you can take a feat to essentially get another scaling companion, grab skill focus (nature?) and grab another animal through sylvan heritage, that's four of them scaling relatively well, then divide them into a group of dogs or riding dogs, with an alpha (Full progression), a few mid packers (Maybe 1/2-2/3 your level or so) and a bunch of stupid level 1's. There's the eye for talent alternate trait (+2 to one stat for AC's) the huntmaster feat too which gives you an effective level when handling a few types of animals (One of which being dogs).. and both of these abilities are per animal, so your grunst will all be level 2, and of course boon companion at some point, it'd finally be a use for a dog tbh, as naturally they're junk but in mass you can surround an enemy with wounded paw+broken wing gambits.

As a special note, half orc also qualifies for these feats, and that means you could dip barbarian and they could all rage with you due to sharing teamwork feats :) Do you want a halforc with a giant pack of pitbulls and rottweilers to make them all go craze at once? Find ways to max out AoO's for tripping and everyone is on the ground being hit with an axe or bitten by like ten dogs.... mix it with wolf shaman, some summon and metamagic abilities, metamagic cost reduction SNAIII traits, and you can actually summon really powerful dogs..

So there's also the Ecclesitheurge Cleric... Extra domain right? doesn't sound that great but.. think about a generalist animal god..

saurian domain, animal domain, Monkey Domain....(1 witchanimal/2fighter) Now go ahead and nature oracle... So you're defending the natural world right? Know what's part of that? Fighting those extraplanar bastards!!!! DOWN WITH THEM! You're going to be a knight of nature... that's right, you're a huntmaster cavalier again for four levels (So level 12.. not bad really), you take beast rider as a feat... now you have a triceratops army, but it's +2 instead of +1.. and if you're worrying about scaling, you're in for a delightful suprise... Hellknight allows you to stack those three domains and the mystery, if you wait a bit longer you could argue being of the philosophy of the noble animal, take chivalry

That's right.. I'm of course talking about
Others:

Diabolist: Imp companions are brutal, you can stack this with quite a few good classes.

1 witch (animal patron) and the rest eldrich guardian fighter: Not technically an Animal companion, but allows you to get an improved familiar (I'd say grab a mauler) with rediculous strength and a lot of feats, I'd actually reccommend imp or monkey again for this as they can use tools, and you can make them medium.

Mauler imp actually gets quite a bit of power, medium creature with a bunch of at wills and strength buffs.

depending on level you might want to take a similar approach with shaman, gets you an animal companion kind of

[Ckorik]

Well if the animal knows the trick they should only need to make the DC 10 (or 12) handle animal roll to make them do what they want.

Flank is a trick - so if you say 'flank' it should attempt to do so assuming you make the roll.

The animals/familiars at our table have separate initiatives so that makes it rather interesting - outside of a given command to attack the animal will stay by it's master in guard mode - they should automatically attack anything that gets close and attacks their master.

There are also tricks for combat maneuvers - I figure if they know 'trip' they will try every attack - if you take the 'trick' they will only do so when commanded, regardless of if they have the trip special ability or not (same goes for other special abilities - grab for instance is automatic unless you teach them the trick - then it's on command).

A push is to get them to do a trick that they don't currently have - which would include sneaking up on the wizard for example. The 'link' a druid has with an AC should allow them quite a bit more control and leeway than you'd expect over a real world type situation - and if you ever have seen some advanced dog training videos you know that what we can do without special links and abilities is already quite amazing.