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Not sure where your getting numbers from.
The DC for a known trick is 10Char 7 with 1 rank is +2 Handle animals
Training harness is +2
for a +4, you still need a 6 to make them do a trick. a 19 to push it.
Most classes with animal companions come with a link ability that grants them +4 to handle animal with thier companion.
The math is:
-2 Cha, +1 Rank, +3 Class Skill, +4 Link, +2 Harness for a total of +8.
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota
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We have a harness, block and tackle in Pumpkin's pack (low level solution), scrolls of Carry Companion spell (prestige point solution), and now... Fly spell (high level solution).
Pumpkin goes everywhere!
Hmm
PS I've had GMs that made me roll Handle Animal on every command. They only stop when I point out that Handle Animal is a DC 10 for tricks that you know, and that Zahra has an effective +18 with Handle Animal on Pumpkin. It's because of GM table variation that Zahra has made Handle Animal the one skill that she puts a point in at every level. It just makes things flow faster for the table overall if I can put that argument to rest.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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A positive and a funny moment from my own Animal companion experience.
We just got done running Crypt of the Everflame. We had a 7 player party, and one of our druids left his bear guarding the second level entrance so we'd not be as crowded.
As for the funny... I have a gnome horselord ranger with a wolf. The wolf has muleback cords, making her light load 300 lbs. So she can carry an unconscious/wounded companion. At one point I couldn't get her to climb a sheer cliff. So off come the muleback cords, they go on the gnome, and she climbs with the wolf on her back. Made for a funny image. :-)
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We have a harness, block and tackle in Pumpkin's pack (low level solution), scrolls of Carry Companion spell (prestige point solution), and now... Fly spell (high level solution).
Pumpkin goes everywhere!
Hmm
PS I've had GMs that made me roll Handle Animal on every command. They only stop when I point out that Handle Animal is a DC 10 for tricks that you know, and that Zahra has an effective +18 with Handle Animal on Pumpkin. It's because of GM table variation that Zahra has made Handle Animal the one skill that she puts a point in at every level. It just makes things flow faster for the table overall if I can put that argument to rest.
I never had a GM that did that, but I do have handle animal really high on my mammoth rider (11 ranks, -2 charisma, +2 training harness, +4 trait bonus on megafauna, +2 feat, +4 because animal companion, +3 class for a total of +24 to handle her mammoth), mostly because with a 4 int companion, if I had to get a new one, it would take forever to train all the tricks back.
I also started carrying scrolls of carry companion along everywhere, and even though I do not have access to the Fly spell, both Spiderclimb and Burrow spells have been quite efficient in getting my companion to come along.
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Outside of PFS I'm sadly reaching one of the conclusions that OP made, that ACs create game lag. In large parties (we have 6 players) my AC in one game, and the conjurers bag of summon monsters really impede the flow of the game, and provide serious traffic issues in the corridors. I am likely to give up the character I love playing, because I recognize the issues it is creating. Our group long ago banned the leadership feat for the same reason, after the most egregious multi-classed something with an eagle AC and a cleric cohort with feather domain and an Eagle AC. He was a one man party, he also statted many of his followers (like footmen and butlers) to stalk him and set up camp.
Inside PFS I am fine with them, because sometimes we have a table of 4, or a lot of level variation, and the extra body in the fight is needed. If I had a situation with a table with 6 ACs I might cry a little as a GM, but hey that is life in PFS.
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Out of combat why waste time rolling though? You know they'll hit a 25 eventually
Rounds/level or minutes/level buffs or any other time sensitive situation. If time is not a factor, the druid can take 20 and there's probably no point in asking or forcing a roll. If time is a factor, that minute to take 20 needs to be counted, or the druid needs to roll to see how many rounds it takes.
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In PFS, for the most part I don't care about the power of your build what I do care about is how much spotlight you take and how long your turn takes. Tables locally tend to have 6 players more often than not, so long turns take away from my enjoyment as a GM or player. I tend to make very powerful characters and try and play down below their full potential (just in case they need to go all out), but I've definitely seen people where that isn't true. I've definitely been at a table where the wildshaped druid, with a pounce kitty, summoned nature's ally every fight alongside the wizard (who is imp shaped), who summoned every fight, and cast persistent aqueous orb (and I think had an improved familiar). Between the two of them they took more actions than the rest of the table - every round. To the point where they began summoning before go in rooms. It gets frustrating as a player and GM. (For the most part I agree with both David and Hmm on animal etiquette. David for the problems which I've experienced and Hmm for solutions. Well played AC/eidolons/familiars are a potentially nice addition to a table that more often just goes wrong) (Summons in PFS I have a very similar opinion on, and are often uneccessary, but that's a different topic)
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(11 ranks,), mostly because with a 4 int companion, if I had to get a new one, it would take forever to train all the tricks back.
You could get almost all its tricks between one game, you can train a number of tricks = to your ranks in handle animal in your case 11 (out of the 12 tricks available for a 4 int animal), all of the bonus tricks come trained for free, even on replacement animals.
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You could get almost all its tricks between one game, you can train a number of tricks = to your ranks in handle animal in your case 11 (out of the 12 tricks available for a 4 int animal), all of the bonus tricks come trained for free, even on replacement animals.
(11 ranks,), mostly because with a 4 int companion, if I had to get a new one, it would take forever to train all the tricks back.
Yeah, but that is now at level 11 :)
Had I been forced to replace my companion prior to level 6, it would have taken me 3 scenarios to retrain. Now it is still two.
Luckily there was not much that wanted to munch on a mammoth in fullplate, 1st level was wooden armor, 2nd to 4th breastplate as I could not take heavy armor proficiency for the companion before that :)
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Id like to see people put the same limits on armor and weapons they do with animal companions. "Ohh your going to the Opera, well no animals allowed its a high society event ...ohh that means no armor or weapons or small pouches that smell like bat guano either"
I roll a 25 on my bluff check and 30 on my sleight of hand.
"No sir, I have no weapon or animal on me. May I go into the opera house?"|
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Use sleeves of many garments to make it look like dress armor, and bring a rapier instead of a ripsaw glaive. In Taldor, falcatas are also a stylish weapon.
Your weapons will usually be masterwork or better, so they'll look fancy enough.
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The only issue I have with animal companions is when people do not know how to play them.
I have seen high level people with animal companions without a rank in handle animal. I had people fight me on having them make handle animal checks.
At a con I had an 8th level druid try to use his Trex as a second character(We already waited 90 minutes for him to setup at our table and use the bathroom and such so were behind). So I told him he can tell it the trick and I will move it to speed up time vs fighting him. Then he threw a tantrum at the table, because he did not want to stay after the game to learn how to play his class feature.
I want people that have features of a character class to know how they work. Especially if they are higher level and had them for awhile. The higher level scenarios can be drawn to a crawl with their complexity already.
When players know how to use their companions and use them correctly they do not bother me at all.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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@Damanta: I'm really looking forward to Where Mammoths Dare Not Tread. Everyone's bringing a companion: mammoth, worg, megaloceros, roc, intelligent sword and I'm guessing an undead army.I think we may need it, we know this GM =P
I want to see this same party get together for the sequel, Sealed Gate...
There are at least three encounters that should be really interesting. (Make sure you have enough time for the optional encounter, it will be *epic*. Especially if you guys are high tier.)
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@Damanta: I'm really looking forward to Where Mammoths Dare Not Tread. Everyone's bringing a companion: mammoth, worg, megaloceros, roc, intelligent sword and I'm guessing an undead army.I think we may need it, we know this GM =PI want to see this same party get together for the sequel, Sealed Gate...
There are at least three encounters that should be really interesting. (Make sure you have enough time for the optional encounter, it will be *epic*. Especially if you guys are high tier.)
I don't think that will happen, as my Mammoth Rider will most likely be promoting to Seeker with Where Mammoths Dare Not Thread
Blackblade Magus (11): Intelligent Sword
Mammoth Rider (11): Mammoth, huge
Inquisitor (7): Roc, large
Cleric (7): Megaloceros, large
Cavalier (8): Worg, large
Cleric (9): necromancer / variant negative energy channeler of Urgathoa, so that's where the undead army expectation is coming from :)
APL 9, so since it's a season 5 we play high tier with 4 player adjustment for Where Mammoths Dare Not Thread.
Also, I already played Sealed Gate (with a different character), and I agree with you :)
And back on topic:
For some people having an animal companion can introduce extra bouts of analysis paralysis because of having too many options, and not everyone has enough system mastery to reduce the amount of options in an efficient way to decide on what they want to do.
If you have problems with players at the table I would have a timer going for rounds, they only have 30-60 seconds and next.
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Depends on the mental speed of a player.
You got the ones who are planning during their turn and taking their time.
You got the ones who are planning prior to their turn.
The faster the mental speed of the player, the quicker their turn zooms by. I have had pets and I usually am plotting out my turn when other people are doing things.
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Mirza has a good point, ideally people should be thinking about their actions prior to their turn. Especially if they have a complex and/or time consuming class feature. That in addition to actually knowing how your abilities work should be considered general player etiquette IMO.
I think if you are doing the above and the animal etiquette stuff mentioned above and in the linked guides, you're golden.
EDIT: I'm not saying you have to be an expert or not have questions, but if you have several levels of using a class feature (like Finlander's example) you should have at least read how it works once.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Mirza has a good point, ideally people should be thinking about their actions prior to their turn. Especially if they have a complex and/or time consuming class feature. That in addition to actually knowing how your abilities work should be considered general player etiquette IMO.
I think if you are doing the above and the animal etiquette stuff mentioned above and in the linked guides, you're golden.
EDIT: I'm not saying you have to be an expert or not have questions, but if you have several levels of using a class feature (like Finlander's example) you should have at least read how it works once.
I quite agree with this. The comment I was responding to sounded more like people with companions were expected to be faster than most people, with or without companions.
Of course you should have stuff precalculated as much as possible, and of course you're thinking ahead what sort of things you might want to do next turn.
But after a few levels, a tactically interesting combat will have enough things changing from turn to turn that you can't quite now what the situation will be when your turn comes up next. A new enemy is summoned, an enemy unexpectedly survives a full attack and is now in position to return the favor, a PC has just gone down and needs immediate attention, a Wall of Fire suddenly separates you from your planned target, you just got Greater Dispelled, and so forth.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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@Damanta: I'm really looking forward to Where Mammoths Dare Not Tread. Everyone's bringing a companion: mammoth, worg, megaloceros, roc, intelligent sword and I'm guessing an undead army.I think we may need it, we know this GM =PI want to see this same party get together for the sequel, Sealed Gate...
There are at least three encounters that should be really interesting. (Make sure you have enough time for the optional encounter, it will be *epic*. Especially if you guys are high tier.)
I don't think that will happen, as my Mammoth Rider will most likely be promoting to Seeker with Where Mammoths Dare Not Thread
** spoiler omitted **
Hey! My Worg is perfectly medium-sized, as all mounts should be!
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In my experience, table composition varies a lot region to region. Some places I've played, everyone seemed to have support characters, it was common to sit down at a table with 2 bards a cleric and a wizard and nobody wanted to stand in the front. Other places, I'd sit back and do nothing playing a face smashing melee character because everyone else was too and they killed everything before my initiative came up. I'm sure there are places where 3 tigers are common at a table. I'm taking an animal companion with my latest PC because I haven't seen a single player field one this year. But that's just the players I play with.
So I haven't experienced ACs causing any problems. Slow combat in my experience comes from players not being prepared, not thinking ahead, or being really awful at math (I'm constantly surprised by how many people take 2 minutes or more to roll a d20 add 5 and come up with the correct result). I've played with a summoner character who regularly had 5+ models on the board and took less time on their turn then another guy playing a fighter. I think the skill and preparedness of the player has more to do with how long their turn takes than how many models they field.
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One of the ways to speed up animal companions in combat is to allow them to act on their masters' initiative. It does give them a small advantage, but it prevents a player being required to handle multiple actions at multiple different times in a round.
When Brock GMed for me, that was how he ran it.
I understand the ease of doing that, but I choose to make them roll twice. Mostly because I want people to know the rules and why things work the way they do. As a player I tell DMs I role for each, and assure them I will finish my turns quickly. I find the DMs that have them role both as the ones that lets get away with murder and it breeds people that do not know how to play animal companions.
In fact in my example above the player told me outright that the rules make you role initiative together for both of them. These are the people that do not know what a trick, push, or the modifiers for such are.
I do not want a player leaving my table using me as a reference for how to play the game wrong.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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One of the ways to speed up animal companions in combat is to allow them to act on their masters' initiative. It does give them a small advantage, but it prevents a player being required to handle multiple actions at multiple different times in a round.
When Brock GMed for me, that was how he ran it.
I understand the ease of doing that, but I choose to make them roll twice. Mostly because I want people to know the rules and why things work the way they do. As a player I tell DMs I role for each, and assure them I will finish my turns quickly. I find the DMs that have them role both as the ones that lets get away with murder and it breeds people that do not know how to play animal companions.
In fact in my example above the player told me outright that the rules make you role initiative together for both of them. These are the people that do not know what a trick, push, or the modifiers for such are.
I do not want a player leaving my table using me as a reference for how to play the game wrong.
When I play, if we need to keep things moving, or if I have a GM who wants me to use a single initiative I just roll separately and take the lowest.
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Roll separately and take the lowest, or delay until your animal goes/have your animal delay for you. Otherwise you're going to run into the tangled mess of what fluffy does on init 10 when when was told to bite orc 1 on initiative count 20 but the barbarian beheaded them on init 15.
Switching turns and getting the player going is sometimes half of the turn. Giving a player two turns is going to exacerbate that.
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I personally prefer when Fluffy is on the same initiative as me. Streamlines the process.nothing is stopping you from rolling twice and take the lower to streamline it.
Most people are fine with that.
Another solution is riding your pet around, at least until combat starts, because this way you and your mount sharea the same initiative*
*use only for streamlining purposes. Do not use to max out fluffies initiative. Do not use if nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant after contact with a WISC, slaad, or other creature lacking bilateral symmetry. If the taste of cheese persists for more than 4 hours contact your cleric...
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I personally prefer when Fluffy is on the same initiative as me. Streamlines the process.nothing is stopping you from rolling twice and take the lower to streamline it.
Most people are fine with that.
Another solution is riding your pet around, at least until combat starts, because this way you and your mount sharea the same initiative*
*use only for streamlining purposes. Do not use to max out fluffies initiative. Do not use if nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant after contact with a WISC, slaad, or other creature lacking bilateral symmetry. If the taste of cheese persists for more than 4 hours contact your cleric...
What have you got against Valais?!
That aside, I very much prefer sharing initiative. Pay your Handle Animal skill rank tax, buy the training harness, take the standard tricks, and get on with things.
You should fail your saves more often :-)
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If we have someone who is a jerk and give him an Iconic/Generic PC, he is still a jerk. He can still ruin everyone's day
You have some people that consider it jerk behavior to do more damage than they do (or in some cases, deal almost as much damage as them) Animal companions are a very easy way to do that.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Some of the most annoying people to play with are total klutzes when it comes to character building. Their extreme ineptitude can be grating. And then they start shooting hostages because they're not sure how to deal with the possessing entity.
And some extreme powergamers are a delight to play with because they know how to share spotlight but also make sure everyone makes it back alive. You look at the iffy signups for a dangerous scenario, worry a bit and then spot their name and "Phew! Ward is playing up only one level, this is going to be fine".