New campaign, Nature Oracle with Bonded Mount (INT 6).
Do you have to teach an INT 6 animal tricks? If yes, how many do they get? INT 1 gives you 3 and INT 2 gives you 6, so does INT 6 give you 18?
Sentient Companions: a sentient companion (a creature that can understand language and has an Intelligence score of at least 3) is considered your ally and obeys your suggestions and orders to the best of its ability. It won't necessarily blindly follow a suicidal order, but it has your interests at heart and does what it can to keep you alive. Paladin bonded mounts, familiars, and cohorts fall into this category, and are usually player-controlled companions.
So the paladin explicitly doesn't require handle animal for his companion with 6 intelligence. The intention seems to be the same for the Oracle, but it's never explicitly stated.
Edit for comparison:
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.
Answer
Also going to point out that this blog was way back in early 2011. My quotes are from Ultimate Campaign which was published in 2013, so that book would take precedence over this blog post.
It's really not that unusual for something in a blog post to later be invalidated by an official source. Minds can be changed. Rules can be re-evaluated.
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Your quotes from Ultimate Campaign do not say what you think they do.
Your quotes address animal level intelligence vs sentient companions. However, adding intelligence to animals does not grant sentience, that is the purview of Awaken Animal only. They are otherwise merely extremely intelligent animals, but still only animals. It does grant them extra skills, tricks, and the ability to take any feat which it is physically capable of performing.
But clearly, outside of the paladin's bonded mount, they require handle animal to get it to perform any actions. And the paladin's mount isn't even clearly exempted, it falls into the category of sentience which means it may be able to act intelligently on its own. But that doesn't mean it knows what its master wants it to do. It doesn't speak common. You still have to use handle animal and get it to perform tricks.
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Being an older resource does not invalidate it until a newer resource specifically states that it does so. Pretty sure my physics textbook from 2010 is still pretty darn accurate.
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This is just from PFSP. The ultimate campaign dose not allow the listed marital and is not legal for use in play. Only the blog post is legal for play. So if your playing PFSP you must have handle animal.
If you gave the animal ranks in linguistics and chose common. Then yes your animal could under stand common. As pointed out in the blog post. That dose not mean they will do what you want. It just means the animal understands the language spoken.
A GM at a home game can make any rule they want to. This is a grey area where I can see both sides. With PFSP it has a ruling from the blog post. On what exactly higher int dose for animal companions.
OK, so Handle Animal is still required.
How many tricks could an INT 6 animal know? I'm tending towards 18 (3 per point of INT) or pretty much all of them.
The player is spending one of the animal's (wolf) skill points on linguistics so it will be able to understand spoken and written Abyssal (Oracle has Tongues curse).
I'm not so sure the legality of UC is an issue. The UC text is not "equipment, traits, deities, spells, feats, and classes contained within, nor is it even an actual rule at all. Rather it is merely a clarification of the rules already posted in Core. It could be considered a print version of FAQ.
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At int 6 i'm leaning towards no.
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I'm not so sure the legality of campaign is an issue. The UC text is not "equipment, traits, deities, spells, feats, and classes contained within, nor is it even an actual rule at all. Rather it is merely a clarification of the rules already posted in Core. It could be considered a print version of FAQ.
If your playing PFSP. The GM rule is the Blog. You can rule it any why you want when you GM. However for Pathfinder Society Play the blog post must be followed for animal companions. That is the rules set forth by the campaign coordinator. Feel free to change it in your game all you want. However if some one else if the GM check with them first. To see what their decision is. This can go both ways.
I know for a fact in my home games I follow the blog post. For a few reason the biggest. Just because you want some one to do something and they know how to do it. How good are you at getting them to do it. That's what the blog post is talking about. Handle animal skill is your ability to get animals to do what you want. Just like diplomacy is your ability to get other NPC to do what you want. You could even go so far as to say with a higher Int. You would need to diplomacy your animal to get it to do what you want. That's a mini of 1 min. talking to them. So for game play simplicity start with handle animal and keep it that way.
Just a side note. 18 tricks is not the max number of tricks available. Total tricks 30 not counting the ones that you need multiple times for different effects. For example Attacks, Attack(X2), and maneuver.
Haven't seen any rules stating that higher INT animals stop needing tricks...
so yes they do.
3 tricks per INT point is correct.
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Haven't seen any rules stating that higher INT animals stop needing tricks...
so yes they do.
3 tricks per INT point is correct.
at 3-4 that makes sense. When the horse starts beating the nagaji paladin at checkers though its time to reconsider.
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at 3-4 that makes sense. When the horse starts beating the nagaji paladin at checkers though its time to reconsider.Haven't seen any rules stating that higher INT animals stop needing tricks...
so yes they do.
3 tricks per INT point is correct.
Meh, often discussed post.
Animals are animals.
INT score doesn't discuss free will/sentience... it's just a number.
Rules for tricks don't get ignored if INT rises.
Most aspects of the universe do not change. Our understanding of the known universe changes on a daily basis. Let's all remember when mankind thought the Earth was flat and that the sun rotated us. Perhaps a biology book would be a better example.
But my point stands. The resource is not invalidated because it's a few years old as long as a newer resource has not specifically invalidated it.
For clarification, paladin bonded mounts eventually become magically beasts at 11th Paladin lvl. According to what is stated in the Sentient Companion section of UC paladin bonded mounts are at the same level as cohorts and familiars when being issued orders and should be treated as such. They are not regular animal companions such as what the ranger and druid classes get. But as far as I know paladin bonded mounts are the only exception to this, no other class feature that grants an animal comapion does this. So trying to raise an animal's intelligence to even 6 still needs the Handle Animal Skill to be used to give it commands and orders.
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You get 12 more points of tricks (3 per int from 2 to 6) above what you had at 2 int. So 18 for 6 int.
Another FAQ from 2011 This is from PFS for what is legal there.
In addition, you need to give it one skill point in linguistics for it to learn Common. It would get one skill point per hit die (since there is minimum 1) as you level.
One off-handed comment in UC is not enough to invalidate all the other rules regarding intelligent animals, especially when it does not explicitly say "you no longer need tricks". Especially considering, if that WERE the rule, then Awaken would be obsolete.
The UC wording is only for "who should control the animal", if you look at the Aspects of Control section. it is meant as a guideline. Later in the Companions section it even says if the player controls the animal, then there's no need to take Handle Animal at all, but that certainly doesn't mean there is now a "rule" that states handle animal is unnecessary since you can do what you want if the GM lets you!
So trying to raise an animal's intelligence to even 6 still needs the Handle Animal Skill to be used to give it commands and orders.
Where are you getting the idea that INT is being raised to 6 here?
The OP was very clear this is from Nature Oracle ability granting "Bonded Mount", same term as for Paladin.
What I find really odd is that no where, in that blog post or following discussion with Jason, were Paladin mounts mentioned at all. They are the most certain "animals" to have a high intelligence, so why weren't they mentioned? It's like discussing common examples of operating systems without mentioning Windows. Did no one back then even consider Paladin mounts to be animal companions? Can we be sure that the blog post was ever meant to relate to automatically intelligent animals at all?
All that said, the bit from UC means that by current RAW, you don't use handle animal on a paladin mount. Now you can argue that PFS does it different, but that would be one of the house rules of PFS.
After relooking at all the rules and faqs as well as the posts about the subject in question, no matter how high an animal's intelligence gets its still an animal and bound by the handle animal rules. Now I stated this earlier a paladin's bonded mount eventually becomes a magical beast at the PC's 11th paladin lvl, not even the oracle's bonded mount gets this. At this point it is no longer an animal and not subject to the handle animal rules. This may be the very reason a paladin's bonded mount falls under the sentient comapion rules in UC when no other kind of animal companion feature class does. Again this is pure speculation, but that's how I see it. Since this has stirred such a debate, I say a FAQ is needed on the subject, at least for the bonded mount part.
What happens when the mount has an higher Int score than its rider?
The Bonded Mount start with int 6 and can easily become 7
What happens when the mount has an higher Int score than its rider?
The Bonded Mount start with int 6 and can easily become 7
Then horses become the dominant species and subordinate paladins to their will.
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Do they teach tricks to the paladin?
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In PFS it's pretty clear due to the blog post that any animal is always going to behave like an animal. You always need handle animal and understanding common is not the most useful thing in the world.
In my own home games, I personally believe that the more intelligent something is, the less you need Handle Animal. So once that animal starts hitting 4 or 5 intelligence it starts acting a bit more intelligently. Some people agree, some people don't, and it's really up to the GM to moderate.
Another note about ACs with high int: animals get 2 skill points per HD which in almost all situations for a companion get reduced to 1, but if you got their intelligence up to 10 in a way that's not subject to the normal headband of intelligence qualifiers (repeated uses of Wish?) they would start getting 2 skill points per HD as well.
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Do they teach tricks to the paladin?
CR 30: Don't be lawful stupid
Babies start at INT 10 on average (look at the young template).
That...that is not what the young template is for.
Does it understand that boobs = deliciousmilk? It does.
Well duh. That's an intrinsic knowledge to all living creatures.
I.e., babies communicate and operate on basic connections in a way similar to tricks
That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.
~~~
In conclusion, you're not even wrong.
I didn't mean to imply that young = newborn. I meant that if INT doesn't change between young and adult, then by extrapolation, it wouldn't to a baby either. This is the closest RAW evidence I am aware of.
So, you see no discernible difference between the average intelligence of an adult and the average intelligence of an infant.
I don't think I even need to make an argument here. It's pretty self-evident.
My PFS 11 int Axe beak Still needed tricks(7 int oracle). The rule set for animals does not take into effect the animals companions int.
Animal companion=yes it needs tricks. Those are the rules.
If you wanna change this in home game by all means. You get a crazy number of tricks at those high ints. If they have the similar tricks i would allow a PC with a high int AC to use other tricks to do what they want if they were similar enough.
The UC portion listed above is an optional rule int he Campaign systems. They are not part of main set of rules.
"Campaign Systems
This chapter presents a variety of small tweaks for your campaign, each one focused on giving life to moments and depth to activities in your game. You can use these systems individually or mix and match them together to taste."
By the rules of the game, no. The rules for Intelligence scores, the Animal creature type and the Handle Animal skill all agree: Animals of Int 1 or 2 run on instinct, and can be trained and directed with the handle animal skill. Creatures with 3 or more Int are sapient, can learn languages, and cannot actually be animals. Specific trumps general, so the paladin's Int 6 warhorse is still an animal, and the Druids Int 3 Tiger companion is also an animal. But neither of those creatures need Handle Animal. In fact, the way Handle Animal is worded, creatures with Int scores other than 1 or 2 can learn zero tricks.
As quoted above from Ultimate Campaign, the Paladin's warhorse is an example of a sentient creature that works with the master without need for tricks. Any companion with 3 or more Int and a single rank of linguistics meets the definition of sentient companion in that paragraph. And that paragraph is an explanation of existing rules, not a new invention.
PFS rules, yes, even creatures that spoke fluent Common *before* becoming companions require training and handling like a puppy.
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At intelligence 7, a paladin mount must adhere to a strict code of ethics or loose their paladin mount powers.
Your quotes from Ultimate Campaign do not say what you think they do.
Your quotes address animal level intelligence vs sentient companions. However, adding intelligence to animals does not grant sentience, that is the purview of Awaken Animal only.
The quote defines "Sentient Companion" (3+ Int, understands at least 1 language), and provides examples of "Sentient Companions". So what, exactly, is your argument for why all of this is invalid and only Awaken grants sentience?
Handle Animal is based off of the assumption that the creature is an animal (but makes allowances for low INT creatures other than animals, adding 5 to the DC).
It does not say anywhere in the skill that raising the INT grants extra tricks, nor does it mention that raising the INT removes the need for tricks.
So just by reading Handle Animal, an INT 3+ animal gets 6 tricks (plus any bonus ones listed under animal companion or similar ability) and still requires training.
If rules exist contradicting this, someone could cite them, everything else is just baseless assumption.
Most of us houserule 3 tricks/INT point, but I don't recall actually seeing this in print.
nor does it mention that raising the INT removes the need for tricks.It doesn't have to mention this in handle animal. Some other texts elsewhere in the book take care of that by providing another viable option that simply bypasses handle animal completely. Specifically "INT 3+ can take any skill" + "Linguistics skill point comes with language" + Language by definition meaning understanding sentences
If you don't read the rest of the book, then you could just read "Running action" and conclude "Oh well I guess I can't do anything in pathfinder except run"
Note that language doesn't even conflict with handle animal -- when you say something, all it does it make the animal understand it. He can choose to do it or not, so you aren't even doing any of the things listed in HA. Handle animal is fundamentally different, it FORCES the animal to do something with a check passed.
I didn't mention language once in my post.
Are you stating that having access to a language removes the need for tricks?
If so, what is this based on? Contradicting an existing rule requires finding something that actually talks about changing how things work, otherwise it's business as usual...