LordBiBo wrote:
Is it possible for someone other than the animal companion's owner to give them commands using handle animal? This is of course assuming it hasn't been taught the serve trick.
If it is possible, is there any kind of modifier to the check?
Here's what Ultimate Campaign says,
Non sentient companions wrote:
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.
Since the rules explicitly allow someone else to train your animal companion:
Ultimate Campaign wrote:
Because you’re responsible for using the Handle Animal skill to teach your companion its tricks, you decide what tricks the companion learns. If you’re not skilled at training animals or lack the time to do it yourself, you can hire an expert trainer to do it for you or use the downtime system to take care of this training.
We know that someone else can give your animal commands. It's important to note that since several classes with animal companions get +4 as an ability, that suggests that animal companions will take commands from anyone, it's just easier for the master to do so (i.e. "creature is conditioned to obey your commands").
If two people give the animal a command, the obvious answer is that the outcome should depend on the highest HA roll (must use CHR check if no HA). Since HA is trained only, this stops casual interference. Also, companions which have the link ability should be harder to interfere with.
The real question, imo, is whether you can give commands to a non-ally's animal companion. Again, I don't see anything in the rules that specifically prohibits this, so it's going to be something the GM has to adjudicate without much in-game guidance. Certainly someone using Wild Empathy on an animal first should have an easier time than someone who does not, but the rules do not cover using WE first and then issuing a command for a trick the animal knows.
What makes this situation more complicated is that technically, the animal companion has its own initiative. So unless one or the other delays so that companion and master act together, it is possible someone could override an animals' command before the animal acted. Or, someone could Ready an action to command someone else's companion.
It may be tempting to look at this from a real world perspective, however, I highly advise against that. While it's clear that the game wants to simulate something like a K-9 patrol, there are so many departures from reality, it's not fair to cherry-pick reality when it suits one's agenda and abandon it when it does not (which is exactly what the rules tend to do).
Instead, I advise thinking about it in terms of game-outcome. What is the consequence of allowing others to control animal companions? As a GM, are you prepared to honor that outcome in both directions? In other words, are you prepared to give the same result whether it's NPCs commanding PC companions and vice versa?
