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HA works on any animal or magical beast that knows tricks.Handle Animal does not work on magical beasts, since they are not animals.Yeah, I was thinking of Wild Empathy when I wrote that.
Actually:
Special: You can use this skill on a creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 that is not an animal, but the DC of any such check increases by 5. Such creatures have the same limit on tricks known as animals do.
So you can use handle animal on magical beasts, if they have an intelligence score of 1 or 2.
Wild empathy has a similar rule:
A druid can also use this ability to influence a magical beast with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, but she takes a –4 penalty on the check.
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Actually:
Special: You can use this skill on a creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 that is not an animal, but the DC of any such check increases by 5. Such creatures have the same limit on tricks known as animals do.So you can use handle animal on magical beasts, if they have an intelligence score of 1 or 2.Maybe that's why I was thinking HA worked on Magical Beasts.
As written, HA works on any creature with an INT of 1 or 2, that includes Vermin. Wild Empathy seems limited to animals and magical beasts.
Most vermin have an intelligence of -, so neither handle anima nor wild empathy work.
HA works on any animal or magical beast that knows tricks.Handle Animal does not work on magical beasts, since they are not animals.
I would think both handle animal and wild empathy work similar to diplomacy, the first to improve a creatures attitude and the other to make a request. The time required to use each action reflects that.Handle Animal does nothing about attitude. It does tricks.
Wild Empathy does nothing about making requests. It does attitude....
And by extension, if an animal was hostile (such as the hypothetical guard dog) then in order to get the dog to not attack you would need first wild empathy to improve it's friendliness level to at least indifferent (Rules are unclear, but there some hints that maybe handle animal should only work on friendly or helpful animals).The rules for the Handle Animal skill say nothing in respect to attitude. The DCs are right there for making it do a trick. You don't need to change the attitude to make the trick work. The rules are clear. People want to make changes to take into account the attitude, but that is house ruling.
/cevah
Yes, because it totally makes sense that you should be able to use Handle Animal on an animal that is aggressively trying to kill you.
I think the handle animal rules were written from the perspective of a friendly or helpful animal, not for all animals in general, though this is obviously never stated. That is why I have asked for official clarification.
Because if you run Handle Animal as it's written you get absurd results. Like a horse tossing it's rider (throw rider trick) because the enemy has a high enough handle animal check to cause it to happen (DC 25 push animal check if they don't know it).
. That is why I have asked for official clarification.
.
started an FAQ bait thread for that...
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Most vermin have an intelligence of -, so neither handle anima nor wild empathy work.
In addition to the normal choices of animal companions, a druid who is so inclined may select a vermin as her companion. Vermin companions follow the same rules as animal companions, advancing their Hit Dice and other abilities per the animal companion base statistics table. Vermin companions can be trained as if they were animals using the Handle Animal skill.
Mindless: Vermin companions have no Intelligence score and possess the mindless trait. In spite of this, vermin companions may learn one trick, plus additional bonus tricks. If a vermin animal companion gains an ability score increase (at 4 Hit Dice, 8 Hit Dice, and so on), the druid can apply this increase to the companion's Intelligence, changing it from — to 1, at which point the companion loses the mindless quality and is able to know up to 3 tricks per point of Intelligence, plus the additional bonus tricks. Vermin companions have no skill points or feats as long as they have the mindless quality.
Yes, HA works on vermin that are companions.
First: "most", not all.
Second: very specific rule for something that isn't a type (game term) of creature, but instead a class feature.
Since animal companions can know lots of tricks, and they can be easily taught them also, anyone who does not teach "Exclusive" will fare poorly against Handle Animal in the hands of a skilled enemy.
Not quite as bad as getting a bow but not buying arrows.
/cevah
Since animal companions can know lots of tricks, and they can be easily taught them also, anyone who does not teach "Exclusive" will fare poorly against Handle Animal in the hands of a skilled enemy.
Not quite as bad as getting a bow but not buying arrows.
/cevah
Doesn't that strike you as a little stupid then?
It basically says you are required to take this trick or else someone can mess with you.
What's worse, that trick didn't even exist until Animal Archives (I think), it certainly wasn't in the CRB.
I do think exclusive has it's use, but it's basically protection against charm monster, or a "friend" back stabbing you.
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Since animal companions can know lots of tricks, and they can be easily taught them also, anyone who does not teach "Exclusive" will fare poorly against Handle Animal in the hands of a skilled enemy.(...)Doesn't that strike you as a little stupid then?
It basically says you are required to take this trick or else someone can mess with you.
What's worse, that trick didn't even exist until Animal Archives (I think), it certainly wasn't in the CRB.
I do think exclusive has it's use, but it's basically protection against charm monster, or a "friend" back stabbing you.
It's excesively silly to interpret the mere existence of the Exclusive trick to imply that without it, anyone can give your pet commands. Trouble is that the rules on Handle Animal take a lot for granted, as I argued in that other thread on the same topic.
Now, I realize that the description of the Handle Animal skill doesn't actually say any of these things. But I do feel strongly that it is implied (so RAI).
From the discussion in this and other recent thread, it seems obvious that any other interpretation is ill-considered and leads to many illogical and uninteded results.
So I encourage all DMs to use common sense. Yeah, that is a "thing", even in rules discussions. <g>
Since animal companions can know lots of tricks, and they can be easily taught them also, anyone who does not teach "Exclusive" will fare poorly against Handle Animal in the hands of a skilled enemy.
Not quite as bad as getting a bow but not buying arrows.
/cevah
Doesn't that strike you as a little stupid then?
It basically says you are required to take this trick or else someone can mess with you.
What's worse, that trick didn't even exist until Animal Archives (I think), it certainly wasn't in the CRB.
I do think exclusive has it's use, but it's basically protection against charm monster, or a "friend" back stabbing you.
How many feats are there that let you do something you should be able to do, but by their existence say now you can't without the feat? I think "Exclusive" could be the same. Now that it exists, it means any animal without it is therefor not exclusive, where before, it was reasonable to think its effect was implied.
As to playability, I think any animal you adventure with had best be hearty enough to withstand the experience, or you will be replacing them routinely. As to being messed with, it is very difficult to turn an animal companion against the party, since they are allies and not enemies. Making them distracted doing something else, is another matter. Then your enemy is spending a standard to make your animal companion waste a standard. I don't think an enemy would consider this worthwhile by itself, as they are better off attacking or casting.
/cevah