How do Animals and Handle Animal Interact?

[JDLPF]

Relevant rules from p. 189:

Quote:

ANIMALS

Prices are listed for both renting an animal for a task or trip and purchasing one outright. You usually need to pay for rentals up front, and if the seller believes the animal might be in danger, they typically require a deposit equal to the Price of the animal. Most animals panic in battle. When combat begins, a mount becomes frightened 4 and has the fleeing condition as long as it’s frightened. If you successfully Handle your Animal using Nature (see page 153), you can keep it from fleeing, though this doesn’t remove its frightened condition. If the animal is attacked or damaged, it returns to frightened 4 and is fleeing, with the same exceptions.

Warhorses and warponies are trained for combat. They don’t become frightened at the start of combat or when attacked or damaged.

Statistics for all listed animals appear in the Pathfinder Playtest Bestiary.

•Do animals other than mounts gain frightened 4?

•Do animal companions gain frightened 4?

Relevant rules from p. 153:

Quote:

HANDLE AN ANIMAL

You prepare a helpful animal to accept your commands. If you are trained in Nature, you can use Handle an Animal on a friendly or indifferent animal as well.

Success Until the end of your turn, you can use the Command the Animal action to direct the animal. You can Mount the animal (see page 309).

COMMAND AN ANIMAL
You issue an order to an animal that’s obeying you, either because you previously used Handle an Animal successfully (see below) or you have the Ride feat (see page 170). Most animals know the Leap, Seek, Stand, Stride, and Strike basic actions. If an animal knows an activity, such as a horse’s Gallop, you can command the animal to perform the activity, but you must spend as many Command an Animal actions as the activity’s number of actions. The animal uses the action you command.

Most animals understand only the simplest instructions, so you might be able to instruct your animal to move to a certain square but not dictate a specific path to get there, or command it to attack a certain creature but not to make its attack nonlethal. The GM decides the specifics of the action your animal uses.

•Do you need to Handle Animal (1 action) each round of combat to issue the same orders via Command Animal (1+ actions) to a purchased animal?

•Does this differ for an animal companion?

[N N 959]

JDLPF wrote:

.....

1) The rules under Animal suggest that "most" animals get frightened by combat. Most probably means anything not an Animal Companion or some other special categories reserved for future use.

2) Animal Companions use separate rules and there is nothing in that section that says they get frightened. It would be pointless to have an AC if it get frightened in every combat.

3) Yes. Per the rules, you must first use Handle Animal on a non-companion and then use Command Animal. HA only lasts long enough for you to use Command Animal. Essentially, if you're commanding an non-companion, your PC will only have one action left, assuming the command you're giving the animal does not take two actions.

You should note that Handle Animal and Command Animal are both listed as Untrained uses of Nature, but apparently you need to be Trained in Nature to command anything that's not a domesticated animal.

4) An Animal Companion seems to have two differences:

1 - You do not need Handle Animal on a companion

2 - Commands only cost one action, regardless.

p.284 wrote:

They have the minion trait, so they gain 2 actions during your turn if you use the Command an Animal action to command them; this is in place of the usual effects of Command an Animal.

I interpet that last line to mean that you only have to issue a one-action command to get two actions out of the companion.

5) Regarding the Command every round, the answer appears to be yes, by virtue of rules found in the Druid class for Animal Companion.

p. 82 wrote:

Special If you are a druid of the animal order, your animal companion is more controlled than most. During an encounter, even if you don’t use the Command an Animal action, your animal companion can still use 1 action that round on your turn to Stride or Strike.

This would suggest that if you don't use Command Animal, your animal does nothing. Also, Paladin's get this bonus with their mounts, but Rangers do not seem to get this benefit. This is a nerf to the Ranger's AC because of things like Hunt Target and the fact that Rangers might have other actions to perform. So a Ranger that wants to use its AC in combat, will never get more than two attacks.

There's a lot of other problems with the rules here. In P1, there were lots of tricks for controlling the animal in various situations, like entering a burning building. There doesn't seem to be any Follow, Heal, Down, Fetch, Steal, etc. commands. Without a Down command, it makes more sense that you would have to reissue the order every round.

Also, the Work Together Feat precludes the animal companion attacking. So you can command it to WTG, or it can Strike, not both. And, it would appear that even a Druid of the Animal Order has to use a Command every round to initiate WTG.