Using aid on minions (ie animal companions)


Rules Discussion


Strait questions. Can you use aid on your own animal companion for example his attack roll? In other words is your animal companion considered an ally? On that same thread would it be different if you aided an ally’s animal companion?

Thanks in advance!


Why wouldn't an animal companion be considered an ally?


You can aid your own and anothers animal companion.

The one big difference when aiding your companion with an attack action (your aid uses an attack) is that you might have to apply MAP since your aid reaction would still be on your turn.

So when you do Strike - Prepare Aid - Command AC and then your aid reaction is triggered by yozr AC and you aid by attacking, then the reaction takes MAP.


thenobledrake wrote:
Why wouldn't an animal companion be considered an ally?

Because, sometimes Pathfinder employees role a 1 in game design.


Sagian wrote:
thenobledrake wrote:
Why wouldn't an animal companion be considered an ally?
Because, sometimes Pathfinder employees role a 1 in game design.

...and is there any evidence to suggest that they did that in this particular instance?

What I was really asking, since it apparently wasn't obvious before, is what was leading you to your doubt - because if there isn't some passage of text in the book that looks like it says that's how it works, why not go with what you clearly hope that the rule is?


masda_gib wrote:

You can aid your own and anothers animal companion.

The one big difference when aiding your companion with an attack action (your aid uses an attack) is that you might have to apply MAP since your aid reaction would still be on your turn.

So when you do Strike - Prepare Aid - Command AC and then your aid reaction is triggered by yozr AC and you aid by attacking, then the reaction takes MAP.

Thanks. Follow up.

I know the rules say “usually by using an action in your turn” with regards to preparing to preparing the aid, but looking at other threads it seems like it’s an “always” thing. Can my preparation just be the fact I’m gonna shoot (strike) the fool trying to hurt my pup? Where the aid action is a well timed strike? (FA—free action, A—action, RA—reaction)
Scenario 1: A—Strike; A—Command AC; RA—aid roll; A—dance the jig after Beans mauls the Gnoll.
Scenario 2: FA—“Beans, tickle that nasty Gnoll”; A—Prepare Aid; A—Command AC; RA—Strike for Aid; A—dance the jig over fallen foe.
Assumption scenario 2: making the aid action an actual strike so it does damage and hitting the enemy in a soft distracting spot to produce aid affect. The DC would be the creature’s AC (or 20 if it’s below).
Can I do damage on an aid strike?
Looking back it seems like this is what you wrote. Are we saying the same thing with different patterns?
Side note: They need to fix Aid and the fighter feat in regards to aiding with ranged weapons.


thenobledrake wrote:
Sagian wrote:
thenobledrake wrote:
Why wouldn't an animal companion be considered an ally?
Because, sometimes Pathfinder employees role a 1 in game design.

...and is there any evidence to suggest that they did that in this particular instance?

What I was really asking, since it apparently wasn't obvious before, is what was leading you to your doubt - because if there isn't some passage of text in the book that looks like it says that's how it works, why not go with what you clearly hope that the rule is?

Gotcha. My hesitation is due to the ambiguity of the text that I found. To me it isn’t clear or explicit how animal companions (minions), and allies are described or how they overlap, and when dealing with Organized Play or GMs, explicit saves a lot of time.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

The action economy of preparing to aid and commanding a minion is actually a bit more of a mess than I'm seeing in examples here. Remember, Ready is 2 actions and ends your turn.


HammerJack wrote:
The action economy of preparing to aid and commanding a minion is actually a bit more of a mess than I'm seeing in examples here. Remember, Ready is 2 actions and ends your turn.

How would you set up the action sequence to aid your animal companion given the ambiguity of the Aid reaction?


HammerJack wrote:
The action economy of preparing to aid and commanding a minion is actually a bit more of a mess than I'm seeing in examples here. Remember, Ready is 2 actions and ends your turn.

Aid amd Ready are two different things, though.


Okay, let me try to answer to all those questions.

Sagian wrote:
masda_gib wrote:

You can aid your own and anothers animal companion.

The one big difference when aiding your companion with an attack action (your aid uses an attack) is that you might have to apply MAP since your aid reaction would still be on your turn.

So when you do Strike - Prepare Aid - Command AC and then your aid reaction is triggered by yozr AC and you aid by attacking, then the reaction takes MAP.

Thanks. Follow up.

I know the rules say “usually by using an action in your turn” with regards to preparing to preparing the aid, but looking at other threads it seems like it’s an “always” thing.

I would read that "usually" as "always except when the GM says otherwise. Maybe they decide that your method to help is so simple that preparing is a free action, maybe it is so complicated that it needs 2 actions.

Sagian wrote:
Can my preparation just be the fact I’m gonna shoot (strike) the fool trying to hurt my pup?

This would more likely be the Ready action instead of Aid. You Ready a Strike with the trigger "Someone hurts my pup". Readying takes 2 actions on your turn, though.

Sagian wrote:

Where the aid action is a well timed strike? (FA—free action, A—action, RA—reaction)

Scenario 1: A—Strike; A—Command AC; RA—aid roll; A—dance the jig after Beans mauls the Gnoll.

Here you would get an Aid reaction with preparing having no cost (free action basically). If you can justify that to your GM that might be possible but the default is "spend 1 action".

Sagian wrote:
Scenario 2: FA—“Beans, tickle that nasty Gnoll”; A—Prepare Aid; A—Command AC; RA—Strike for Aid; A—dance the jig over fallen foe.

This... looks the same actually. Free Action and no action to prepare are practically the same.

Sagian wrote:

Assumption scenario 2: making the aid action an actual strike so it does damage and hitting the enemy in a soft distracting spot to produce aid affect. The DC would be the creature’s AC (or 20 if it’s below).

Can I do damage on an aid strike?

No, you either aid your ally or you do damage. You can make the aid an attack with a weapon though. This would probably give it the attack trait and incur MAP but the GM can decide otherwise too. So they could allow you to aid with a swing with a weapon but let you do it MAP free. They can add any traits they like.

That corrects my previous statement that aid via weapon strike always incurs MAP.

Sagian wrote:
Looking back it seems like this is what you wrote. Are we saying the same thing with different patterns?

I think not. I was only referring to attack actions incurring MAP, not that your aid reaction can also do damage.

Sagian wrote:
Side note: They need to fix Aid and the fighter feat in regards to aiding with ranged weapons.

I agree.


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masda_gib wrote:

Okay, let me try to answer to all those questions.

Sagian wrote:
masda_gib wrote:

You can aid your own and anothers animal companion.

The one big difference when aiding your companion with an attack action (your aid uses an attack) is that you might have to apply MAP since your aid reaction would still be on your turn.

So when you do Strike - Prepare Aid - Command AC and then your aid reaction is triggered by yozr AC and you aid by attacking, then the reaction takes MAP.

Thanks. Follow up.

I know the rules say “usually by using an action in your turn” with regards to preparing to preparing the aid, but looking at other threads it seems like it’s an “always” thing.

I would read that "usually" as "always except when the GM says otherwise. Maybe they decide that your method to help is so simple that preparing is a free action, maybe it is so complicated that it needs 2 actions.

Sagian wrote:
Can my preparation just be the fact I’m gonna shoot (strike) the fool trying to hurt my pup?

This would more likely be the Ready action instead of Aid. You Ready a Strike with the trigger "Someone hurts my pup". Readying takes 2 actions on your turn, though.

Sagian wrote:

Where the aid action is a well timed strike? (FA—free action, A—action, RA—reaction)

Scenario 1: A—Strike; A—Command AC; RA—aid roll; A—dance the jig after Beans mauls the Gnoll.

Here you would get an Aid reaction with preparing having no cost (free action basically). If you can justify that to your GM that might be possible but the default is "spend 1 action".

Sagian wrote:
Scenario 2: FA—“Beans, tickle that nasty Gnoll”; A—Prepare Aid; A—Command AC; RA—Strike for Aid; A—dance the jig over fallen foe.

This... looks the same actually. Free Action and no action to prepare are practically the same.

Sagian wrote:
Assumption scenario 2: making the aid action an actual strike so it does damage and hitting the enemy in a soft distracting spot to produce
...

Great! Appreciate your time and feedback. Scenario 2 does include an action to prepare Aid, ignore the FA speech, it’s just for fun. That said, the goal was to combine strike damage with aid roll without 500 actions being used. I think I’ll just stick with focusing flanking.

I think they need to keep aid non combative and bring back or add more combat cooperative maneuvers.

Regardless, thanks again for the feedback.

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