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The druid feature, Ranger feat, and gnome feats all say something along these lines: "You have a connection to the creatures of the natural world that allows you to communicate with them on a rudimentary level. You can use Diplomacy to Make an Impression on animals and to make very simple Requests of them. In most cases, wild animals will give you time to make your case."
Seems straightforward when you read it, but...
1) Can you use this to try and sooth a beast that has already attacked? Ambush predators seem impossible to negotiate with otherwise. One potential solution: give a Wild Empathy character the option to roll Diplomacy for initiative in any animal encounter, giving them a chance to head things off before they escalate. Have this roll double as "Make an Impression" against the hostile animal. They likely have a lower Diplomacy bonus than Perception, but it makes sense that you're slower to act in combat if you're trying desperately to prevent a combat.
2) What does this do that Command an Animal can't do? This is important because most druids and rangers will have much better Nature scores than Diplomacy. AoA has 4 separate encounters that mention being Nature DCs to soothe a savage beast in various states of aggression, and at least one encounter with an animal that doesn't mention. Only one of them actually mentions Wild Empathy:
This suggests the only thing Wild Empathy does is let you roll Diplomacy at a lower DC, which is weird because both Make an Impression and Command an Animal roll against the target's will DC. It is unclear to me why the Command an Animal's DC is higher than that in the above example. The creatures are definitely hostile or unfriendly, but according to Command an Animal that means the action should just fail.
Further muddying the issue, there's a later encounter in the same book with an abused animal who is similarly agitated like the above creatures were, but that just lists Commanding an Animal at the creature's will DC.
3) Can you make separate attempts to Command an Animal and use Wild Empathy? That would be nice, but I'm unclear if you can use make retry attempts on what is basically the same check if you have multiple relevant skills. (The most common example I can think of would be Recall Knowledge, like if you have a Lore skill that covers the same topic as a broader skill.)
4) What kind of creatures and circumstances would fall outside of "in most cases, animals would give you time to make your case?" Animals are now a very broad category which include spiders and insects (weird if this works on them, but Vermin Emapthy was a thing in PF1) and unstoppable engines of destruction like Purple Worms. (I guess the bestiary does mention people can train cave worms on further inspection, but given their poor will DC this seems easier than it should be.)
5) Bonus question: How do y'all think taming a creature that might otherwise be hostile should work? I had a wild empathy ranger pushing to try and make a dinosaur their pet last night. My reply was that they had shifted the dinos attitude from hostile, but you couldn't just spam Make an Impression on the same creature within the same social encounter. (I actually don't know if this is true for sure.) I reckon taming such a beast would be possible, but require a lot more time than the party currently had and probably requires Bonded Animal or Train Animal.
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Expect lots of GM variation.
In at least one PFS Scenario the scenario calls out for a nature check to deal with some animals in what I would have expected to be a Wild Empathy check.
However, in a couple of DIFFERENT PFS Scenarios the GM allowed me to use Wild Empathy to, basically, convince an animal to not attack us.
At the very least, Wild Empathy should be at least as good as a Nature check. And there are going to be situations where a GM will allow a Wild Empathy check but not a Nature check, basically using the reasoning that this IS A class feature and SHOULD be useful.
It comes up very rarely in practice which does mean that many GMs will be fairly kind when it DOES come up.
But, expect lots of GM variation
Expect lots of GM variation.
In at least one PFS Scenario the scenario calls out for a nature check to deal with some animals in what I would have expected to be a Wild Empathy check.
However, in a couple of DIFFERENT PFS Scenarios the GM allowed me to use Wild Empathy to, basically, convince an animal to not attack us.
Yeah, but I think that isn't just GM variation. How the two compare seems inconsistent within the same book, so I'm sure it isn't consistent between PFS scenarios.
At the very least, Wild Empathy should be at least as good as a Nature check.
The tricky bit is "at least as good" needs to be "much better" to actually see use. To use a real example, the 7th level Ranger in my Age of Ashes campaign has +17 Nature (master, +1 item) and +12 Diplomacy (just trained.) The DC has to be 5 points lower on Wild Empathy just to break even with a Nature check. And that's with 16 in both Wisdom and Charisma-- the latter is less likely on druids or rangers. So the gap can be even bigger.
I know this is going to see GM variation, but as GM, I'm wondering how other people would run it.
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Yeah, I've always felt weird reading this, because it goes against the whole archetype of being good with animals, but bad with people. If I'm a dude who lives in the wild and rarely interacts with people, why in the world would I have a good Diplomacy score, and why should my interactions with animals suffer because I'm bad with people?
Yeah, I've always felt weird reading this, because it goes against the whole archetype of being good with animals, but bad with people. If I'm a dude who lives in the wild and rarely interacts with people, why in the world would I have a good Diplomacy score, and why should my interactions with animals suffer because I'm bad with people?
True that. I've only seen one Ranger who built themselves to be a party face. (Though I think it is a testament to PF2 that it worked as well as it did.)
I think for Wild Empathy to be worth taking, it needs to let you do things Command an Animal never would. I'm just very unclear on what that would be, and the existing examples I've read don't paint a clear picture.
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The most obvious difference for me is sort of in tone and duration: Command an Animal provides an immediate benefit in having an animal do the thing you asked, with an emphasis put on short-term actions by the sidebar.
Notably, there's no way with Nature alone to actually make an animal like you or form any long term relationships. That's, imo, where wild empathy comes in. Make an Impression can make animals like you and Make a Request provides for longer-term help outside the scope of a single Command.
The two also work together, because if an animal likes you it can permanently make your Command checks easier with lower DCs or automatic success bumps.
I agree with Aratorin though, it rubs me the wrong way that it's tied to Diplomacy. It steps on a lot of common fantasy archetypes and creates a weird scenario where a hermit druid is as likely as not to be a really good diplomat too, even if it doesn't quite fit their character.
I also don't like that it's a specific druid/ranger thing, because it limits people who aren't those classes to interact with animals via skills. PF2 ditched signature skills specifically to open up options and stuff like Wild Empathy feels like an unnecessary legacy thing.
I know I'd be pretty upset is I brought a nature-focused fighter who wants to be good with animals and I ended up in the sitaution pauljathome describes where I'm not even allowed to make a check because the GM wanted to make Wild Empathy more relevant.
I think the intent is sort of in tone. You can Command an Animal to try to get them to do different things, but Wild Empathy is more about communicating ideas and making animals like you. Command should be more temporary, but more reliable while Empathy can make the creature just like you period and therefore potentially provide more long term benefits.
I agree with Aratorin though, it rubs me the wrong way that it's tied to Diplomacy. It steps on a lot of common fantasy archetypes and creates a weird scenario where a hermit druid is as likely as not to be a really good diplomat too, even if it doesn't quite fit their character.
I also don't like that it's a specific druid/ranger thing, because it limits people who aren't those classes to interact with animals via skills. PF2 ditched signature skills specifically to open up options and stuff like Wild Empathy feels like an unnecessary legacy thing.
I know I'd be pretty upset is I brought a nature-focused fighter who wants to be good with animals and I ended up in the sitaution pauljathome describes where I'm not even allowed to make a check because the GM wanted to make Wild Empathy more relevant.
Yeah, though you can multiclass to snag it. I've currently homebrewed it as Master Nature skill feat, which at least means druids and rangers have some low level exclusivity but other classes can match them with enough investment.
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The most obvious difference for me is sort of in tone and duration: Command an Animal provides an immediate benefit in having an animal do the thing you asked, with an emphasis put on short-term actions by the sidebar.
Notably, there's no way with Nature alone to actually make an animal like you or form any long term relationships. That's, imo, where wild empathy comes in. Make an Impression can make animals like you and Make a Request provides for longer-term help outside the scope of a single Command.
Bonded Animal.
I also don't like that it's a specific druid/ranger thing, because it limits people who aren't those classes to interact with animals via skills. PF2 ditched signature skills specifically to open up options and stuff like Wild Empathy feels like an unnecessary legacy thing.
I know I'd be pretty upset is I brought a nature-focused fighter who wants to be good with animals and I ended up in the sitaution pauljathome describes where I'm not even allowed to make a check because the GM wanted to make Wild Empathy more relevant.
What's even more silly is that the Animal Trainer gets permanent Speak With Animals. Even a Druid doesn't get that.
Bonded Animal.The most obvious difference for me is sort of in tone and duration: Command an Animal provides an immediate benefit in having an animal do the thing you asked, with an emphasis put on short-term actions by the sidebar.
Notably, there's no way with Nature alone to actually make an animal like you or form any long term relationships. That's, imo, where wild empathy comes in. Make an Impression can make animals like you and Make a Request provides for longer-term help outside the scope of a single Command.
One could argue Wild Empathy is going to be needed to get many undomesticated animals to tolerate your presence long enough to bond with them, though. But a class feat/feature that requires a separate skill feat to do anything can't be right.
I suppose as Squiggit points out Request allows for more long term actions than command. "Bite that person" would be a Command, but "guard this door" would be a Request?
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Perhaps the keyword here is Request.
Yes, a Request can be "please don't attack" or "please stop attacking".
But Requests can easily be more complicated, nuanced, or specific than that?
Perhaps the keyword here is Request.
Yes, a Request can be "please don't attack" or "please stop attacking".
But Requests can easily be more complicated, nuanced, or specific than that?
Except that Wild Empathy specifies that it must be a "very simple" request. The Animal can't actually understand you on anything more than an empathic level, as if it could, you wouldn't need this Feat(ure), you could just Make A Request by Talking to it.
So asking it to do something complicated or nuanced is out of the question.
Agree, but it's not about complicated, it's about duration.
The sidebar on command tells you that a creature forgets whatever it was commanded to do after a single turn, while Requests don't have that stipulation.
Agree, but it's not about complicated, it's about duration.
The sidebar on command tells you that a creature forgets whatever it was commanded to do after a single turn, while Requests don't have that stipulation.
That works fine in combat, but it falls apart quickly outside of that. If someone buys a Guard Dog, they can't command it to guard a place unless they are a Druid or Ranger?
The rules say you communicate with them on a "rudimentary" level, not "empathic." The Request is simple because you lack the communication skills. I wouldn't use the word "nuanced" becusee that is too vague. A more accurate characterization is that you can't expect the animal to make lots of conditional decisions. The Request has to be straight-forward and something that you can communicate in 'rudimentary" communication e.g. grab the key on the person, chew through the rope, open the door (if it can physically do that), drop this object on that house.
I mean it's called Wild Empathy. I think empathic and rudimentary are synonyms. I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing about anything.
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To further complicate things, we have people who can speak with animals (some gnomes, a fairly cheap spell) and can use diplomacy. So, a third way to do more or less the same thing.
Personally, I think wild empathy should be best, diplomacy while speaking second best and nature a fairly distant third
That works fine in combat, but it falls apart quickly outside of that. If someone buys a Guard Dog, they can't command it to guard a place unless they are a Druid or Ranger?
That appears to be correct as the rules are currently written. Not a fan and wouldn't run it that way as a GM, but yes.
Personally, I think wild empathy should be best, diplomacy while speaking second best and nature a fairly distant third
Diplomacy + Speak with Animals is functionally the same thing as what WE does though. I don't think it really makes sense to argue one should be better or worse than the other.
To soothe an animal that has already attacked with WE, I would require Legendary Negotiation. That feat does exactly that: Make diplomatic talk only need one turn.
Yeah, I've always felt weird reading this, because it goes against the whole archetype of being good with animals, but bad with people. If I'm a dude who lives in the wild and rarely interacts with people, why in the world would I have a good Diplomacy score, and why should my interactions with animals suffer because I'm bad with people?
The druid in my party brought this up at character creation, so I made this feat for him:
FEAT 1
DRUID
Prerequisite: animal order
You have learned how to communicate with animals based on an intuitive understanding of their natural state of being. When dealing with animals, you may use your Nature skill to Make an Impression and Request instead of Diplomacy.
That works fine in combat, but it falls apart quickly outside of that. If someone buys a Guard Dog, they can't command it to guard a place unless they are a Druid or Ranger?That appears to be correct as the rules are currently written. Not a fan and wouldn't run it that way as a GM, but yes.
Personally, I think wild empathy should be best, diplomacy while speaking second best and nature a fairly distant thirdDiplomacy + Speak with Animals is functionally the same thing as what WE does though. I don't think it really makes sense to argue one should be better or worse than the other.
One way to split that difference: more complicated commands, like guard, normally require the train animal feat. One an animal has learned that command you can issue it with nature. Otherwise you'd need Woke Empathy to make that as a Request.
One way to split that difference: more complicated commands, like guard, normally require the train animal feat. One an animal has learned that command you can issue it with nature. Otherwise you'd need Woke Empathy to make that as a Request.That works fine in combat, but it falls apart quickly outside of that. If someone buys a Guard Dog, they can't command it to guard a place unless they are a Druid or Ranger?That appears to be correct as the rules are currently written. Not a fan and wouldn't run it that way as a GM, but yes.
Personally, I think wild empathy should be best, diplomacy while speaking second best and nature a fairly distant thirdDiplomacy + Speak with Animals is functionally the same thing as what WE does though. I don't think it really makes sense to argue one should be better or worse than the other.
I believe that Feat allows you to communicate with women, not animals.
Doh. Auto correct strikes again.
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I'm reading this on my phone so maybe I missed it, but no one seems to be taking into account the one big difference between using the Nature skill to Command Animal versus the Wild Empathy ability.
As stated under the nature skill, there is a hard mechanical limitation when you use Command Animal:
You automatically fail if the animal is hostile or unfriendly to you.
This limitation does not exist for Wild Empathy.
E.G. You infringe on a grizzly bear's territory and now have an angry bear in your face. Just try to "Command" the bear. Auto fail. But maybe the ranger with Wild Empathy can can try to calm the bear down long enough for the group to back out of the confrontation.
I'm reading this on my phone so maybe I missed it, but no one seems to be taking into account the one big difference between using the Nature skill to Command Animal versus the Wild Empathy ability.
As stated under the nature skill, there is a hard mechanical limitation when you use Command Animal:
You automatically fail if the animal is hostile or unfriendly to you.
This limitation does not exist for Wild Empathy.
E.G. You infringe on a grizzly bear's territory and now have an angry bear in your face. Just try to "Command" the bear. Auto fail. But maybe the ranger with Wild Empathy can can try to calm the bear down long enough for the group to back out of the confrontation.
While that may technically be true, the APs set a precedent that animals, even when encountered in such a case (Stumbling upon an enraged Grizzly Bear is literally an exact encounter), the animal is not Unfriendly or Hostile to you. It is Indifferent to you, but still acts in a Hostile manner.
Both AoA and EC allow you to use Command an Animal to soothe enraged Animals.
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I'm reading this on my phone so maybe I missed it, but no one seems to be taking into account the one big difference between using the Nature skill to Command Animal versus the Wild Empathy ability.
As stated under the nature skill, there is a hard mechanical limitation when you use Command Animal:
You automatically fail if the animal is hostile or unfriendly to you.
This limitation does not exist for Wild Empathy.
E.G. You infringe on a grizzly bear's territory and now have an angry bear in your face. Just try to "Command" the bear. Auto fail. But maybe the ranger with Wild Empathy can can try to calm the bear down long enough for the group to back out of the confrontation.
While that may technically be true, the APs set a precedent that animals, even when encountered in such a case (Stumbling upon an enraged Grizzly Bear is literally an exact encounter), the animal is not Unfriendly or Hostile to you. It is Indifferent to you, but still acts in a Hostile manner.
Both AoA and EC allow you to use Command an Animal to soothe enraged Animals.
And we don't have many examples of authors getting the rules wtong?
And we don't have many examples of authors getting the rules wtong?I'm reading this on my phone so maybe I missed it, but no one seems to be taking into account the one big difference between using the Nature skill to Command Animal versus the Wild Empathy ability.
As stated under the nature skill, there is a hard mechanical limitation when you use Command Animal:
You automatically fail if the animal is hostile or unfriendly to you.
This limitation does not exist for Wild Empathy.
E.G. You infringe on a grizzly bear's territory and now have an angry bear in your face. Just try to "Command" the bear. Auto fail. But maybe the ranger with Wild Empathy can can try to calm the bear down long enough for the group to back out of the confrontation.
While that may technically be true, the APs set a precedent that animals, even when encountered in such a case (Stumbling upon an enraged Grizzly Bear is literally an exact encounter), the animal is not Unfriendly or Hostile to you. It is Indifferent to you, but still acts in a Hostile manner.
Both AoA and EC allow you to use Command an Animal to soothe enraged Animals.
The rules actually say that the default Attitude of an NPC is Indifferent.
Indifferent
This condition reflects a creature’s disposition toward a
particular character, and it affects only creatures that are
not player characters. A creature that is indifferent to a
character doesn’t really care one way or the other about
that character. Assume a creature’s attitude to a given
A Lion doesn't Attack you because it doesn't like you. It Attacks you because it is hungry. Based on the attitude descriptions, that would not make it either Unfriendly or Hostile.
While that may technically be true, the APs set a precedent that animals, even when encountered in such a case (Stumbling upon an enraged Grizzly Bear is literally an exact encounter), the animal is not Unfriendly or Hostile to you. It is Indifferent to you, but still acts in a Hostile manner.Which is nonsensical. An animal that acts hostile, is, by definition, Hostile.
Hostile: An NPC with this condition wants to harm you.It should be a red flag for Paizo when their content authors have to pull stunts like this.
A Lion doesn't Attack you because it doesn't like you. It Attacks you because it is hungry. Based on the attitude descriptions, that would not make it either Unfriendly or Hostile.A lion who attacks you, for whatever reason, is "H"ostile towards you. Whether you it sees you as its next meal or whether it feels threatened, you cannot be indifferent to something and attack it at the same time. An animal isn't going to risk injury because it's indifferent. Again, trying to tell GM/Players that you have an attacking animal that is technically indifferent so that you can use Nature is problematic, if not broken.
Now, you might argue that an insect (vermin) doesn't have an "attitude" other than voracious (or procreate) and are essentially always indifferent, but the base case is an animal, not ants, and animals absolutely have a disposition.
IMO, if there is a place where this genre tends to fall flat on its face, it's situations like these. RPGs don't handle these type of highly variable situations well, especially when the variables reflect real life. As a result, something like WE and animal companions and Survey Wildlife, etc, just always feel off.
Hostile: Actively works against you—and might attack you just because of their dislike.
That doesn't describe an animal simply following its basic instincts. It applies higher level feelings.
When it comes to Command an Animal, I get the sense that the goal of that stipulation is to keep you from Commanding the enemy's dog, not to prevent you from soothing neutral natural creatures. You know, like a Ranger should be able to as part of their base class.
If you want to give a someone a chance to soothe a bear with nature skill you set it to neutral, and have it rise up and roar at you to defend its territory/space, only attacking if you don't leave soon enough. Or if you do leave. So you either have a couple of turns to buff/prepare, try to soothe the bear, or attack while it's still posturing. Just don't pretend that a creature that attacks on sight isn't hostile.
Exactly. A Hostile Attitude and a Hostile Action are not the same thing.
If I swat a fly because it's annoying, it's not that I actively wish the fly harm.
I'm just Indifferent to the fly and want the buzzing to stop.
That's not the same as being Hostile, which would be "I hate that fly and I'm going to murder it!"
Hey peeps, I'm not sure if this post directly addresses the OP's question of "what does wild empathy do that nature doesn't", but because the following is a personal interest to the current character I'm playing, I'm posting here:
I'm playing age of ashes.
I decided to make an animal druid because I don't have a pet in real life and I think dogs are cute.
I picked the gnome ancestry on a whim.
Gnomes get +charisma and I know attribute increases increase four stats, so I decided I'd increase dex / con / wis / cha on level multiples of 5.
As I level up, I start thinking not-companion related druid feats for animal druids are not exciting, so I decide to multiclass bard, since I have high charisma and inspire courage helps my dog.
I realize bards get versatile performance. Bards can replace make an impressions with performance.
I realize virtuosic performer makes one perform really good.
I realize versatile performance opens up a lot of diplomacy skill feats without actually investing into diplomacy.
Right now I'm running a druid who makes friends with animals via serenade(!!!) with group impression and glad-hand and also has amazing intimidate via virtuosic performer + persona mask for generic combat.Two questions:
1) Is the above actually RAW
2) If it is, does it answer the OP's question
Yeah, the gnome is the exception here. They actually can get the same ability from their ancestry feats though, so they aren't the best example for druids and rangers.
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Insisting "actively seeks to harm that character" is materially different from "actively trying to harm" isn't a compelling or convincing assertion in this context.
I mean, if the creature is actively trying to harm you, then you're past the point of rolling initiative, which means WE is useless until you get Legendary Negotiation at 15.
If the creature is merely grumpy but not to the point of engaging in combat, then it's arbitrary/a GM call whether the creature is hostile enough and there isn't really a point in trying to nail down a specific answer here.