Can an animal companion with an intelligence of 3 venerate 1 deity?
As with many things in PF1 the overall Paizo design team did not respond to questions about this but the Paizo PFS team did. Their answer was No, other than a few specific exceptions.
Other than that, there’s no “official/rules” answer. Talk to your GM.
PFS rulings cannot be relied upon for insight outside of PFS play, since those rulings are really just houserules made for PFS organized play. PFS rules are also known to be deliberately restrictive when it comes to what you can or cannot do with an animal companion and as such also insist you must use handle animal checks to instruct your animal companion to do anything even if they understand Common, that animal companions with 3 int or higher are just semi-intelligent at best, and that intelligent animal companions cannot activate magic items, which is just inventing a new rule out of whole cloth, among other things. It also rules that even though intelligent animal companions cannot activate magical items, as a special ruling, they can activate ioun stones (see here[/url), so in PFS an ape companion with 3 int cannot activate a [url=https://www.aonprd.com/MagicRingsDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Ring%20of%20Spell%20Storing%20(minor)]minor ring of spell storing (normal ring of spell storing, for reference) but can activate a vibrant purple prism ioun stone, which explicitly functions just as a minor ring of spell storing does.
Essentially, PFS rulings don't need to make a lick of sense. They are there to suit the balance purposes and preferences of the PFS team.
When it comes to regular Pathfinder rules, there is no official answer one way or another, so you may wish to run this by your GM, but sensibly, yes, if it is intelligent enough to understand worship, it can worship. There is a fair bit of Pathfinder content regarding animal companions that is divinely themed (Celestial Servant feat, Auspice animal companion archetype, a Paladin's divine bond, the sentinel boon from Baphomet, etc.), so it frankly makes far less sense to prohibit animal companions from having patron deities than it does to allow it.
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so, Many times people have asked how does INT translate to the real world, and the most often answer is that your INT score, times 10 is your IQ. So someone with an IQ of 130 would have a 13 INT.
The military has basically said that anyone with an IQ under 80 cannot comprehend things well enough to be useful for any kind of military service.
I would imagine someone with an IQ of 30 (your mentioned Animal with an IQ of 3), would not have enough comprehension of any type of higher thoughts required to comprehend deities or their worship.
So while there are no official rules, I would lean toward no, an animal of INT 3, cannot venerate a deity.
Tom Sampson wrote: PFS rulings cannot be relied upon for insight outside of PFS play, since those rulings are really just houserules made for PFS organized play. PFS rules are also known to be deliberately restrictive when it comes to what you can or cannot do with an animal companion and as such also insist you must use handle animal checks to instruct your animal companion to do anything even if they understand Common, that animal companions with 3 int or higher are just semi-intelligent at best, . . . The first part of the statement is true. PFS houserules are houserules. Importantly, a huge chunk of them (basically the entire campaign clarifications document) fall into the realm of “this is clearly wrong or prone to multiple interpretations. We got tired of waiting for the overall design team to fix/clarify this material. Rather than banning it all, the PFS team has decided to go with the following interpretations.” I would never make the argument that “PFS said this, so that’s what you have to do!” (Heck, if your home game group wants to ignore stuff in the CRB, that’s fine too. You do you.) But PFS clarifications are a good place to look if you want to know the consensus of a group of Paizo employees if there is no other “official” word. As always, discuss with your GM.
As for the rest of this post, there’s an entire sidebar in Ultimate Campaign (page 143) on how animal companions with an intelligence of 3 or more are still animals. And therefore can’t (or won’t) do many of the things a person can do. There’s a clear distinction drawn between animals (even one with an INT of 10 or higher) and PC races. The sidebar includes the following:
Quote: Even if an animal’s Intelligence increases to 3 or higher, you must still use the Handle Animal skill to direct the animal, as it is a smart animal rather than a low-intelligence person
TxSam88 wrote: so, Many times people have asked how does INT translate to the real world, and the most often answer is that your INT score, times 10 is your IQ. So someone with an IQ of 130 would have a 13 INT.
The military has basically said that anyone with an IQ under 80 cannot comprehend things well enough to be useful for any kind of military service.
I would imagine someone with an IQ of 30 (your mentioned Animal with an IQ of 3), would not have enough comprehension of any type of higher thoughts required to comprehend deities or their worship.
So while there are no official rules, I would lean toward no, an animal of INT 3, cannot venerate a deity.
To be fair, that is a very recent change to how militaries have all historically worked (it changed in the 80's or so). And while I'm not disagreeing with the conclusion, the reasons weren't just "they're too dumb to do anything right or learn in limited capacities", it was also largely "we aren't in desperate need of soldiers so we can afford to be picky".
That said, a real person who is 20 years old with an iq of ~30 has the mind of theoretically a 7 year old, likely much less. Animals rarely live to be that old. While this isn't 1:1, as certain areas develop in the brains of animals different than they do in humans, thus allowing a "2 int wolf" to behave like an adult wolf as far aggression, territoriality, etc. at around a year of age. That also means a wolf who has boost to their intelligence above the typical member of its species isn't necessarily likely to be able to understand things closer to the same way we do, especially when its only by a few points. However, give an animal all of it's +1's to int, awaken it with magic, and/or give it a headband of intelligence as well (more magic), sure, then it can be smart enough to essentially overcome the subjective elements of a normal wolf's capacity to reason.
Tom Sampson wrote: PFS rulings cannot be relied upon for insight outside of PFS play, since those rulings are really just houserules made for PFS organized play. PFS rules are also known to be deliberately restrictive when it comes to what you can or cannot do with an animal companion and as such also insist you must use handle animal checks to instruct your animal companion to do anything even if they understand Common, that animal companions with 3 int or higher are just semi-intelligent at best, and that intelligent animal companions cannot activate magic items, which is just inventing a new rule out of whole cloth, among other things. It also rules that even though intelligent animal companions cannot activate magical items, as a special ruling, they can activate ioun stones (see here[/url), so in PFS an ape companion with 3 int cannot activate a [url=https://www.aonprd.com/MagicRingsDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Ring%20of%20Spell%20Storing%20(minor)]minor ring of spell storing (normal ring of spell storing, for reference) but can activate a vibrant purple prism ioun stone, which explicitly functions just as a minor ring of spell storing does.
Essentially, PFS rulings don't need to make a lick of sense. They are there to suit the balance purposes and preferences of the PFS team.
When it comes to regular Pathfinder rules, there is no official answer one way or another, so you may wish to run this by your GM, but sensibly, yes, if it is intelligent enough to understand worship, it can worship. There is a fair bit of Pathfinder content regarding animal companions that is divinely themed (Celestial Servant feat,[/url]...
in fact, it's not so much that he can worship her that questions me. I saw that there was the auspicious companion animal companion archetype which allows him to use a level 1 domain power of the chosen deity. therefore, if this archetype exists, by deduction I conclude that nothing prevents an animal companion with 1 intelligence of 3 from being able to take the beneficent gift of the believer which grants the same power as the auspicious archetype companion.
Is there a reason you want an animal companion to worship a deity? For the most part there is very little benefit from them doing so. Unless they are taking a deity specific feat it probably does not matter that much. One thing to keep in mind is that many animals actually have a good WIS score. Wisdom is often more important in matter of faith than INT.
A paladin’s mount would be one case where this should be allowed no matter what. But a paladin’s mount starts with an INT of 6 so is way above normal even for animal companions. If the animal companion has the celestial template, that should also be taken into consideration.
TxSam88 wrote: so, Many times people have asked how does INT translate to the real world, and the most often answer is that your INT score, times 10 is your IQ. So someone with an IQ of 130 would have a 13 INT.
The military has basically said that anyone with an IQ under 80 cannot comprehend things well enough to be useful for any kind of military service.
I would imagine someone with an IQ of 30 (your mentioned Animal with an IQ of 3), would not have enough comprehension of any type of higher thoughts required to comprehend deities or their worship.
So while there are no official rules, I would lean toward no, an animal of INT 3, cannot venerate a deity.
I need to be clear that there is absolutely no rule that you should multiply int score by 10 to determine a character's IQ. Many monsters that have IQs of 7 or lower are also typically not roleplayed as having full-fledged mental retardation (the traditional term for an IQ of 70 or lower).
Your interpretation is essentially claiming that anything below 7 int does not qualify to behave intelligently, but the rules consistently regard any creature with an intelligence score of 3 or higher as an intelligent creature.
Belafon wrote: Tom Sampson wrote: PFS rulings cannot be relied upon for insight outside of PFS play, since those rulings are really just houserules made for PFS organized play. PFS rules are also known to be deliberately restrictive when it comes to what you can or cannot do with an animal companion and as such also insist you must use handle animal checks to instruct your animal companion to do anything even if they understand Common, that animal companions with 3 int or higher are just semi-intelligent at best, . . . The first part of the statement is true. PFS houserules are houserules. Importantly, a huge chunk of them (basically the entire campaign clarifications document) fall into the realm of “this is clearly wrong or prone to multiple interpretations. We got tired of waiting for the overall design team to fix/clarify this material. Rather than banning it all, the PFS team has decided to go with the following interpretations.” I would never make the argument that “PFS said this, so that’s what you have to do!” (Heck, if your home game group wants to ignore stuff in the CRB, that’s fine too. You do you.) But PFS clarifications are a good place to look if you want to know the consensus of a group of Paizo employees if there is no other “official” word. As always, discuss with your GM. I wouldn't even look for PFS rulings for insight or clarification. Many PFS rulings are ultimately rationalizations where they explain their rulings by taking a creative interpretation of the rules or a selective implementation of realism but the real reason was just that the PFS team wanted to nerf or change certain things with a houserule. If you try to look at rulings like those to help you better understand the rules, that can actually leave you more confused and less consistent in how you approach game rules, like the above example of 3 int apes being unable to activate a minor ring of spell storing but able to activate a vibrant purple prism ioun stone, which does the exact same thing.
Quote: As for the rest of this post, there’s an entire sidebar in Ultimate Campaign (page 143) on how animal companions with an intelligence of 3 or more are still animals. And therefore can’t (or won’t) do many of the things a person can do. There’s a clear distinction drawn between animals (even one with an INT of 10 or higher) and PC races. The sidebar includes the following:
Quote: Even if an animal’s Intelligence increases to 3 or higher, you must still use the Handle Animal skill to direct the animal, as it is a smart animal rather than a low-intelligence person
I... why does Paizo do these things? Ultimate Campaign is just casually adding new restrictions to Pathfinder Core rules. But I never bought Ultimate Campaign and it isn't anywhere on the PRD or official FAQs either. According to the Pathfinder Core rules, anything with 3 intelligence that can understand you is a valid target to use the Diplomacy skill upon in order to request specific forms of aid.
To be honest, these rules run into issues once you deal with Beast Speaker and Monstrous Mount feats that let you have animal companions that are magical beasts that start with 5 or 7 int. Griffons for instance are regarded as intelligent creatures. As are Behirs, no doubt. And both of them speak Common by default (Griffon companions explicitly have Common as a language). Any Paladin with a racial -2 int penalty that dumped int (ie. a 5 int Paladin) will always have a divine bond that is smarter than the Paladin himself, because Paladin mounts have 6 int minimum as a special rule. It is fairly certain that the intention of that was specifically to establish that Paladin mounts are intelligent, rather than affecting their skill ranks or something. Of course, most of these are magical beasts (the Divine Bond is not), so that may or may not change things.
Cloudwhite wrote: in fact, it's not so much that he can worship her that questions me. I saw that there was the auspicious companion animal companion archetype which allows him to use a level 1 domain power of the chosen deity. therefore, if this archetype exists, by deduction I conclude that nothing prevents an animal companion with 1 intelligence of 3 from being able to take the beneficent gift of the believer which grants the same power as the auspicious archetype companion. You could rule that way as well. I lean towards requiring 3 int, barring unusual circumstances (like the Auspice archetype), since I figure you have to understand worship to have a religious patron, but I reckon that even without an int of 3, if your animal companion happens to be a deity's sacred animal, you can have them take that deity as a patron even if they have an int score of 1.
That's pretty much how I would rule these things.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: Is there a reason you want an animal companion to worship a deity? For the most part there is very little benefit from them doing so. Unless they are taking a deity specific feat it probably does not matter that much. One thing to keep in mind is that many animals actually have a good WIS score. Wisdom is often more important in matter of faith than INT.
A paladin’s mount would be one case where this should be allowed no matter what. But a paladin’s mount starts with an INT of 6 so is way above normal even for animal companions. If the animal companion has the celestial template, that should also be taken into consideration.
Yes. I am trying to make my animal companion a semblance of a psychopomp companion similar to the esobok to form a good duo with my mortal usher druid.
I think at this point, it's clear the Rules won't cover it expressly, so then you have to fall on the 'What's likely how it works?' or 'What's the best way to adjudicate if this works in the absence of specific rules?'
Cloudwhite wrote: Yes. I am trying to make my animal companion a semblance of a psychopomp companion similar to the esobok to form a good duo with my mortal usher druid. What deity is it specifically? What actions do followers, devout, or other people need to take in order to 'venerate' that deity appropriately (beyond just lip-service)? What animal is it? Can it do those things reliably?
If it's kneeling and praying before bedtime? Most animals could probably do that (unless its verbal prayers or beseechments). Is it lighting ten candles? Is it never eating meat? If it can't, then it probably can't venerate the deity. A dolphin can't really crawl on its knees around the holy mountain nor would a color-blind animal be able to 'fully appreciate the beauty of the god's rainbow over the holy waterfall'.
That all depends on the situation. After that question is why would they? Is it merely because their 'master' wants them to? That's not a really good reason. If they really only have the capability because of their master's class level, or temporary magic boosts (even from permanent items) it's less likely that they would inherently or whole-heartedly choose to do so. Even animals that are divine messengers or favored of specific gods might just be servants of that god. (Note awaken gives an animal its own agency, at that point it's probably unique enough not to count as 'typical', and it's likely a Magical Beast not an Animal, and it stops being an animal companion).
I think most animals would worship nature or such philosophies. Magpies don't have concepts of 'Thou Shall Not Steal' nor should wolves have concepts of calendars or holy days (something that occurs 4 or less times a year). They might understand a full moon, or a dawn or dusk, or the coming of winter or spring, but do you think they can care about birthdays? Even if they become intelligent enough to track them or remember someone else's, it doesn't make them suddenly know something they don't, and unless the PC was there, most people don't remember the day they were born (we were told by people later and learned it). The wolf's parents probably didn't say "It was in the coming of winter after the last elk herd passed through the valley during a half moon.". And if they did, that's still not super-helpful unless there was only one day like that all year (and you know the year). It doesn't prevent anything specifically, but it seriously curtails the ability to care/know/accomplish or otherwise meet the criteria.
Having said that, an animal companion with Intelligence of 3 or more can choose any feat it likes or skill it wants (technically, that its PC master wants barring a GM saying "Why the hell would it do that?") as long as it can physically perform it. So if it makes sense (to your GM), then that's their call. Ultimately that's what it boils down to. Does it make sense that your animal companion wants to, is able to, and does 'venerate' a specific deity in a manner that would elevate it to some special status above anyone else who claims to 'venerate' that particular deity (and they're all different, so we can't know what that might be). Or is it a case of, 'This animal's master wants it to do so and if he died or lost his class abilities tomorrow would the animal still be doing it?', in which case, you're basically just training a dog to kneel when it passes a church or a monkey to makes the sign of the Cross or anoint its forehead with holy oil.
One thing to consider in deciding if an animal companion can worship a deity is the source of the animal companion. Most classes that grant an animal companion are divine spell casters. In many instances if the character goes against the interests of the deity the character loses class abilities including the animal companion. If the deity is the one who sent the animal companion to the character letting it worship the deity seems like a no brainer. When the cleric of Erastil breaks the code of Erastil and becomes an ex-cleric they lose their wolf companion they gained from the animal domain. Any animal companion that comes from a deity should be considered a follower of that deity.
If the creature is not gaining any mechanical benefit of worshiping a deity it is more of a roleplaying decision than a rules question. Other than the ability to take deity specific feats the only thing that worshiping a deity would gain the animal companion is how a very small selection of spells work.
Cloudwhite wrote: in fact, it's not so much that he can worship her that questions me. I saw that there was the auspicious companion animal companion archetype which allows him to use a level 1 domain power of the chosen deity. therefore, if this archetype exists, by deduction I conclude that nothing prevents an animal companion with 1 intelligence of 3 from being able to take the beneficent gift of the believer which grants the same power as the auspicious archetype companion. Pathfinder religion doesn't work like real life religion. The gods are real and they can and do impact mortals in a scientifically measurable way. A deity can bestow power to someone who isn't capable of understanding where the power comes from.
Tom Sampson wrote: I... why does Paizo do these things? Ultimate Campaign is just casually adding new restrictions to Pathfinder Core rules. It does no such thing. There is nothing in the CRB that says Handle Animal only applies to int 1 or 2 animals, and therefore it applies to all animals regardless of intelligence unless otherwise specified. The line in UCam does not change the rules, it merely points out something in them that GMs/players might not have realized.
Tom Sampson wrote: According to the Pathfinder Core rules, anything with 3 intelligence that can understand you is a valid target to use the Diplomacy skill upon in order to request specific forms of aid. That it does. What it doesn't say is that the recipente is able to provide the "specific forms of aid" you request.
Tom Sampson wrote: To be honest, these rules run into issues once you deal with Beast Speaker and Monstrous Mount feats that let you have animal companions that are magical beasts that start with 5 or 7 int. Which rules? The Handle Animal rules simply don't apply because they (again) work for animals. A magical beast that serves as an animal companion is still not an animal when it comes to rules.
=== on PFS ===
PFS was a Paizo official campaign. Saying it was Home Brew/house rules is not correct, It was a campaign with its 'clarifications' or decisions. It differed from your usual Home Game in that a team of people reviewed things then a Paizo official/designer printed PFS RAW and they tried to stick close to RAW. Secondly it had a huge amount of playtesting, just huge. Far more than PF1 RAW or an AdvPath. Thirdly it impacted PF1 RAW. That's how we got some changes and new classes (like Unc Summoner).
It is a good example of what worked in its simplified format.
It may not be to your taste (I prefer to have magic crafting) but it is a stable well documented base to work from.
Tom Sampson wrote: I wouldn't even look for PFS rulings for insight or clarification. Many PFS rulings are ultimately rationalizations where they explain their rulings by taking a creative interpretation of the rules or a selective implementation of realism but the real reason was just that the PFS team wanted to nerf or change certain things with a houserule. James Jacobs was a guest at DragonCon about a decade ago. Someone asked him about the impacts PFS had on the rules of the game as a whole. His response (paraphrasing somewhat, as it was 10+ years ago) was something like “PFS is great for helping us refine our material. I don’t really play in the PFS campaign. When I GM a game it doesn’t matter if some rule is vague, I’ll make a ruling on the spot. If an item I gave the players turns out to be too powerful, I’ll steal it or counter it in some other way. Since PFS is a huge amount of people all playing - or attempting to play - in the exact same way, they cant do that. It finds those ambiguities and overpowered things and brings them to our attention. And when we do a reprint or a new book we can fix them.”
Which is to say that other than campaign-specific rules (no crafting, no evil character options), PFS rulings were the exact opposite of what you suggest. They didn’t have an end goal and rationalize their way to it; they had material that needed a ruling and made the best one they could. And it wasn’t done in a vacuum. The PDT may not have put every PFS clarification into the official FAQ, but the PFS team talked to the designers constantly. Heck, one of the PFS developers was/is in a long-term relationship with one of the designers.
Tom Sampson wrote: why does Paizo do these things? Ultimate Campaign is just casually adding new restrictions to Pathfinder Core rules. But I never bought Ultimate Campaign and it isn't anywhere on the PRD or official FAQs either. PaizoCon, this time, but someone asked a panel about the animal companion “changes.” The unanimous answer was that it wasn’t a change. It was never intended that people could boost the INT of their gorilla, hand it a sword and some armor, and have it act just like a PC. But they could see how people could read that if they parsed the language too finely.
Tom, your posts seem to shade towards the side of “I have been reading it in this powerful way, and these clarifications make it less powerful.” Which may be true. But that’s not because Paizo was seeking out ways to lower the overall power level. Rather, because your interpretation (along with others, not singling you out) was not what was originally intended. When Paizo did take the Nerf Bat to something, they were pretty explicit about what they were doing. See: Summoner (Unchained).
Pizza Lord wrote: I think at this point, it's clear the Rules won't cover it expressly, so then you have to fall on the 'What's likely how it works?' or 'What's the best way to adjudicate if this works in the absence of specific rules?'
Cloudwhite wrote: Yes. I am trying to make my animal companion a semblance of a psychopomp companion similar to the esobok to form a good duo with my mortal usher druid. What deity is it specifically? What actions do followers, devout, or other people need to take in order to 'venerate' that deity appropriately (beyond just lip-service)? What animal is it? Can it do those things reliably?
If it's kneeling and praying before bedtime? Most animals could probably do that (unless its verbal prayers or beseechments). Is it lighting ten candles? Is it never eating meat? If it can't, then it probably can't venerate the deity. A dolphin can't really crawl on its knees around the holy mountain nor would a color-blind animal be able to 'fully appreciate the beauty of the god's rainbow over the holy waterfall'.
That all depends on the situation. After that question is why would they? Is it merely because their 'master' wants them to? That's not a really good reason. If they really only have the capability because of their master's class level, or temporary magic boosts (even from permanent items) it's less likely that they would inherently or whole-heartedly choose to do so. Even animals that are divine messengers or favored of specific gods might just be servants of that god. (Note awaken gives an animal its own agency, at that point it's probably unique enough not to count as 'typical', and it's likely a Magical Beast not an Animal, and it stops being an animal companion).
I think most animals would worship nature or such philosophies. Magpies don't have concepts of 'Thou Shall Not Steal' nor should wolves have concepts of calendars or holy days (something that occurs 4 or less times a year). They might understand a full moon, or a dawn or dusk, or the coming of winter...
My question was mainly aimed at knowing whether to be able to use a feat linked to a divinity an animal must be capable of venerating the divinity or not. I'm just trying to create an animal companion that is close in terms of skills to the esobok (psychopomp). Unfortunately pathfinder does not offer a feat that allows you to choose an outsider as an animal companion. Monstrous Companion is too restrictive in its list and offers very few really interesting companions and it's only magic companions. as for beast speaker, not only is the list of creatures poor but to be able to use all the power of the companion you need 2 feats.
I don't find any feat in list of feats to create psychopomp animal companions.
I think what you want would be better achieved by taking the Unchained Summoner class and taking an eidolon with the psycopomp subtype. The Summoner generally chooses the basic appearance of their eidolon so you could make it look like an esobok and use your evolution points to replicate an esoboks abilities as best you can.
Trokarr wrote: I think what you want would be better achieved by taking the Unchained Summoner class and taking an eidolon with the psycopomp subtype. The Summoner generally chooses the basic appearance of their eidolon so you could make it look like an esobok and use your evolution points to replicate an esoboks abilities as best you can. I have already taken a few levels of summoner sunthesist to give my druid psychopomp attributes and a slightly spectral aspect to frighten enemies. unfortunately, I cannot share my attributes with my animal companion. However, there is 1 feat that would allow it but it only exists in a familiar archetype and allows the familiar to benefit from all the feats of its master and therefore my animal does not have access to them. a simple feat allowing you to choose an outsider would have resolved the problem or else create 1 psychopomp druid archetype allowing the druid to start with a nosoi or an esobok rather than 1 animal from the list. dnd offers such an archetype with the druid circle of the harvest (to give the druid the powers of 1 reaper) but without again granting the same abilities to the animal companion.
Cloudwhite wrote: {list of desires} ... Generally I don't give advice in the Rules forum as it invites more advice centric exploratory questions and vetting than actual rules questions, but this seems to have run its course and become an Advice thread, so
what you want is a Familiar. Wiz 1 will do that. Sharing feats is trickier but you already know that... If you just wanted a temporary familiar I'd suggest blood sentinel:T3 spell.
I think the build issue is that the PC has multiple levels already. That makes it more a unfavorable power issue. My simple suggestion is for the PC to purchase a pet/creature and sidestep the class issues. It is a GM curated solution with gold as the balance. If needed it can also work with Class features with GM agreement/fiat.
Feat chains are an option but it takes levels and feats. Something like leadership, monstrous leadership is one path. Still the skill or feat sharing will be a no go.
Lastly is GM fiat. Your Home Game GM can tinker with your class to do what you want.
You would have been better off in the Advice forum where those conclusions could have been arrived at earlier as it is not a Rules problem or needing explanation.
This post is frankly a bit of a digression, so for those of you who are only interested in the question about animal companions having patron deities, you can ignore this post.
Darklord, I never said that the handle animal skill ceases to work just because you could verbally instruct your animal companion once it is intelligent and has the ability to understand your language (which is now prohibited according to Ultimate Campaign, even though having an animal companion that is intelligent and can understand your language is not, an odd state of affairs, to be sure). And what you said about magical beasts gets a bit stranger if we throw in a Celestial Servant feat which makes a normal animal companion a magical beast or deal with the strangeness that is a Human Paladin whose companion does not count as a magical beast but if the Paladin has the Eye For Talent trait and a Precocious archetype on his animal companion and put the bonus and ability score increase into int, his horse will have 11 int at level 5 while the Paladin himself only has 7 int.
Belafon wrote: Tom Sampson wrote: I wouldn't even look for PFS rulings for insight or clarification. Many PFS rulings are ultimately rationalizations where they explain their rulings by taking a creative interpretation of the rules or a selective implementation of realism but the real reason was just that the PFS team wanted to nerf or change certain things with a houserule. James Jacobs was a guest at DragonCon about a decade ago. Someone asked him about the impacts PFS had on the rules of the game as a whole. His response (paraphrasing somewhat, as it was 10+ years ago) was something like “PFS is great for helping us refine our material. I don’t really play in the PFS campaign. When I GM a game it doesn’t matter if some rule is vague, I’ll make a ruling on the spot. If an item I gave the players turns out to be too powerful, I’ll steal it or counter it in some other way. Since PFS is a huge amount of people all playing - or attempting to play - in the exact same way, they cant do that. It finds those ambiguities and overpowered things and brings them to our attention. And when we do a reprint or a new book we can fix them.”
Which is to say that other than campaign-specific rules (no crafting, no evil character options), PFS rulings were the exact opposite of what you suggest. They didn’t have an end goal and rationalize their way to it; they had material that needed a ruling and made the best one they could. And it wasn’t done in a vacuum. The PDT may not have put every PFS clarification into the official FAQ, but the PFS team talked to the designers constantly. Heck, one of the PFS developers was/is in a long-term relationship with one of the designers. I think you're overstating the authoritativeness of PFS rulings. Regardless of how one puts it, the rulings are made for the convenience of PFS first and foremost, and those rulings can be rather more restrictive than normal PF handles such matters, certainly if we're discussing animal companions. This is the problem with relying on PFS rulings for insight. At the end of the day, they're just houserules particular to PFS.
Quote: Tom Sampson wrote: why does Paizo do these things? Ultimate Campaign is just casually adding new restrictions to Pathfinder Core rules. But I never bought Ultimate Campaign and it isn't anywhere on the PRD or official FAQs either. PaizoCon, this time, but someone asked a panel about the animal companion “changes.” The unanimous answer was that it wasn’t a change. It was never intended that people could boost the INT of their gorilla, hand it a sword and some armor, and have it act just like a PC. But they could see how people could read that if they parsed the language too finely.
This all sounds odd to me. Equipping animal companions with armor is very explicitly legal (there are barding rules for armor and armor proficiency feats are explicitly part of the set of feats that animal companions can take even before raising their int to 3). And the rules already disallow animal companions wielding martial weapons (although I'm not sure why, as there is no real benefit in doing so, since tigers and T-Rex companions are still more effective combatants and in the real world apes do in fact use sticks and rocks as weapons and it certainly wouldn't be impossible to train one to use a machete either, let alone a magically extra-intelligent one), although that rule typically gets bypassed anytime a Sylvan Sorcerer casts Transformation or Bestow Weapon Proficiency on his ape animal companion. So I honestly don't understand what is supposed to have shifted there or what they were being concerned about.
Azothath wrote: Cloudwhite wrote: {list of desires} ... Generally I don't give advice in the Rules forum as it invites more advice centric exploratory questions and vetting than actual rules questions, but this seems to have run its course and become an Advice thread, so
what you want is a Familiar. Wiz 1 will do that. Sharing feats is trickier but you already know that... If you just wanted a temporary familiar I'd suggest blood sentinel:T3 spell.
I think the build issue is that the PC has multiple levels already. That makes it more a unfavorable power issue. My simple suggestion is for the PC to purchase a pet/creature and sidestep the class issues. It is a GM curated solution with gold as the balance. If needed it can also work with Class features with GM agreement/fiat.
Feat chains are an option but it takes levels and feats. Something like leadership, monstrous leadership is one path. Still the skill or feat sharing will be a no go.
Lastly is GM fiat. Your Home Game GM can tinker with your class to do what you want.
You would have been better off in the Advice forum where those conclusions could have been arrived at earlier as it is not a Rules problem or needing explanation. a familiar is too weak to go into battle. I don't ask my partner to do magic but just give him
1. 1 more monstrous appearance
2. that its bite or claws cause possible alterations in its condition.
Cloudwhite wrote: Azothath wrote: Cloudwhite wrote: {list of desires} ... Generally I don't give advice in the Rules forum as it invites more advice centric exploratory questions and vetting than actual rules questions, but this seems to have run its course and become an Advice thread, so
what you want is a Familiar. Wiz 1 will do that. Sharing feats is trickier but you already know that... If you just wanted a temporary familiar I'd suggest blood sentinel:T3 spell.
I think the build issue is that the PC has multiple levels already. That makes it more a unfavorable power issue. My simple suggestion is for the PC to purchase a pet/creature and sidestep the class issues. It is a GM curated solution with gold as the balance. If needed it can also work with Class features with GM agreement/fiat.
Feat chains are an option but it takes levels and feats. Something like leadership, monstrous leadership is one path. Still the skill or feat sharing will be a no go.
Lastly is GM fiat. Your Home Game GM can tinker with your class to do what you want.
You would have been better off in the Advice forum where those conclusions could have been arrived at earlier as it is not a Rules problem or needing explanation. a familiar is too weak to go into battle. I don't ask my partner to do magic but just give him
1. 1 more monstrous appearance
2. that its bite or claws cause possible alterations in its condition. Have you looked at the evolved familiar feat?
There's also the evolved companion feat, and the totem guide companion archetype might fit the flavor
Tom Sampson wrote: Darklord, I never said that the handle animal skill ceases to work just because you could verbally instruct your animal companion once it is intelligent and has the ability to understand your language (which is now prohibited according to Ultimate Campaign, even though having an animal companion that is intelligent and can understand your language is not, an odd state of affairs, to be sure). You're operating under the believe that as per the CRB only, the Handle Animal skill serves the sole purpose of communicationg your wishes to the animal. This is not the case! An animal's behaviour is primarily dictated by it's nature. You need the skill to make an animal go against it's nature, and this nature exists whether it has Int 2, Int 3, of Int 15.
And sure, the CRB doesn't explicitly state the above... but it implies it, by not limiting the Handle Animal rules to low-int animals, and by making Speak with Animals spell making no mention of making the Handle Animal skill unnecessary. Ultimate Campaign does not change the rules, it only prevents people from misunderstanding them.
The issue is that an intelligent animal is capable of problem-solving and adjusting its behavior (especially with verbal instruction) and an animal companion ought to be at least helpfully disposed towards the party, so if you make a request of the animal companion, it can be expected that it would fulfill them to the best of its ability. Really, nothing in the rules is stopping you from using the diplomacy skill on an intelligent animal companion who understands you to make a request. And indeed in the case of a Griffon it is explicitly stated that they can be handled with Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Handle Animal skill checks (in fact, ranks in the diplomacy skill are a valid prerequisite to obtaining the Griffon as an animal companion for the Monstrous Mount feat). The Griffon text block, from the Pathfinder Bestiary, even explicitly states "due to their intelligence, trained griffons can be treated as knowing every trick listed in the Handle Animal skill description, possibly even responding to new, simple requests made in Common." And that is a 5 int creature. It is by no means unreasonable to use this as a precedent on how to engage with intelligent animals.
So yes, Ultimate Campaign is making a change.
That you try to use a Griffon, a magical beast, as an example of a rule regarding creatures of the animal type, shows that you do not understand the rules. I have tried to explain them, but I recognize not desire on your part to actually learn. Therefor, I will not further respond here.
Good grief, I have to say that this is a rather closed-minded attitude to a difference of perspectives, if you readily attribute such things to a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to learn on part of the other person.
I do maintain that this new text on the part of Ultimate Campaign seems poorly placed and has retroactive implications for the Core rules, and I don't think I'm being unreasonable for saying so. I can certainly understand a 3 int animal being insufficiently intelligent to respond appropriately to freeform verbal instruction, but once you start saying that 15 int is not enough either I do believe that is a rather new development. That is my view, at any rate.
Regardless, I suppose I agree we are making no progress in the conversation.
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