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I am reading through the Items list on www.d20pfsrd.com and came across "Combat Trained Dog for 25GP" Does this mean i can buy this dog (Or another Animal) And have it fight with me and my group?
Short answer: Yes
Medium length answer:
How many animals can I have at any given time? During
the course of a scenario, you may have one combat animal
and as many noncombat animals as you like. You make
this choice at the beginning of the scenario. This means if
you’re a Ranger 5/Druid 5, you need to pick which animal
companion is your combat animal. Noncombat animals
(ponies, horses, pet dogs, and so on) cannot participate
in combat at all. This clarification is meant to reinforce
the same line of logic that prohibits the Leadership feat
in Pathfinder Society Organized Play—you only have
4 or 5 hours to play and allowing multiple additional
combatants only slows down play. Finally, if you have so
many noncombat animals that their presence is slowing a
session down, the GM has the right to ask you to select one
noncombat animal and leave the rest behind. Our advice
for the campaign: you can have a mount, a pet, and your
class-granted animals with you during the scenario, but try
to avoid going any further than that. It can be disruptive,
and disruptions are fun for no one. As an additional bit
of clarification, the summoner’s eidolon is considered an
animal companion for the above considerations.
Full answer:
As mentioned in the quote above, you can have one combat animal per PC involved in any given scenario. That is not a total number of combat animals equal to the number of PCs, by the way, but that each PC may have one combat animal involved.So, yes, with a copy of the correct source book available, you could buy a combat trained dog, and have it with you, and serving as an extra combatant, during a scenario. You could even buy a second one, buy it would only serve as a spare, for use in a future scenario, when your current dog dies, and cannot be brought in during the same scenario the original dog died.
Note that most available trained combat animals will only be useful, other than as a quick meal, for the first 4 levels or so. Once you pass that point, most of the buyable animals just don't have the AC or hit points needed to survive long, especially once enemy spellcasters start using Area of Effect (AoE) spells like Fireball....
Any animal available for purchase could be trained into a combat animal, at the cost of having Handle Animal ranks (which you need anyway to get that combat trained dog to attack, anyhow), and being able to only train it with one trick per scenario.
Some caveats:
Other than for certain classes, and then only with their Animal Companion, it will cost you your Move action to command your combat animal, when needed.
PFSOP does not allow the training of purposes, so you have to train each trick individually to your animal, so it can take a minimum of 3 scenarios to fully train even an Int 1 animal that does not come pretrained.
There are very few animals that are sold with combat training from the books available; Riding Dog (PFRPG Core), Warhorse (PFRPG Core), Combat Trained Dog (Adventurer's Armory, IIRC). No others come trained, and would have to be pushed (DC 20 or 25) to do anything during your first scenario.
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PFSOP does not allow the training of purposes, so you have to train each trick individually to your animal, so it can take a minimum of 3 scenarios to fully train even an Int 1 animal that does not come pretrained.
There are very few animals that are sold with combat training from the books available; Riding Dog (PFRPG Core), Warhorse (PFRPG Core), Combat Trained Dog (Adventurer's Armory, IIRC). No others come trained, and would have to be pushed (DC 20 or 25) to do anything during your first scenario.
So, if i get an Eagle and train him to attack, i would have to train 1 talon than the 2nd one then bite (not in that order) and i will be making a combat train roll d20 + Animal Handling, versus his a DC of 20. If they have 2 Int i can teach them only 6 tricks. What if they have an Int of 10. would it give me a better chance of succeeding in training the animal if i can use a spell to communicate with them?
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Could i buy a Pseudodragon and train him in this manner?
1.) A pseudodragon is not an animal so it can't be trained. It doesn't need to be trained anyway, it's smarter than many fighters :)
2.) You can't buy a pseudodragon unless you are a wizard with the Improved Familiar feat. Additional Resources/Adventurer's Armory.
Does that help?
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So, if i get an Eagle and train him to attack, i would have to train 1 talon than the 2nd one then bite (not in that order) and i will be making a combat train roll d20 + Animal Handling, versus his a DC of 20. If they have 2 Int i can teach them only 6 tricks. What if they have an Int of 10. would it give me a better chance of succeeding in training the animal if i can use a spell to communicate with them?
You're on the right track but you have some big misconceptions in there. You do not train individual attacks, you train for something that they can do, which comes from the list of applicable tricks. For example "attack" is a trick you could learn, but so is "defend". In order to train an animal, you have to roll your handle animal + d20 with a target number equal to the trick's difficulty (attack is 20 for example but riding is only 15). Tricks usually cost one slot (attack is an exception), and you may train your animal 2 x INT in tricks. Animals cannot, by definition, have an INT of more than 2, with some exceptions I am not going to bring up because I don't want to start that fight again. Basically unless you are a druid, cavalier, paladin, or other class with an animal companion of some sort, you will never see an animal with an INT of 10, so don't even worry about it. I would suggest you read the section on Handle Animal (link to D20PFSRD) and just ignore the section on "Training an Animal for a Purpose." That is how animal training works.
As a word of advice, after the first level or two, if you're lucky, just expect your dog to die. Unlike official animal companions which grow over time in HD and abilities, trained animals are forever linked to their low hit point total and saves. They never get evasion, and are easy prey to pretty much everything on the battlefield. Since you can only train one trick between adventures, your companion is never really up-to-snuff, can't do much, and most GMs giggle gleefully when they die (okay maybe not that last part).
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So, if i get an Eagle and train him to attack, i would have to train 1 talon than the 2nd one then bite (not in that order) and i will be making a combat train roll d20 + Animal Handling, versus his a DC of 20. If they have 2 Int i can teach them only 6 tricks. What if they have an Int of 10. would it give me a better chance of succeeding in training the animal if i can use a spell to communicate with them?
PFSOP does not allow the training of purposes, so you have to train each trick individually to your animal, so it can take a minimum of 3 scenarios to fully train even an Int 1 animal that does not come pretrained.
There are very few animals that are sold with combat training from the books available; Riding Dog (PFRPG Core), Warhorse (PFRPG Core), Combat Trained Dog (Adventurer's Armory, IIRC). No others come trained, and would have to be pushed (DC 20 or 25) to do anything during your first scenario.
As mentioned, training your eagfle to attack would be one trick, but would be limited to humanoid, living opponents, and would be done at teh END of the scenario AFTER you bought it. At the end of the NEXT scenario, you could then train it with the Attack Any Opponent trick, which has a prerequisite of the Attack trick, which would then allow you to have it attack any opponent at a DC 10 check.
That assumes you succeed on the two training checks, which may not be a given, especially at low levels.
BTW, Ryan is incorrect, an animal can learn either 3 tricks at an Int of 1, or 6 tricks with an Int of 2.
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I still say it's generally a waste of time at a PFS table though to have a non-animal companion animal though.
Depends on a few factors. Given low levels, and the right stats, it is sometimes useful to have an expendable to save the party a bit of pain.
Then again, maybe I played too much LG, where having a riding dog, for the first few levels, was almost de rigeur as a way to keep the party alive. And, with some GMs, was still insufficient...
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For the purposes of quoted PFSOP rules, can that be read to mean that a Summoner or Necromancer can only have one animal minion at a time and cannot summon/raise more than one undead animal at a time for combat?
No, summoned creatures (save for the eidolon) and animated dead are not counted as animal companions. Go nuts.
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No, summoned creatures (save for the eidolon) and animated dead are not counted as animal companions. Go nuts.I believe that even eidolons are not treated as animal companions.
Certainly not for boon companion, but also for this case. At least I recall a post by Josh saying exactly this. Perhaps that's changed now, but I haven't seen a post contradicting it.
-James
The reply was in response to the question on the restriction of class-feature companion animals each player may have at the table.
How many animals can I have at any given time? During
the course of a scenario, you may have one combat animal
and as many noncombat animals as you like. You make
this choice at the beginning of the scenario. This means if
you’re a Ranger 5/Druid 5, you need to pick which animal
companion is your combat animal. Noncombat animals
(ponies, horses, pet dogs, and so on) cannot participate
in combat at all. This clarification is meant to reinforce
the same line of logic that prohibits the Leadership feat
in Pathfinder Society Organized Play—you only have
4 or 5 hours to play and allowing multiple additional
combatants only slows down play. Finally, if you have so
many noncombat animals that their presence is slowing a
session down, the GM has the right to ask you to select one
noncombat animal and leave the rest behind. Our advice
for the campaign: you can have a mount, a pet, and your
class-granted animals with you during the scenario, but try
to avoid going any further than that. It can be disruptive,
and disruptions are fun for no one. As an additional bit
of clarification, the summoner’s eidolon is considered an
animal companion for the above considerations.