I would like to know people's opinions about how high level PCs are allowed to be powerful.
Recently I argued with my group about what I can do as a level 18 druid with legendary nature and +34.
We needed to catch an animal and the magus in our group decided to transform into a dragon. I wanted to use my legendary nature to try to tame to calm it. The whole group said that it was impossible, that I don't understand how high levels work and that it made no sense, not even a dc 50, because it was afraid of a huge dragon.
My argument was that high level pcs can summon meteors, stop time, jump 150 feet, fall 5 kilometers and take no damage, skyrim stealth to be hidden from everything, break curses in 10 minutes, cure doomed and drained (even from artefacts), be immune to extreme temperatures, create earthquakes, scare people to death, yet calming an animal with legendary nature skills is seen as impossible?
The contradiction makes me frustrated and I don't know how I'm allowed to play high level PCs right now.
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Based on the scenario given, you are conflating using the Nature skill to Command an Animal with Animal Empathy to use the Diplomacy skill to Make an Impression (change the animal's attitude).
There isn't really a mechanic in the game for calming an agitated animal. If I was your GM, I would just set it as a standard DC of the animal's level which would mean that your +34 would likely have succeeded.
I, personally, run high level as if everyone is a super hero who can do incredible things. Being unable to calm an animal would put your level 18 druid below the power level of Crocodile Dundee, which just seems wrong to me.
There isn't really a mechanic in the game for calming an agitated animal. If I was your GM, I would just set it as a standard DC of the animal's level which would mean that your +34 would likely have succeeded.
No. The rules are clear. "Calming an agitated animal" (changing the hostile attitude to indifferent or better) requires the use of Animal Empathy and a Diplomacy check (or a spell).
This is an attempt to circumvent the rules to use a different skill in place of Diplomacy. Because the OP probably didn't invest in Diplomacy.
There isn't really a mechanic in the game for calming an agitated animal. If I was your GM, I would just set it as a standard DC of the animal's level which would mean that your +34 would likely have succeeded.No. The rules are clear. "Calming an agitated animal" (changing the hostile attitude to indifferent or better) requires the use of Animal Empathy and a Diplomacy check (or a spell).
This is an attempt to circumvent the rules to use a different skill in place of Diplomacy. Because the OP probably didn't invest in Diplomacy.
My PC is master in diplomacy with a +30.
Furthermore, dragons don't have the Animal trait, so Animal Empathy and Command an Animal won't affect them any more than they would affect a human.
Furthermore, dragons don't have the Animal trait, so Animal Empathy and Command an Animal won't affect them any more than they would affect a human.
You misread the post. My druid wasn't calming a dragon. The magus transformed into a dragon. I wanted to calm a basic animal that was probably around level 0 with a level 18 character.
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I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.
I would like to know people's opinions about how high level PCs are allowed to be powerful. [snip] We needed to catch an animal and the magus in our group decided to transform into a dragon. I wanted to use my legendary nature to try to tame to calm it. The whole group said that it was impossible [snip]
Your GM has the final say.
That said, and not knowing the full situation, calming the animal with skills seems reasonable to me and within the expectations of the druid fantasy.
But also, a lot of the high level stuff you mention are spells, and it seems like a charm spell would have been a RAW way to do what you were trying to do?
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From my perspective as a DM, I would have let you calm a level 0 animal with no roll. Not sure why the DM was trying to make a level 18 druid have trouble calming a rabbit or little level 0 animal even if a magus was around transformed into a dragon.
Sounds a bit like the DM and group are messing with you.
But let's try to get more information. Why exactly did the magus turn into a dragon while you were trying to catch and calm a level 0 animal? What was going on to even set such a scenario up? Why would the DM be adamant that a level 18 druid would have trouble calming a common lvl 0 animal? Why would that even be the concern of a level 18 group of characters?
The whole thing seems strange.
There isn't really a mechanic in the game for calming an agitated animal. If I was your GM, I would just set it as a standard DC of the animal's level which would mean that your +34 would likely have succeeded.No. The rules are clear. "Calming an agitated animal" (changing the hostile attitude to indifferent or better) requires the use of Animal Empathy and a Diplomacy check (or a spell).
This is an attempt to circumvent the rules to use a different skill in place of Diplomacy. Because the OP probably didn't invest in Diplomacy.
Animal Empathy is a feat available only to Druids. This interpretation implies that there is no way to calm an animal using mundane means available to everyone which simply doesn't make sense either from a narrative or gameplay perspective. The designers have stated multiple times that the existence of a feat doesn't take away the ability to do the thing without the feat, it just means that it might be more difficult or complicated.
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This is definitely a "Your mileage may vary, talk it over with the GM" situation.
Yes, RAW you need Animal Empathy or some other way to actually communicate and use diplomacy.
But there are a whole bunch of Paizo published products where they allow Nature checks instead. As an aside, I personally think that making Animal Empathy require diplomacy is asininely stupid. I have druids who SHOULD be awful at social skills from their character concept but are masters at diplomacy so that they can deal with animals. And once you're a master at diplomacy its awfully hard to avoid the temptation to talk to people too :-) :-) :-).
How much "mundane" skills can actually accomplish is very often up to the GM and how they see the world. And yes, a Legendary Druids Legendary Nature very, very definitely has quote marks around the "mundane".
Personally, I give a fair degree of latitude with legendary skills, especially if we're talking about something that is not a scripted encounter with a level appropriate DC.
Talking your way or calming down a random animal? Sure, no worries. Getting past the Legendary Lion of Wherever, the guard lion renowned in story and song? Will take skill rolls and quite possibly require some feats or other.
From my perspective as a DM, I would have let you calm a level 0 animal with no roll. Not sure why the DM was trying to make a level 18 druid have trouble calming a rabbit or little level 0 animal even if a magus was around transformed into a dragon.
Sounds a bit like the DM and group are messing with you.
But let's try to get more information. Why exactly did the magus turn into a dragon while you were trying to catch and calm a level 0 animal? What was going on to even set such a scenario up? Why would the DM be adamant that a level 18 druid would have trouble calming a common lvl 0 animal? Why would that even be the concern of a level 18 group of characters?
The whole thing seems strange.
To add context to this. We arrived at a monastery in an AP. To see the leader to progress, we needed first to do a few task for monks (getting wood from a tree, catch a yak, ring a bell, make a drawing in sand). Te second one, catching a Yak alive (no official stats for this animal, a cow is level 0 though). I don't know if the official AP added this as filler or the GM was trying to gain more time to prepare future encounters.
We track a pack of them. We couldn't agree on which course of action to choose to catch a yak so the GM made us roll an initiative to structure who would do something first. The rogue started first and used his madcap top which summoned skeletons musicians as a random effect. The GM said the yak started running away. The magus for his turn decided to transform into a dragon because he wanted to go after them (because the gm said they were really fast). For my turn, I wanted to teleport to a single yak with "water to water" and try to calm it with my druid skills at legendary. I also asked if using "fresh produce" could help my roll somehow.
The argument mentionned at the beginning happened. The group heavily refused my argument. They added "If a serial killer chases me, I wouldn't stop if a random person would to try to calm me". To that I replied that it would be a different situation if you replace that random person by a superhero like superman and that my PC isn't level 4 but level 18.
After that, I gave up and just casted "wall of stone" instead to trap a yak.
I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.
Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.
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I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.
Generally speaking, the point of a skill feat like Tame Animal is to let you do something you can't otherwise do.
If you have the feat, you can tame a non-hostile animal.
If you don't have the feat, you can't.
I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.Generally speaking, the point of a skill feat like Tame Animal is to let you do something you can't otherwise do.
If you have the feat, you can tame a non-hostile animal.
If you don't have the feat, you can't.
There are Paizo devs who literally said that you can try certain actions without a specific feat, you will just have a penalty.
The magus in our group at level 14 was able to negociate with a valstrax during combat without "legendary negociation" so that it would stop attacking us.
But now the conversation is leaving the original topic.
I want to echo, something being a skill feat, Word of Dev, explicitly does not mean you can't do it without that feat. The skill feat represents the safe/easy/reliable way of doing the thing with concrete mechanics tied to it. Someone without the Group Impression feat is not prevented from ever trying to make a good impression on a crowd--they just can't do it at the basic DC with no penalty.
Conversely, the existence of Tame Animal suggests to me 100% that attempting to tame an animal is absolutely a viable use of the Nature skill. What else would it be? Folks with Animal Empathy have an alternative means, but I imagine animals are tamed every day without resorting to specialized druidic knowledge.
Sure, I'd set the DC higher than average to account for intimidating factors in play, but I feel like a level 18 character with Legendary knowledge and skill in handling animals is going to find this task trivial, likely turning to see the druid as a safety against the dragon.
The idea that a level 18 character, much less a druid, with legendary Nature skill could fail to tame a low-level animal is what I find incredible. This is not a DC 50+ scenario just because a dragon is a big, scary creature. Big, scary creatures are dime a dozen in a small animal's world--once you've hit 'bear' the amount more scared the animal can be is probably negligible, at which point I'd call the DC 25 max.
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Note that the Tame Animal feat mentions animals being sometimes too scared to be tamed.
Now, does the animal being scared comes from magic or just a "logic" reaction to circumstances ?
If the latter, it feels pretty bad and not logical for your party to stop your PC from doing something that helps the party reach their goal.
In the end, it is GM's fiat though.
I mean, we have a Druid here with Animal Empathy. That should be the thing to do in this situation and he has a +30 in Diplomacy. This should have been allowed, although with a pretty hefty DC due to the dragon being present.
A level 18 character should be able to handle securing an ox. To a level 18 group this should be trivially easy. I'm still not even sure why the magus turned into a dragon or any of that. A basic athletics character should be able to wrestle an ox to the ground at level 18. Any attempt at Diplomacy using Animal Empathy should be trivially easy. Whole situation seems strange like people were overcomplicating a fairly easy task.
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I suppose it's fair enough to take into consideration that these are supposed to be chores for a very high-wuxia seeming monastery on top of the Wall of Heaven--I guess one might say they're no ordinary yaks. The vibe of these tasks seems like its closer in tone to that art from Quain where the farmer carries the ox while ploughing the field.
But still, when the Althetics suggestion is one roll to catch and carry the creature home, I think Nature should have been allowed at a similar DC. I get as a GM and panicking when somebody tries something that's not listed and not knowing how hard to push the challenge but like. Being able to tame a beast off the mountain in a hurricane (or a dragon attack) is exactly the correct tone for this adventure as a legendary nature hero to show off their stuff.
I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.
By the way, the feat I was talking about here is "no cause for alarm". It is mechanically possible to reduce panic from creatures with just diplomacy.
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I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.
The feat literally says that it doesn't work on hostile animals. I'm not seeing why it's unreasonable to apply that to an animal being actively threatened by a dragon.
I get your frustration here but this just isn't a failing of the rules, as is being framed. Your GM decided a check was impossible and didn't let you do it. Legendary proficiency doesn't let you override that.
I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.The feat literally says that it doesn't work on hostile animals. I'm not seeing why it's unreasonable to apply that to an animal being actively threatened by a dragon.
I get your frustration here but this just isn't a failing of the rules, as is being framed. Your GM decided a check was impossible and didn't let you do it. Legendary proficiency doesn't let you override that.
It does not talk about hostiles animals
"You attempt to reduce panic. Attempt a Diplomacy check, comparing it to the Will DC of creatures in a 10-foot emanation around you who are frightened. Each of them is temporarily immune for 1 hour"
Given the scenario presented, I can understand the GM call, even if I probably would have been more lenient if I was running this specific encounter.
The main concern to me isn't the level of skill, but the amount of time needed to make the check. Most diplomacy-style actions require a minute of time to be able to do. Tame Animal, which a lot of folks here are citing, requires an hour. If the animal is running away from an active threat, that means the timeframe is being measured in rounds, not minutes.
A level 18 character should be able to handle securing an ox. To a level 18 group this should be trivially easy. I'm still not even sure why the magus turned into a dragon or any of that. A basic athletics character should be able to wrestle an ox to the ground at level 18. Any attempt at Diplomacy using Animal Empathy should be trivially easy. Whole situation seems strange like people were overcomplicating a fairly easy task.
They're player characters. Overcomplicating trivial tasks is their specialty. If I recall correctly, Athletics is the option presented in the book too.
Given the scenario presented, I can understand the GM call, even if I probably would have been more lenient if I was running this specific encounter.
The main concern to me isn't the level of skill, but the amount of time needed to make the check. Most diplomacy-style actions require a minute of time to be able to do. Tame Animal, which a lot of folks here are citing, requires an hour. If the animal is running away from an active threat, that means the timeframe is being measured in rounds, not minutes.
In the example of "Tame animal", it takes one hour if trained, 10 minutes if expert, 1 minute if master and 1 round if legendary.
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I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.The feat literally says that it doesn't work on hostile animals. I'm not seeing why it's unreasonable to apply that to an animal being actively threatened by a dragon.
I get your frustration here but this just isn't a failing of the rules, as is being framed. Your GM decided a check was impossible and didn't let you do it. Legendary proficiency doesn't let you override that.
It does not talk about hostiles animals
"You attempt to reduce panic. Attempt a Diplomacy check, comparing it to the Will DC of creatures in a 10-foot emanation around you who are frightened. Each of them is temporarily immune for 1 hour"
My bad, I thought you were talking about tame animal.
There isn't really a mechanic in the game for calming an agitated animal. If I was your GM, I would just set it as a standard DC of the animal's level which would mean that your +34 would likely have succeeded.No. The rules are clear. "Calming an agitated animal" (changing the hostile attitude to indifferent or better) requires the use of Animal Empathy and a Diplomacy check (or a spell).
This is an attempt to circumvent the rules to use a different skill in place of Diplomacy. Because the OP probably didn't invest in Diplomacy.
What exactly are you quoting? Where is it?
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To add context to this. We arrived at a monastery in an AP. To see the leader to progress, we needed first to do a few task for monks (getting wood from a tree, catch a yak, ring a bell, make a drawing in sand). Te second one, catching a Yak alive (no official stats for this animal, a cow is level 0 though). I don't know if the official AP added this as filler or the GM was trying to gain more time to prepare future encounters.
It sounds like the main issue is that the AP is being fundamentally silly and your fellow players were all going for the Lols and doing insanely stupid things.
It is sometimes very hard to make high level modules make any sense. Suddenly the town guards are L17 just so the PCs have a challenge. The Yak suddenly have a speed of 60 or 120 or whatever and massive numbers (saves, ACs, hit points) so trapping one becomes a challenge. L18 characters are putting on an opera and dealing with a creaky door where the DCs are Level appropriate (the first and last are examples from Paizo APs).
Mostly, you just have to go with the flow and ignore the fact that things really don't make any sense if you look at things at all logically. It is just what happens when PCs become SO incredibly powerful at high level compared to low level.
There is no way to make these checks logically be a problem for a group of high level characters. The author was unwilling or unable to come up with reasonable level appropriate challenges. And your poor GM was left in the middle trying to make non challenging things seem like a challenge.
I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.
Yes. No Cause for Alarm.
You could also use Advanced First Aid with a Medicine check to reduce a frightened condition by 2.
However, using the Nature skill doesn't change attitudes or allow a character to reduce frightened values, even with Natural Medicine ("It [Nature] doesn’t replace Medicine for uses of the skill other than Treat Wounds or for feat prerequisites.").
I don't think this is a contradiction, really. We could have the same conversation about why a legendary in athletics can't jump 1000 feet in the air unaided, or a legendary in survival can't forage when there is literally nothing around. Some things just aren't possible with skills, and attempting to calm an animal that is in active danger (against a dragon no less) is one of those.Is is really impossible when there is literally a level 1 skill feat to reduce panic of creatures? This exact feat is diplomacy instead of nature but you get the idea. And yes, my PC has +30 diplomacy.Generally speaking, the point of a skill feat like Tame Animal is to let you do something you can't otherwise do.
If you have the feat, you can tame a non-hostile animal.
If you don't have the feat, you can't.
Note that Tame Animal is Uncommon (from the Quest for the Frozen Flame AP, so not every table may allow it for every character), takes 1 hour per check (10 minutes with Expert proficiency), and just makes the animal "more receptive to your presence and requests" (not reduce the frightened condition).
What exactly are you quoting? Where is it?There isn't really a mechanic in the game for calming an agitated animal. If I was your GM, I would just set it as a standard DC of the animal's level which would mean that your +34 would likely have succeeded.No. The rules are clear. "Calming an agitated animal" (changing the hostile attitude to indifferent or better) requires the use of Animal Empathy and a Diplomacy check (or a spell).
This is an attempt to circumvent the rules to use a different skill in place of Diplomacy. Because the OP probably didn't invest in Diplomacy.
The post I'm replying to contains the quoted text. The attitudes in the parentheses are from the description of the Make an Impression action for Diplomacy.
Essentially, this whole thread can be boiled down to "use the appropriate skill check (and/or with the appropriate skill feat)."