Animal Handling for dummies.

[D.Shaffer]

With one of my characters, I'm tinkering with maxing out handle animal with the idea of having a swarm of animal minions at my beck and call. That said, a few things have come up so I'm wondering how people have been handling this.

A: Animal Rearing. While some animals have costs for their young, most dont. There are a lot of creatures out there that you can rear, and the DC for it is easy to figure out, but I cant seem to find any formula to determine the cost of the animal. This would be important to know for purchase requirements, it's also important in that it'd be a measure of my inherent wealth. So how do you determine the inherent value of a reared and domesticated animal that's not on the equipment list?

B: Handling fees. Related to the above, how much does the actual training procedure add to the cost of a purchased animal? If you wanted to buy an untrained animal with the idea of cost saving (And you have plenty of time to kill), how much would you think this would knock off the price. If you wanted to sell your services as an animal trainer, how much would that be? (ATM, I'm favoring treating it like a Profession roll)

C: Would you allow animals to be 'untrained' of their tricks to learn new ones? If trained for a purpose, would you allow replacing a trick with another? If an animal already has 'Track' as a bonus feat (Hell Mr. Deinonychus), would you consider them to already have the Track trick?

 

[frankthedm]

A: Animal Rearing. While some animals have costs for their young, most dont. There are a lot of creatures out there that you can rear, and the DC for it is easy to figure out, but I cant seem to find any formula to determine the cost of the animal. This would be important to know for purchase requirements, it's also important in that it'd be a measure of my inherent wealth. So how do you determine the inherent value of a reared and domesticated animal that's not on the equipment list?

Compare warmounts to the non fighting versions. Then note a heavy warhorse while only 1 HD meatier is 250 GP more that a light warhorse

B: Handling fees. Related to the above, how much does the actual training procedure add to the cost of a purchased animal? If you wanted to buy an untrained animal with the idea of cost saving (And you have plenty of time to kill), how much would you think this would knock off the price. If you wanted to sell your services as an animal trainer, how much would that be? (ATM, I'm favoring treating it like a Profession roll)

Prohibitive, look at the monster manual and arms and equipment guide for ballpark ideas.

C: Would you allow animals to be 'untrained' of their tricks to learn new ones? If trained for a purpose, would you allow replacing a trick with another? If an animal already has 'Track' as a bonus feat (Hell Mr. Deinonychus), would you consider them to already have the Track trick?

Untraining of instincts? :\ No. I would say the track trick is built in and not going anywhere. I'd almost say it would take a trick to teach him not to automaticly pounce any quarry it did track. Heck, Mr. Deinonychus probaly would be trying to teach it's handler the track feat. Pink packmate can't find food. Must show him how.

I love the idea of higher HD carnivorous mounts. Though I also feel having those type of mounts near small animals and children should be a Bad IdeaTM.

 

[ValhallaGH]

A. I'd use the price for an adult version (if such exists) and either divide by 3 or multiply by 4 depending upon the rarity of the young.

B. Using the warhorse and the riding horse as a guideline, the number of tricks seems to have a linear relationship to the price. 25 gp per trick. (The base prices of the animals changes, as a heavy warhorse is innately supperior to a heavy horse.)
Treating the HA check as a Profession roll is probably the way to go when the player says "I train animals for a few weeks. How much gold do I make?"

C. This is already allowed by the Handle Animal skill. Once you reach the 'trick limit', additional tricks replace previous ones.
An animal with the Track feat does not necessarily have the track trick. The track trick represents training in working with a handler to track a trail; the track feat means that the animal is skilled in hunting and tracking prey on its own. The two are not exclusive but they are not inclusive.

 

[frankthedm]

The track trick represents training in working with a handler to track a trail; the track feat means that the animal is skilled in hunting and tracking prey on its own. The two are not exclusive but they are not inclusive.

Even better than what I said.
An animal handler could [try to] follow the untrained Deinonychus as it hunted a lost child.
An animal handler could have the trained Deinonychus track the lost child with less chance of hilarious tragedy.

 

[MarkB]

With one of my characters, I'm tinkering with maxing out handle animal with the idea of having a swarm of animal minions at my beck and call. That said, a few things have come up so I'm wondering how people have been handling this.

A: Animal Rearing. While some animals have costs for their young, most dont. There are a lot of creatures out there that you can rear, and the DC for it is easy to figure out, but I cant seem to find any formula to determine the cost of the animal. This would be important to know for purchase requirements, it's also important in that it'd be a measure of my inherent wealth. So how do you determine the inherent value of a reared and domesticated animal that's not on the equipment list?

B: Handling fees. Related to the above, how much does the actual training procedure add to the cost of a purchased animal? If you wanted to buy an untrained animal with the idea of cost saving (And you have plenty of time to kill), how much would you think this would knock off the price. If you wanted to sell your services as an animal trainer, how much would that be? (ATM, I'm favoring treating it like a Profession roll)

It's 3.0, but Arms & Equipment Guide has rough guidelines for pricing animal young / eggs, and I think for training and rearing costs.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Even better than what I said.
An animal handler could [try to] follow the untrained Deinonychus as it hunted a lost child.
An animal handler could have the trained Deinonychus track the lost child with less chance of hilarious tragedy.

Thank you.

Nice example.