Wild empathy beneath the waves

[Mistah J]

Quick question.

A 'typical' druid (i.e forests and plains) is part of a group whose current adventure places them underwater (sunken ship, water-filled dungeon... elemental plane, etc).

They encounter a dangerous animal! It could be an octopus, or a shark, but whatever it is - it is hostile.

Can the druid use wild empathy as easily as they could towards a land animal? Should they?

Feel free to discuss RAW, RAI and any other way you can think of.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Nothing says you can't.

If it's just a regular animal, I would expect it to be unfriendly based on the ability description (and diplo rules are used here as well). Sharks don't normally attack people unless threatened. If it is hostile, the DC to influence it is higher.

It's also worth noting that the typical check takes a minute. A 3.5 rule was -10 to rush a diplo check to 1 round; don't see any specific PF ruling on that.

Unless the druid is from a desert or has never seen the ocean I think it's reasonable to allow it. Wild empathy is intentionally pretty broad; it works on other animals foreign to your experience. You could apply a check penalty for unfamiliarity, but I think it should be possible to at least try.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd say that Wild Empathy is kind of close to the Druid's essential nature, so I'd say it works on any non-magical beastie- without modification for terrain or inexperience.

 

[James Jacobs]

Wild empathy works on any animal, even if that animal's from a region that the druid isn't all that familiar with. Part of a druid's mojo is the fact that he/she has this ability to fundamentally relate with and communicate with ALL animals, after all, even those that are brand new to the druid.

If you want to model a druid's ability working better on animals from the druid's "preferred terrain," I would suggest giving the druid a +2 bonus on wild empathy checks against those creatures rather than penalizing him. This way, the net effect is the same (the druid's better at empathizing with familiar creatures) but the player doesn't feel ripped off by the GM.

 

[Mistah J]

First of all, I am sorry for being unclear.

I am in total agreement with you guys here - I think a druid can "talk" with any animal.

What I mean is, do you think the druid in my example should have difficulties "talking" to the fish not because they are from an unfamiliar terrain.. but because he can't talk/breathe or because he has to use his arms and legs for swimming.

Thanks

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't believe it's necessary to communicate conventionally in order to make a wild empathy check (i.e. not language-dependent). Some kind of motion or touch ought to do it. If the water is turbulent or visibility is poor, I would suggest using circumstance penalties for just about any skill/ability check.

Aquatic rules in general are very minimal in D&D (& PF) and don't fully model the difficulties of being underwater for any purpose (see the numerous threads on underwater spellcasting), so I wouldn't really single out wild empathy as something that should be treated differently from other things.

As an interesting comparison, sahuagin's communication with sharks is "telepathic"; even the shark people don't actually speak out loud to sharks.

Frankly, I think many such predators are solitary animals and don't communicate that much even with each other (how do sharks communicate?), but it's an acceptable conceit to ignore that as well.

(Incidentally, I replied here because this situation came up in my game a while back. I just had the sharks ignore the druid and attack, as they were trained attack sharks under orders from sahuagin).

 

[Orius]

I suppose you could always have it work like Spock's whale mind meld from Star Trek IV.