Pathfinder 1E Sending Animal Companion to "Retrieve" Companion

O

orion90000

First Post

• Jul 16, 2013

• #1

A player in my group last night wanted to send in her Leopard to take an injured companion out of combat. She got upset after I told her that she would have to make a grapple check on the PC.

My thought was that the PC was focusing on the opponent and had his guard up. To complicate matters, the PC in question was also under her control since the player was unable to come.

Any thoughts on the situation? How would you have handled the situation?

 

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Storminator

First Post

• Jul 16, 2013

• #2

I would have said "ok, your leopard does that" and moved on.

PS

 

N

Nagol

Unimportant

• Jul 16, 2013

• #3

Assuming it isn't a defined trick, I'd require a "pushing the animal" check for the leopard to understand and correctly follow the instruction.

The PC can voluntarily accept the help or not; the fact he has an active opponent is immaterial if the character has his senses. Would you require the same check if a cleric was attempting a cure spell on the PC that requires touch?

 

MarkB

Legend

• Jul 16, 2013

• #4

I could see this being an application of the "Fetch" trick, but if the party haven't previously practised it, I think it'd be an unusual enough use of the trick to treat as pushing the animal.

But I agree with the others that, if the PC being retrieved is willing, no Grapple check should be required, and physically this activity is well within the leopard's capabilities - leopards in the wild often drag entire carcasses up trees to keep them out of reach of scavengers.

 

O

orion90000

First Post

• Jul 16, 2013

• #5

I guess part of the problem was too many actions in a turn. move to the rogue, grab the rogue, carry him away. two moves and a standard.

I think it would be different from a cleric " touching" an ally to heal, and a leopard " grabbing" you with his teeth and dragging you away.

 

MarkB

Legend

• Jul 16, 2013

• #6

It's reasonable enough to consider the leopard to be picking up the PC, requiring a move action, so yes, the leopard probably couldn't get there and back on the same turn, any more than a PC could.

I'd probably allow it to move to an adjacent square and then pull the PC into its square all on one turn, then move back with the PC on its next turn.

 

Ahnehnois

First Post

• Jul 16, 2013

• #7

Storminator said:

I would have said "ok, your leopard does that" and moved on.

Click to expand...

+1 on that.

 

W

Warbringer

Explorer

• Jul 16, 2013

• #8

Storminator said:

I would have said "ok, your leopard does that" and moved on.

PS

Click to expand...

With the following:
Total move does not exceed Leopards move (encumbered on way back)
If the companion is in combat, there is an AOO for disengaging (doesn't matted the move is the Leopard's)

 

Storminator

First Post

• Jul 16, 2013

• #9

Warbringer said:

With the following:
Total move does not exceed Leopards move (encumbered on way back)
If the companion is in combat, there is an AOO for disengaging (doesn't matted the move is the Leopard's)

Click to expand...

Absolutely. It would also take one of the character's actions to give the order (I no longer remember what type of action it takes in 3.x), but I would just have the animal companion do it.

PS

 

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Wycen

Explorer

• Jul 17, 2013

• #10

I know there are animal tricks and one of the newer books apparently expands with and deals with that, but I'm with the "you do it and move on" crowd. Perhaps in a party of druids, or with lots of extra party members of whatever stripe, I might feel the need to get more technical, but sometimes when you drill down into actually reading how skills work it is a bigger headache than needed.

As for the grapple check, well, maybe just a DEX check or attack roll, whatever is most likely to succeed if you really want to give a chance of failure (which probably means a grapple check or at least Combat Manuever Check would probably be most successful, yeah?)