Handle Animal vs. Animal Companion

Horrendos · Jul 8, 2004

Hiho,

creating my Ranger and looking for the Skills i can take i recognized that the
HA-Skill is very powerful. Its allow me to handle as many as three creatures of the same kind at once. (15 + HD) So if i have the right items or high Charisma (for example a Paladin which has the HA-Skill as Class-Skill) it is
possible to handle much greater Animals as the Ranger can over his Animal companion.

For Example:

LVL4 Paladin(18 Cha): 10(Take10)+7(Rank)+(4Cha)=21 (==> 6HD Brown Bear * 3)

LVL4 Ranger: Animal Companion --> 1 Wolf o0
LVL4 Druid: Animal Companion --> 1 Black Bear o0

If a Barbarian, Paladin or Fighter pushes his HA-Skill very well he will gonna have always better and (together) stronger Allys as the Ranger or Druid.

Imho the Life for a Ranger or Druid can get very frustrating if someone else in the Party has much stronger (and more) animal-allys.
The Companions "growth" with the lvls but a maximized Wolf of a Ranger would imho never get a chance vs. 3 black-bears which the Pala gets at lvl 4.

Whats your opinion? I think this Skill is too powerful...

Big Jake · Jul 8, 2004

No, not too powerful.

First of all, the Druid and the Ranger can use the Handle Animal skill just like anyone else. They can train animals to accompany them (in addition to their animal companion) just as you said for the fighter or the paladin or the barbarian. They are simply treated like normal animals vice an animal companion.

Handle Animal is in fact a very beneficial skill to use... especially if you're running a wilderness based campaign. It not as useful (but still useful) in a city. Bears (or any other animal), no matter how well trained, are not comfortable outside their prefered environment. Even the animal companions feel the same way.

Animals will rebel if not treated well. The animal companion may put up with a little more than normal, but not much.

But too powerful? At lower levels, an animal in the party can make a HUGE impact. The animal often has more hp and does more damage than the character that it follows. But that slowly fades (less so for the animal companion) to the point that the animal is less likely to hit the really big CR baddies, less likely to overcome DR, and just about gauranteed to die in combat.

For an animal companion to die in combat, the druid or ranger simply spends a day or two meditating and calling a new animal to them. The new animal is just as well trained as the previous animal and equally as faithful.

But when a trained animal dies in combat, the character has to spends weeks training the new animal. Not to mention finding the animal. Or maybe even the expense for purchasing a new animal.

Some important things to think about:

Using the Handle Animal skill to do the simplest trained "trick," to include "Attack," "Down," or "Stay," is a move action. Thus, any character with three trained animals can only handle two of them the first round (and lose his own attack) and then one the next round.

A druid or ranger can handle his animal companion to do a learned trick as a free action.

--------------------

I could go on quite a while. There is a druid in my current campaign, and a druid and a ranger in my last one. I had to look at the rules very carefully to make sure that the animals were not being used beyond their true capabilties.

When used beyond their true capabilties, the animals can almost assume a PC-level status. I've read posts where the DM includes the animals in the party when dividing up xp, possibly to compensate for the abuse of the handle animal rules.

In my experiences, I have seen animals (and animal companions) fall one after another to the point that it becomes difficult for the non-druids/rangers to keep up. Equally as often, the party encounters things that animals simply do not want to attack (undead), or creatures with DR 15/whatever that the animal's attacks simply become useless.

doghead · Jul 8, 2004

Hey Horrendos and Big Jake. Thanks for this. I was just wondering the same thing.

Laslo Tremaine · Jul 9, 2004

Big Jake said:
For an animal companion to die in combat, the druid or ranger simply spends a day or two meditating and calling a new animal to them. The new animal is just as well trained as the previous animal and equally as faithful.

Hmmm.... Can you cite a rule that says this?

We have been playing under the assumption that Druids and Rangers must still train their animal companions.

In fact the SRD seems to indicate that they do need training when discussing the number of bonus tricks that an animal companion gets.

SRD said:
Bonus Tricks: The value given in this column is the total number of “bonus” tricks that the animal knows in addition to any that the druid might choose to teach it (see the Handle Animal skill). These bonus tricks don’t require any training time or Handle Animal checks, and they don’t count against the normal limit of tricks known by the animal. The druid selects these bonus tricks, and once selected, they can’t be changed.

Big Jake · Jul 9, 2004

Laslo Tremaine said:
Hmmm.... Can you cite a rule that says this?

We have been playing under the assumption that Druids and Rangers must still train their animal companions.

In fact the SRD seems to indicate that they do need training when discussing the number of bonus tricks that an animal companion gets.

Oops! You're right about the training of the tricks. Only the bonus tricks are are automatic, like you showed in the SRD.

It would have been more appropriate for me to say "almost as well trained," especially at higher levels for low HD animals (because they get more bonus tricks).

Thanks for pointing that out... you probably just helped a group of people from arguing about it. "But Big Jake says..." "Well, I guess he doesn't know how to read the SRD!"

Thanee · Jul 9, 2004

About the move action: It'd probably make sense, that you can give a single (equal) command to a group of animals (kinda like the shadowrun rigger with drones

). But more individual commands need to be given seperately.

And don't forget, that animal companions gain quite a few bonuses as well.

Bye
Thanee

mmu1 · Jul 9, 2004

Horrendos said:
Imho the Life for a Ranger or Druid can get very frustrating if someone else in the Party has much stronger (and more) animal-allys.
The Companions "growth" with the lvls but a maximized Wolf of a Ranger would imho never get a chance vs. 3 black-bears which the Pala gets at lvl 4.

Whats your opinion? I think this Skill is too powerful...

1. How do you propose the 4th level Paladin is going to come by those three black bears? Is he going to buy them from a local pet shop? Does he have any skills that will let him track them down and capture?

2. Druids have Wild Empathy for a reason - you're not going to just walk up to and start training a hostile (or unfriendly at best) wild animal.

3. Unless you're a Druid or a Ranger, it takes an action to handle an animal in combat, which is unwieldy to say the least - and you don't get to take 10 on that check. You also don't get the +4 bonus Druids get when dealing with their animal companion.

3a. You have to direct the animal every time you want it to do something, and what it can actually do is rather limited if you play things by the rules. The fact that ordinary trained animals don't get any bonus tricks further limits their usefulness.

4. Druids can cast spells on their animal companions that make them a lot more useful and powerful than the unaugmented critters anyone else can train.