Owlbear help

[Creeping Death]

Our group just killed an Owlbear and found it nesting in an old farm house. In the farmhouse we found a baby owlbear. Near the entrance of this old farm house we found lots of blood and some human body parts. Most noticable was an arm with a tattoo of what we think is an enemy organization.

My character, a Level 2 half-giant fighter/psywarrior fed the arm to the baby owlbear and now it follows me around. My character is 7'5" and fully loaded with armor and such weighs in at just over 500 lbs. Owlbears are about 8' tall and weight 1500 lbs, so height wise my character looks close to the size of its parent.

My question is:

Is there are way for me to train it as my pet? Would this be something that handle animal would take care of?

Thanks,

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Is there are way for me to train it as my pet? Would this be something that handle animal would take care of?

You got ranks in Handle Animal? That might help. Lack of it might hurt. But it's all up to your DM.

It might be pretty hard to have this creature following you around in a city. In a more rural area, maybe people won't care as much. Should lead to some interesting role play opportunities.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Owl Bear... Large Magical Beast..., Str 21, Dex 12, Con 21, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10

Rear a Wild Animal: To rear an animal means to raise a wild creature from infancy so that it becomes domesticated. A handler can rear as many as three creatures of the same kind at once.
A successfully domesticated animal can be taught tricks at the same time it’s being raised, or it can be taught as a domesticated animal later.
Action: Varies. Handling an animal is a move action, while pushing an animal is a full-round action. (A druid or ranger can handle her animal companion as a free action or push it as a move action.) For tasks with specific time frames noted above, you must spend half this time (at the rate of 3 hours per day per animal being handled) working toward completion of the task before you attempt the Handle Animal check. If the check fails, your attempt to teach, rear, or train the animal fails and you need not complete the teaching, rearing, or training time. If the check succeeds, you must invest the remainder of the time to complete the teaching, rearing, or training. If the time is interrupted or the task is not followed through to completion, the attempt to teach, rear, or train the animal automatically fails.
Try Again: Yes, except for rearing an animal.
Special: You can use this skill on a creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 that is not an animal, but the DC of any such check increases by 5. Such creatures have the same limit on tricks known as animals do.
A druid or ranger gains a +4 circumstance bonus on Handle Animal checks involving her animal companion.
In addition, a druid’s or ranger’s animal companion knows one or more bonus tricks, which don’t count against the normal limit on tricks known and don’t require any training time or Handle Animal checks to teach.
If you have the Animal Affinity feat, you get a +2 bonus on Handle Animal checks.
Synergy: If you have 5 or more ranks in Handle Animal, you get a +2 bonus on Ride checks and wild empathy checks.
Untrained: If you have no ranks in Handle Animal, you can use a Charisma check to handle and push domestic animals, but you can’t teach, rear, or train animals. A druid or ranger with no ranks in Handle Animal can use a Charisma check to handle and push her animal companion, but she can’t teach, rear, or train other nondomestic animals.

Handle Animal is a huge entry, so I've done a partial quote to illustrate what I think are the most important things.

Firstly, the Handle Animal skill can be used to rear young and domesticate them.

Secondly, it is possible to rear non-animals with an INT of 1 or 2 by accepting +5 to the DC. This includes Owl Bears which are magical beasts.

Thirdly you can't rear creatures unless you have at least 1 rank in Handle Animal.



Basically, get yourself some handle animal skill and be prepared to put in the hours to train it and you can get it as a pet. You do need the handle animal, you have to make the training DC (15+HD) and complete the training without interruption. It is difficult but doable.

Cheers

 

[Numion]

Looking at D&D as how the evil guys always manage to pull off having the weirdest monsters as pets, I'd have to say it must be possible. Or how do you explain all the adventures where the BBEG keeps a friggin zoo at his lair to protect him, yet is never eaten himself?

 

[Elephant]

Looking at D&D as how the evil guys always manage to pull off having the weirdest monsters as pets, I'd have to say it must be possible. Or how do you explain all the adventures where the BBEG keeps a friggin zoo at his lair to protect him, yet is never eaten himself?

Charm/Dominate Monster?

 

[Bagpuss]

Ah I recognise that adventure... I had the same idea until I realised how hard a Handle Animal check (DC 25 = 20+HD) it is with no retry and if you fail that's it. In the end we sold it, to a professional trainer/collector for about 3,000gp (strangely enough the same price it mentions in the module, for selling it).

Actually having checked it is impossible to train as it's Intelligence 5*, so sell it is your best option.


*oops it appears they dropped the owlbears intelligence in 3.5, it's now 2, so it can be trained, but at DC 25 and only one attempt, it isn't likely you are going to succeed anytime soon since you are what 2nd or 3rd level at best?

 

[Breakstone]

You could always bring it to a local Druid to be trained. Instead of spending 15+ hours a day, you could visit once every other day for 3 hours or something. The Druid does the training, you get the pet.

 

[Creeping Death]

Thanks

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

Bagpuss - Thanks for not revealing anything about this adventure, I am having a blast trying to figure things out. Knowing anything about it would ruin the adventure for me.

I have my character planned out for several levels, now I'm at a point where I think I might change that so that I can have an owlbear pet/companion.

Anyways, thanks all for the input.

 

[Kelleris]

Ah, I'd love to have one of my players try to train an owlbear. Here's what the Arms and Equipment Guide has to say on the subject:

Owlbears are theoretically trainable. However, it is not necessary to train them to attack, and not very productive to teach them anything else. Owlbears are best employed by leaving them in an enclosed area and tossing in raw meat occasionally. Further interaction is usually pointless.

If raised from chicks, owlbears become very devoted to their trainers. They never transfer this devotion to anyone else, though, and continue to display their famously surly attitude to anyone who isn't the trainer.

The book goes on to suggest that a DC 15 Handle Animal check be required to tell an owlbear not to attack something, and comments that repeated excessive violence is essentially the only way to train one of the buggers.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

Ahhh, baby owlbears.

I once had a group follow the tracks of the owlbears they just killed back to a nest and found an owlbear chick. It made baby sounds at them. They killed it.

Then wondered WHY I told them "No xp for killing baby owlbears!"