Playtesting: IG's 'The Making of Heroes'

[Legildur]

From Handle Animal of the SRD (my emphasis:

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.

I would say it takes six weeksb at DC 18 (3 hours per day per cub). It says that you can teach tricks at the same time. Maybe the PHB description is more complete.

 

[Arkhandus]

Well, other folks already answered the animal rearing questions before I got to it, so there ya go.

A 1st-level human Expert or Commoner with 4 ranks in Handle Animal, Skill Focus (Handle Animal), and Animal Affinity, as any decent animal trainer would have, will have Handle Animal at +9. With a 12 Charisma or so, it'd be +10 (he might have a below average Wisdom anyway for being in the business of trying to train wild animals) . At 2nd or 3rd level he could have a +11 or +12 modifier.

So taking 10 on the checks, as he would be doing, the animal trainer should be able to successfully rear the bear cubs. As long as things don't get too hectic/stressful to the point that he can't take 10 on checks anymore, in which case he might fail some of the rolls.


Aramil and Irathias could probably travel to town and back fairly quickly since they only need 4 hours of trance each night. They could leave literally at first light, carry the boy and the cubs (though they might have to subdue the cubs first, unfortunately, to keep them unconscious and thus non-troublesome), and make good time.

 

[industrygothica]

well, in real life i have seen it take a horse trainer 3 months of working with a (domestic) horse (at the minimal age of 2 years) to get saddle broke just for him...not to mention saddle broke for anyone else like the owner. Now i know that is real life and this is fantasy, so i would have to say the idea of one year would not be a bad thing, just a matter of gp s (and that is not general principles)

First thing i would like to mention is that traing a wild animal requires a dc 20. if the trainer has a cha bonus of +2 that means there needs to be a +8 ranks jsut to take a 10 on training the bear cubs...i would not think that a trainer would try to train a potentialy deadly animal such as a bear unless they could "take a 10" and succeed. that would mean with a +8 ranks, there would need to be a level 5 npc (max ranks = 3 + level). so if a trainer could train the bears there would need to be the price of a level 5 npc.

keeping in mind that the phb (Skills : Handle animal) does say that domesticating a wild animal starts with a young animal, you would do likewise with the horse analagy with the foal being freshly weaned when it is being put into a starting training session.

next thing i wish to point out is a place to work. if you use the dmg II rules for places of business, there would need to be an investment of 1000 for a building and about 8000 for all of the political stuff, possibly as low as 4000 if in a smaller then a town sized area.

if you want to know my source on this, it would be starting on page on 180 of the dmg II.

is this making any sense, or am i just yammering?

The DC for rearing a wild animal is 15 plus the animal's HD. The DC for teaching specific tricks range from 15 to 20 depending on the trick. I think the object is to first get the animal domesticated, which in this case would be DC 18. Yes, you can teach the the animal tricks while you're domesticating it, but it's really the DC 18 check that counts the most; if that one fails, the others are pointless. Rearing is the only use of the Handle Animal skill that can't be retried, so it's obviously the one you'd want to get right the first time.

Can one legitimately even take 10 in this situation? Rule one for taking 10 is that the character not be distracted or threatened, and I'd think that dealing with a wild animal would make you both. I really don't think I'd allow that in my game.

I do appreciate being pointed to the DMG II; the prices for hirelings on Table 5-2 (page 155) are a great help.

 

[Scott DeWar]

that book is till new to me, so i wasn't aware of that table, or i would have used it...glad to be of help! (despite my aimless rambling...)

as for the takeing of 10, in hind sight, i totally agree as to the reason to not be able to...even a young bear that is still wild can be threatening!

 

[industrygothica]

An animal trainer... am I missing anything?

Carslan Alos CR 4
Male human expert 5
LN Medium human
Init +2; Senses Listen +7, Spot +7
Languages common
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12
hp 20 (5 HD)
Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +5
Spd 30 ft.
Melee dagger +4 (1d4) or spear +4 (1d8)
Ranged light crossbow +5 (1d8)
[Space 5 ft; Reach 5 ft]
Base Atk +3; Grp +3
Combat Gear dagger, spear, light crossbow
Abilities Str 13, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 16
Feats Alertness, Animal Affinity, Skill focus (handle animal)
Skills Handle Animal +16 (8 ranks +3 Cha +2 Animal affinity +3 Skill focus), Knowledge (nature) +8 (8 ranks -2 Int +2 synergy), Listen +7 (4 ranks +1 Wis +2 Alertness), Profession (Animal Trainer) +9 (8 ranks +1 Wis), Ride +10 (4 ranks +2 Dex +2 Animal Affinity +2 synergy), Search +3 (4 ranks -1 Int), Spot +7 (4 ranks +1 Wis +2 Alertness), Survival +11 (8 ranks +1 Wis +2 synergy)
Possessions combat gear, leather armor

 

[Legildur]

Experts are only proficient with simple weapons.

 

[Arkhandus]

Only other flaw I can see is the skill points being a bit off.....
For one thing, he should have 48 SP, as a 5th-level human expert with 8 Int. You've spent 66 SP.

Secondly, he's got 2 ranks too many in Survival, he should have 8 ranks not 10 (+9 total instead of +11).

Also, Search is listed but without any bonus given.

So....cut down Survival by 2 ranks as needed, and that leaves 16 skill points left to remove. Personally, I'm not sure why he has Move Silently, other than to help in capturing animals maybe, but it won't matter much when he can't Hide decently. Ditch the 8 ranks in Move Silently, ditch 3 ranks in Ride, ditch 2 ranks in Listen, ditch 2 ranks in Spot, and ditch 1 more rank in Survival (so 7 ranks total in Survival, instead of 8 or 10). That'll fix it. Search probably doesn't need any ranks......probably.


As for the gear.....maybe leather armor (he doesn't want to get all scratched up easily by every animal he trains), a crossbow or some javelins, a dagger, and a spear or club.

 

[industrygothica]

Only other flaw I can see is the skill points being a bit off.....
For one thing, he should have 48 SP, as a 5th-level human expert with 8 Int. You've spent 66 SP.

Secondly, he's got 2 ranks too many in Survival, he should have 8 ranks not 10 (+9 total instead of +11).

Also, Search is listed but without any bonus given.

So....cut down Survival by 2 ranks as needed, and that leaves 16 skill points left to remove. Personally, I'm not sure why he has Move Silently, other than to help in capturing animals maybe, but it won't matter much when he can't Hide decently. Ditch the 8 ranks in Move Silently, ditch 3 ranks in Ride, ditch 2 ranks in Listen, ditch 2 ranks in Spot, and ditch 1 more rank in Survival (so 7 ranks total in Survival, instead of 8 or 10). That'll fix it. Search probably doesn't need any ranks......probably.


As for the gear.....maybe leather armor (he doesn't want to get all scratched up easily by every animal he trains), a crossbow or some javelins, a dagger, and a spear or club.

Ha! I'd say the skills are certainly more than a bit off. I know what I was thinking there, but I won't bother explaining it as I was certainly not doing a very good job of it (thinking, that is).

The move silently was indeed for hunting and/or capturing the animals, but is really not necessary. I'll get them fixed up, along with the weapon proficiency that Legildur pointed out.

Thanks!

*EDIT* Take a look at him again, if you don't mind. Hopefully he's fixed now.

 

[industrygothica]

Huzzah! InvisibleCastle likes me today!
An 18 on the attack roll, for a total of 20, and 12 damage from the shortbow sneak attack!
Sneak attack with shortbow against the nearest flat-footed orc (1d20+2=20, 2d6=12)

Unfortunately, you'll remember that I loathe invisible castle.

We'll keep the results from this roll this time, but I prefer to do it myself in the future, if it's all the same to you.

 

[Arkhandus]

Ah, I forgot. I'm just used to using InvisibleCastle at this point for PbP rolls, so I've gotta consciously focus on avoiding that for the few games not using it. :\

Sorry.