NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aboyd" data-source="post: 4767262" data-attributes="member: 44797">Someone in my campaign would like to purchase a tiger as a pet.  I think this is overpowered (they're level 4, the "pet" would be 6 HD, and more powerful than the druid's animal companion).  However, they are in the middle of the biggest city in the world, and they have a powerful druid enclave about 15 miles outside of the city.  So I don't want to say no, but I do want to price it realistically (realistically meaning look at how other similar things are priced and see if it's reasonable to match).So, I have seen no rules for how to catch/tame/train an animal reliably, and no real pricing guide for exotic dangerous animals such as a tiger.  So this is what I've pieced together from the 3.5 core rules (along with one feat from NBoF, which really doesn't have a material effect on my goal, so you can ignore that part if you wish).  So here is what I'm writing to the player.  Critiques, better data, anything solid appreciated.As for using the Wondrous Pet feat to get a tiger, you are essentially asking to get a druid's animal companion, even though you are a not a druid.  In fact, Ellie's animal companion is nowhere near as powerful as what you're attempting to acquire.  That won't be free.  Let's go through the whole process from start to finish.  Note that a requirement of the feat is that you train the animal.  That's step 2 onward.  I think it works like this: <ol style="margin-left: 20px"> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">First, a wild animal must be obtained and made willing.  There are three ways.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Someone with Wild Empathy encounters an animal (attitude: unfriendly) and spends a tense minute bleating/barking/whatever.  They make a DC 40 Wild Empathy check to win the animal over (attitude: helpful).  If it fails, the animal will not go with the trainer/captor and another creature must be found.  If it fails with a 4 or worse, the animal attacks.  Using this method requires a high-level (15+) druid or ranger.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Same as the previous option, but someone using the Speak with Animals spell could use Diplomacy instead of Wild Empathy.  Using this method requires a level 12 (or so) bard with maxed Diplomacy, or an even higher-level druid or ranger with maxed Diplomacy.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Someone with no spells or Wild Empathy could capture a baby animal and use Handle Animal skill to “rear a wild animal.”  This would take much more time and money (for food & shelter) but the DC is potentially easier than the other choices.  But if the skill check fails, the animal remains wild and only the previous 2 options could salvage things.  Using this method requires someone not high level at all, but lots of waiting and potential failures and then re-waiting again.  A level 1 expert could do it with an extremely lucky roll, but would fail so often as to be unprofitable.  Probably something like a level 10 expert/druid/ranger would get this done reliably and economically.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Next, Handle Animal is used to train the animal for an appropriate amount of tricks (3 if animal’s Intelligence is 1, or 6 tricks if the Intelligence is 2).  Most DCs are online at d20srd.org, and most take 1 week each.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Use Wonderous Pet feat to teach the animal more tricks (3 or 6 again, depending upon animal’s Intelligence).  Each additional trick still takes time as listed in the SRD.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Use Wonderous Pet feat to give animal extra skill points.  Capped at your Handle Animal rank, and takes a week per point.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Use Wonderous Pet feat to give animal extra hit points.  Capped at your Handle Animal rank, and takes a week per point.</li> </ol> So, to get a fully trained tiger, you would need an amazing druid or ranger (option a), or bard (option b), or animal tamer who already has tiger ready for you (option c).  Then you need to personally train it for tricks, over a minimum of 12 weeks (if you make all your checks and if you teach it the max # of tricks).  Then you would put in additional weeks to give it extra skill points and hit points.  The cost for the animal’s “room & board” will incur. Using method a or b, we're looking at paying someone very high level for spell-like effects and potentially putting themselves in harm's way.  The spell tables in the PHB give us a hint that this would get costly, probably more than just a few hundred gold pieces.  Using method c, we're probably looking at a few hundred gold to "stable" a creature for a year while it is reared (maybe double the costs to stable a horse as per the PHB), plus the animal trainer's pay for that year (I'm thinking of the "animal handler" as listed in the DMG but with many levels of expert, so more expensive). The listing for the Griffon shows it's about 1500 gp to rear a baby griffon (same CR as a tiger): <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/griffon.htm" target="_blank">Griffon :: d20srd.org</a> That seems roughly in line with my calculations for methods a, b, and c.  So let's go with that.  1500 gold to get a tiger, untrained.  Then you will have to convince the group to "fast forward" through your training, or else sit back and watch while they do stuff.Reasonable?  Better math that could be used anywhere?I don't usually enforce the Handle Animal checks when having a trained animal do a trained trick.  However, that's typically because the druid is the only one with such creatures, and I give her the benefit of the doubt.  With something this powerful (and I think, maybe still too cheap), I will expect the owner of the animal to do the Handle Animal checks for each issued command.  What do you guys think of that?  It follows the rules, but I don't know anyone who has ever followed that rule.</blockquote>

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