Themes article up

[UngeheuerLich]

@ Trap choices:

Trap choices are choices that look good on paper, but are bad in actual play.

The animal master does not look like a great combat option on paper. Even an inexperienced player would notice that. Fetching a key and swooping down for a second are also covered by the rules... In general you don´t have your bird die all the time. It just dies, if you send it to death regularily. And actually, it should die horribly if you abuse it to do all kind of dangerous things regularily.

This was one of my main complains of the druid in 3.5:
Your animal companion was just too tough. It was not your companion, but your fighting pet. So i rather have this kind of animals than the overpowered thing we are used to...

So it is perfectly fine, that they can neither absorb attacks nor make your group´s thief redundant.

On the otherhand, it should not regularily die by just beeing around... So an exclusion to auras and bursts and blasts, and a hover on death´s door rule would not hurt.

 

[pauljathome]

@ Trap choices:

Trap choices are choices that look good on paper, but are bad in actual play.

The animal master does not look like a great combat option on paper. Even an inexperienced player would notice that. Fetching a key and swooping down for a second are also covered by the rules... In general you don´t have your bird die all the time. It just dies, if you send it to death regularily. And actually, it should die horribly if you abuse it to do all kind of dangerous things regularily./QUOTE]

You've just hit on one of my biggest problems. I want a pet cat TOTALLY for out of combat stuff. I want an animal that I actually LIKE and will protect, that I don't want to put into danger.

But then the rules come along and state that
1) The animal is actually useful in combat. Not hugely so, but way more effective than a cat SHOULD be against a troll or a dragon or even an orc. Enough to encourage me to use him in combat
2) The animal will be killed if it even goes close to combat (via bursts or any of the thousand other means listed here)

They should have given me one or the other of
1) An animal companion that is essentially useless in combat but can survive being around combat essentially automatically. Passive familiar mode is just about perfect for this.
2) An animal companion that has some utility AND some survivability in combat.

As an aside, one trivial thing that they should have done which would partly address the survivability issue would be to have the beast master get the Raise Beast Companion ritual and allow that to be used on the pet.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Except you STILL fail to note that having an ordinary pet cat doesn't do jack for you. The character in my example didn't want an ordinary pet cat, she wanted a cat that would go on a scouting run with the rogue. I don't care if you're a high level adventurer or what you are, you're not training an ordinary cat to do that, period. An Animal Master is more than fluff. It may be underpowered for a theme, but it is NOT fluff.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding: what could the cat actually do while it followed the rogue out on a scouting run? I'm imagining that the cat's actions were pretty much:
Follow the rogue
Make stealth checks
Make perception checks and alert the rogue of potential dangers
And even once in a while:
assist the rogue's stealth checks (oh, never mind, it's just a cat).
run for help when the <blank> hits the fan.

The rogue is already going to report the results of the scouting mission to the rest of the party, so you don't need any special communication between the cat and the master.

That's all stuff I would consider to be in the realms of possibility for an 'ordinary' adventurer's cat.

Now sure, if you want the cat to be picking pockets, stealing important documents, carrying treasure or stuff like that, you're going to need something more. Hell, even those are things that cats have been trained for in the real world. In this case "something more" is going to be a high nature skill.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding: what could the cat actually do while it followed the rogue out on a scouting run? I'm imagining that the cat's actions were pretty much:
Follow the rogue
Make stealth checks
Make perception checks and alert the rogue of potential dangers
And even once in a while:
assist the rogue's stealth checks (oh, never mind, it's just a cat).
run for help when the <blank> hits the fan.

The rogue is already going to report the results of the scouting mission to the rest of the party, so you don't need any special communication between the cat and the master.

That's all stuff I would consider to be in the realms of possibility for an 'ordinary' adventurer's cat.

Now sure, if you want the cat to be picking pockets, stealing important documents, carrying treasure or stuff like that, you're going to need something more. Hell, even those are things that cats have been trained for in the real world. In this case "something more" is going to be a high nature skill.

Probably my fault. Or maybe we have different impressions of what cats are capable of. I would say an ordinary cat is a zero. I've owned many cats. Perhaps you could get one to reliably play fetch, sometimes. They surely won't stick around if there's the slightest danger, or follow you anywhere, or go where you tell them, etc. So a basic pet cat sans Animal Master is about as useful as a hood ornament. I guess it might alert you to danger as it hauled ass out of the way!

Yeah, the player wanted to have a way to 'tag along' on a scouting mission. So an animal that could be stealthy, would (at least according to the rules) perform mostly how you want it to, and can even report back if that becomes necessary, or relay a message, etc. was pretty much what the doctor ordered.

I agree, the Animal Master cat can't physically do anything supernormal. It is just that the mere fact that you can use an animal that way at all IS supernormal already. Even a dog wouldn't do the kinds of things an animal master can get his pets to do automatically, regardless of training.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Probably my fault. Or maybe we have different impressions of what cats are capable of.

I'd say it's probably the second - my wife has been wanting a cat for quite some time and I'm very much a dog person. Her arguments have partially consisted of demonstrations of how various cat breeds can be trained like dogs and are every bit as intelligent.

For instance, google "moscow cat theatre".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Oh, you can train them in a sense. Like any animal though only within certain parameters of what their natural propensities are. What Animal Masters are doing? Yeah, its pretty much paranormal. Dogs might almost get there, but you just can't get animals to independently act like the scouting cat would, etc. So I'd say it is still a cool theme and gives you some interesting, if not earth shattering, options. Still agree with the durability issue though. That was I was saying it probably would have been better built along the lines of doing stuff with any animal anytime vs using specific animals as helpers/tools (albeit you sure can train one up fast).

 

[IanB]

Oh, you can train them in a sense. Like any animal though only within certain parameters of what their natural propensities are. What Animal Masters are doing? Yeah, its pretty much paranormal. Dogs might almost get there, but you just can't get animals to independently act like the scouting cat would, etc. So I'd say it is still a cool theme and gives you some interesting, if not earth shattering, options. Still agree with the durability issue though. That was I was saying it probably would have been better built along the lines of doing stuff with any animal anytime vs using specific animals as helpers/tools (albeit you sure can train one up fast).

Yeah the Primal keyword on the powers is a dead giveaway for it being at least somewhat supernatural, IMO.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah the Primal keyword on the powers is a dead giveaway for it being at least somewhat supernatural, IMO.

I want the dog from the jona hex movie...

 

[Kerranin]

I am not happy with the power-creep this system enables. I think the only reasonable way you could add themes is to have enough of them, and wide ranging enough, so that all PCs could pick an appropriate one.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

i guess this is the idea...