One of my players is playing a druid. The player is hoping to cast awaken on a falcon. This will grant them an intelligent pet. With the abilitiy to increase their ability to see the area around the ship by miles. Granted they can also do this with wildshape I was wondering how game breaking this might be. It seems that it would make hunting the sea lanes much easier it certainly makes it hard for a ship hunting them to get to them.
Second this seems like a perk that other ships would likely take advantage this line of thought.
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One of my players is playing a druid. The player is hoping to cast awaken on a falcon. This will grant them an intelligent pet. With the abilitiy to increase their ability to see the area around the ship by miles. Granted they can also do this with wildshape I was wondering how game breaking this might be. It seems that it would make hunting the sea lanes much easier it certainly makes it hard for a ship hunting them to get to them.
Second this seems like a perk that other ships would likely take advantage this line of thought.
Your players definitely aren't the first ship to think about an eye in the sky.
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Given how hard it is to find a ship on the open sea otherwise, I'd think this sort of thing was standard practice for all the Shackles pirates.
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Bear in mind that the awakened bird might not want to co-operate. Or live on a ship. An intelligent creature is very probably not going to want to be a pet.
But the txt of the spell does say they have some loyalty to the caster unless you awaken something else then they think of their own needs first.
One of my players is playing a druid. The player is hoping to cast awaken on a falcon. This will grant them an intelligent pet. With the abilitiy to increase their ability to see the area around the ship by miles. Granted they can also do this with wildshape I was wondering how game breaking this might be. It seems that it would make hunting the sea lanes much easier it certainly makes it hard for a ship hunting them to get to them.
Second this seems like a perk that other ships would likely take advantage this line of thought.
Our group had a Master Summoner who's eidolon was built almost exclusively as a scout. She could see in the dark, fly, swim and breathe underwater and had high stealth and perception skills. She also could communicate telepathically back to her master, who happened to be our ship's pilot. That means she was of use beneath the waves helping the group look out for reefs, could fly off in search of ships to plunder or scout sea caves to find out what nasties lurked within. This was incredibly useful to the party and crew as a whole.
As far as using fliers to deal with ships, our M.O. was to find a ship, chase it down and once we got within any sort of range, the MS would summon air elementals (fly 120', duration minutes instead of rounds - he only summoned elementals as part of RP'ing his character) who would foul the rigging, wreck the sails, etc. allowing us to easily overtake them. It added to the legend that our captain (a female Sea Singer Bard) could command the wind and waves with a word.
By the time a druid can cast awaken, having an eye in the sky should be something that was done many levels previously.
For the most part, you want your party to be able to find ships to plunder so it isn't really a problem.
Remember the perception rules which are here -2 for every 10 feet away, means that an eagle can see a long ways off but not forever. I say it will not be a problem.
Also take into account that an awakened bird first need to recognise a ship, establish and communicate a precise direction (yeah over there to you left, no, that left... not quite... that left perhaps?) and in most likelyhood has no idea what precisely he has spotted "sails, yes many sails, can I have that fish now, you promised."
Perhaps even having the ship run upwind just to encounter say the "Dominator" or other warship on their luv, who has now also spotted them
Oh, and the bird will have to survive on the local diet, which might or might not be a problem. Few insects and small birds of prey out on the open ocean. Or lambs and hares or cadavres.
Third and last, remember that one is sailing in tropical waters and evaporation from the sea will certainly cloud the horizon, especially on sunny days. Sea mist and haze. Poor visibility
PS as for "loyalty"
An adventurer considering awakening his animal companion should keep in mind the awaken spell's potential drawbacks. Most pointedly, awakened animals can no longer serve as companions, and the character must follow the rules for Leadership if he wishes to take the animal as an official cohort. Further, an intelligent animal can be difficult to manage. After awakening, animals are predisposed to be friendly toward whoever cast the spell— in this case, presumably their masters. Yet if an animal was mistreated during its time as a companion, or is treated poorly after its awakening, that friendliness is mixed with a sense of confusion that can last anywhere from a few moments to a few hours as the animal reconciles the abuse with the great gift it's been given. Since awaken is not a charm or mind-control spell, there's nothing to prevent awakened animals from resenting mistreatment in the same way a normal person of their intelligence level would, and they're no more inclined to be automatically servile than anyone else. More than one careless druid has found her awakened animal companion refusing to follow instructions, leaving to pursue its own goals, or even seeking vengeance for its former “enslavement.”
- emphasis mine -
- A falcon may perhaps spot a ship (perception rules are nice as abreaking mechanism, but in fact, under these rules you could not spot a person at the other side of an empty football pitch), but need not necessarily be inclined to tell the druid about it and simply enjoy the freedom to fly about ( will the druid ever know that there was a ship on the horizon ? unlikely...)
PPS An awakened animal is not a druid companion anymore (be default)
Remember the perception rules which are here -2 for every 10 feet away, means that an eagle can see a long ways off but not forever. I say it will not be a problem.
Perception rules should not apply in this game.
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There are alternate perception rules in several 3rd party sources that remove the -2 per 10 feet penalty, and account for long-distance spotting from the crow's nest. Looking for sails on the horizon is fundamentally different than looking for traps right in front of you or listening for footsteps behind you, but they're all perception tests.