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I'm quite sure this was true for Living Greyhawk!I believe in earlier organized play campaigns the animals added to the average level of the table, so even a bunch of 1st level characters would be playing a higher difficulty level if they brought a menagerie of animals with themThat's not true. Or at least, I've never seen this done.
Yeah, this could be implemented for pfs. Back in LG if it wasn't a class feature it was factored in to the total levels for determining apl, but not counted as another player. So a 1-5 scenario a table with 4 level 2 players plus a 6HD tiger is calculated as apl (2+2+2+2+6)/4 = 3.5 which rounds to 4 meaning they play tier 4-5.
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I would be miffed if I bought the supplement for the main reason of getting a trained animal just to find out it just got banned. I have a tiger as well, in a four player table it comes along (Level
7 PC), a six player table I'll take my riding dog instead. Five player depends if party make up is short on melee. That being said I maybe played that PC only 3-4 times last year.I believe in earlier organized play campaigns the animals added to the average level of the table, so even a bunch of 1st level characters would be playing a higher difficulty level if they brought a menagerie of animals with them
As a level 7 PC Johns proposal would make your tiger still quite legal.
The problem is only really bad at the lower levels
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Yeah, this could be implemented for pfs. Back in LG if it wasn't a class feature it was factored in to the total levels for determining apl, but not counted as another player. So a 1-5 scenario a table with 4 level 2 players plus a 6HD tiger is calculated as apl (2+2+2+2+6)/4 = 3.5 which rounds to 4 meaning they play tier 4-5.
Which would give them more money which would only increase the questionable tiger trade
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Flutter, enlarge person does not work on pols they are the wrong type. Once they become pols they change their type. To enlarge a pol you have to drop a bag containing at least 500 gp on them to enlage them if two or more of them are gathered together dropping the bag of gold in betwen them instead incites a rage effect as they attack one another to get the gold.
Ignore Snotter everyone knows dragons like to eat fat horses, he was just projecting, you are a sleek guardian of animal kind.
Ignore Snotter everyone knows dragons like to eat fat horses, he was just projecting, you are a sleek guardian of animal kind.
"It's a misconception they actually eat gold and treasure that's why they are always sittin on a big pile of it"
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*snort* So I'm getting fat now am I?All the being said, I think John's solution is quite elegant. In fact, I personally don't see an issue of not being able to get s heavy horse until past the first few levels, but wouldn't have an issue if a specific exception were made for this and only this creature.
Well, they have been calling you "Flutter-butter" around the stables... something about having to grease your stall to fit you in...
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Thanks for a well-thought out reply.
I have to say, I haven't run in to this problem in my area, but flavor-wise, if druids and barbarians can ride dinosaurs and elephants, it seems a bit unfair to say "fighters can only have horses". Who wants to ride a horse if you have things like griffons?
Except those classes that can have a companion or mount like that, have it as a class feature. I would say the real question should be, "How is it fair for someone to be able to just buy an animal that outstrips a class feature companion, when classes or archetypes that get them have them in exchange for other abilities?".
If you want to have a companion, choose a class or archetype that grants one. Several classes have the option of having a tiger as a pet at level 1... not one of those options is anywhere near as potent as the purchasable tiger. That is a problem.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I haven't heard of this problem in my area either.
If we need a fix, I like the idea of restricting animal purchases based on level.
As a GM, my question would be how good the Handle Animal skills are on those low level characters? Not every class has it as a class skill and many people look at Charisma as a dump stat. Since it isn't an Animal Companion, you don't get an automatic +4 on it. Handling an animal is a move action, while “pushing” an animal is a full-round action. The check would be relatively low (DC10 or DC12 if injured), but they wouldn't be able to take 10 in combat with it.
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Pushing is DC 25, 27 while injured. I agree that it's extremely difficult to get this to work at the lower levels mentioned earlier in this thread. Also means the PC can only take a 5 foot step and a swift action when pushing.
A level 1 giving up their action to do 30ish points of damage is hardly a balancing factor.
If that. All you really need to do is set the animal to defend and then walk near the front lines
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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Sorry, I wasn't clear.
It is a move action to have a trained combat animal attack a humanoid, animal, or monstrous humanoid. Since this is a trick they are trained in, it is DC 10 or DC 12 if injured.
It is a full round action to push a creature to perform a trick it isn't trained for. My reading of the general purpose "Combat Training" is it does not train attack twice, so the trained animal would have to be pushed in order to attack undead for example. That would be a full round action and DC 25 or DC 27 if injured.
A first level character probably can do the former, but not reliably. A first level character will have a hard time doing the second.
Teaching the animal the second attack trick after purchase is DC 20. You can try once per rank in Handle Animal at the end of the session. See Guide to Organized Play pg. 36 step 8. After that the animal would be willing to attack any type of creature.
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Enough scenarios feature humans and animals enough that the double attack trick is not a major factor. It's the player who chooses what scenario they play in most cases. And as pointed out, the "defend" trick does not require an action.
The GM has few options to deal with a CR4 creature in a subtier 1-2 party. It ruins the game for everyone who wants their own character's actions to matter. At higher sub-tiers, you're still adding 50% more attacks per round even though the creature itself isn't outpowering all of the characters.
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My reasoning in support of banning purchased combat pets are the following:
1. The game is about the PCs. Purchased animals are not PCs. (See below for PC concepts that depend on an animal, though.)
I only have one character with a pet, and as it's the very underpowered "Owl Bear", it doesn't even count, so I don't really have a horse in this race, but, how is "Purchased Animals" any different than "The game is not about the characters Purchased Magic Sword" or "Purchased Scroll/Wand"? Or, if you need, an item like a Metamagic Quicken Rod that grants more actions.
This as an argument just doesn't hold any water, and it's been made clear that the Summoner Class, a thousand more times guilty of this than everyone else combined, isn't going anywhere despite how many games they have wrecked, I just don't see what this was supposed to preview outside of almost shock value?
I've read the thread, and I'm familiar with the issue. I'm not yet convinced that we need a new rule, but I'm going to float an idea and see if it has any merit:
What would this do? It would allow any PC to buy a horse, a camel, or a riding dog at 1st level (CR 1). Pets and pack animals with fractional CRs are likewise unaffected. It also would mean that a PC could not buy a bison or tiger—combat trained or otherwise—until level 5 (CR 4). Of course, these creatures would still be available through the animal companion class feature. The only gap I see is the heavy horse, which is CR 2 (minimum character level 3), yet a combat-trained light horse is still available right out of the gate.
I'm not a fan. If the goal is to remove the ability to purchase a Tiger (and/or Bison), simply call a spade a spade and remove the option to have a Tiger or Bison, (completely).
Since the PF Core Book came out, and even back to 3E, the Tiger has been noted as ridiculously overpowered. Comparing it to the Bear, (both CR 4s), the Tiger is so hand's down better of an option, that the Tiger even comes out above the CR 7 Dire Bear, though it's a little closer).
The Tiger as a pet is just FAR TOO GOOD. It' got 3 attacks that are generally better than most humanoids main weapon attacks, or close, which is itself strong, but add in the deal-breaking abilities Grab, Pounce, Rake, and 40ft speed is beyond ridiculous. It has no business being Large (it's 3ft tall) (9ft long?!?!?).
Also I you compare the Animal Companion Tiger to the Animal Companion Bear, the Bear starts out small and advances to Medium sized while the Tiger starts out Medium and advances to Large. HUH?
My other issue is that while the Bison can be a bit strong, it's pretty circumstantial in it's effectiveness, the Tiger is not. It remains pretty strong even at 5th level when (under your proposal) it could be legally purchased, except that at that point, the player can really afford to start buffing it up as needed. So, what it seems to actually do is postpone the option to purchase the pets, but really only a rather short time at which point they become an even greater abuse.
All in all I'd rather NOT have just another band aid, so I'm not particularly keen on the proposal, (despite it possibly accomplishing something I'm actually in favor of, to a point), as I'd rather hold off for a true fix instead.
On an aside, I've really been debating making a character that raised a Wolf (normal) from a puppy and is a loyal friend <just an example, not sure if you can buy a Wolf off the top of my head, but any common CR 1 family friend would fit the bill here>. This sort of thing would remove that as a possibility. Kind of along the same lines as a character wanting to take their original weapon and Masterwork Transformation it to Masterwork and then magically upgrade it to keep that "it was my father's, father's sword" their whole career, stating out at level 2+ just isn't the same. same could be said for any character concept that just wants to purchase (almost as vanities) a variety of odd creatures.
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how is "Purchased Animals" any different than "The game is not about the characters Purchased Magic Sword" or "Purchased Scroll/Wand"? Or, if you need, an item like a Metamagic Quicken Rod that grants more actions.
Because a +1 sword doesn't dominate low tier modules the way a trained tiger does. (for 1/4 the price)
The game is balanced around the assumption of magic gear, not the assumption of purchased combat tigers.
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But that's not what the argument being made is. Its that the character is supposed to shine, not their purchases/gear.
And yes, a magic sword, or whatever, very well can own a scenario if its one that uses things like DR. Adamantine might be a better example, but same thing. Sometimes having and not having a specific thing can literally be the defining factor between life and death or success (sometimes first encounter) or failure.
The Tiger, is only different in that the stats are excessively overpowered, so its better, easier, and more elegant to either fix the actual issue, (Tigers, not pets) or to simply remove them.
"As of <enter date>, Tigers are no longer a legal source. If you have a character that purchased a Tiger, and the Tiger is still alive, (or ever returned to life), you have 2 options:
1.) You may sell the animal back at full value, including any mundane gear intended for animals, such as an exotic saddle.
2.) You may keep your Tiger animal, but it can not be used to make any rolls or checks. Any resources invested are lost or can be traded to another valid animal for free. In all ways, players with a Tiger treat it as a non-combatant Light Riding Horse/Pony.
Animal Companions/Mounts work a bit differently. A Tiger instead uses the Bear statistics presented in the Core Rule Book for Animal Companions, (see the Druid entry), except that they trade the 40ft movement to 30ft and gain Rake. At 4th Level, they advance as the Bear, but keep Rake."
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But that's not what the argument being made is. Its that the character is supposed to shine, not their purchases/gear.
Perhaps not the only argument against it - but it's one of them - the one I'm for.
Im really not sure that Bison are enough of an issue, personally.
Bison aren't quite as powerful as tigers (though trample is mean at low levels) - but they're dirt cheap at just 50gp for a combat trained one.
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I'd really rather just have the Tiger banned as DM Beckett says, as it seems to be the only animal (aside from theoretical Bison shenanigans I can't see players engaging in) that has the capability of unbalancing scenarios at low level play.
The same players who are currently playing riding tigers to victory - would just move on to bison - or whatever else would be nearly as good. (and still unbalancing)
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I'd really rather just have the Tiger banned as DM Beckett says, as it seems to be the only animal (aside from theoretical Bison shenanigans I can't see players engaging in) that has the capability of unbalancing scenarios at low level play.The same players who are currently playing riding tigers to victory - would just move on to bison - or whatever else would be nearly as good. (and still unbalancing)
Then Bison (and other theoretical animals?) can join Tigers on the list, all the while, everyone else no longer needs worry about Tigers. . .
Win/Win!
Its simple, not much room for misunderstanding, no worries about grace periods, and fixes the actual issue without ruining cool flavor things for others. If I'm wrong, please let me know. Like I said, I typed it up from my phone while training in the field.
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Purchased animals and purchased swords are so obviously different that I can't help wonder what the purpose of your comment is. People who don't treat them as different are part of the problem, actually. If you bought a real trained animal and then treated it like crap, it would eventually turn on you, but the rules don't allow for that. (If they did... well, CR4 tiger versus CR1/2 PC is a short fight. Still, that would be a much more complex and subjective way to handle the issue.)
Adding creatures to the table slows down the game, destroys action economy, destroys CR and scenario design, and reduces the impact of real players in favor of NPCs. Class feature animals give something up to get it, but any character can drop money on a statbucket that wins the game, while giving up nothing. (And yes, 500gp or 2 PP and a handful of skill points is NOTHING compared to winning every fight. You make the tiger's cost back in CLW wands at the least.)
Personally, I'd still love to see purchased non-mount animals banned, but I understand that there are those who like them and those who feel them necessary, so I think John's compromise will remove the biggest difficulties they pose without going too far for some.
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But for the purposes of this, they are not different. A sword should grow old and brittle with use, a scroll should likewise grow brittle and fade with poor treatment. The rules just dont go into that depth.
But still, they are, just like weapons, armor, wands, potions, etc. . . a perfectly reasonable purchasable resource and the only point to implying otherwise is to try to say its that category of purchase that shines in a fight rather than the character, as opposed to having something like a Quicken Rod. Its bad/wrong fun if A.) does it, but not B.)? Yes there are some differences, sure. Both pros and cons. A purchased pet is much more likely to die than a suit of armor be destroyed utterly. You also dont have to make a skill check every time before you can swing an attack roll with an axe. Going back to the portion I quoted, what Im specifically talking about is that the argument doesnt work if it's "the game is about the PCs. Purchased <swords, npc spellcastings, weapons, armor, potions, flying carpets, scrolls, whatever>, are not PCs. (See below for PC concepts that depend on purchases)". It also discounts the idea that for those that do purchase an animal, thats money they cant use on other gear.
Developer
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My main concerns regarding the difference between a +1 sword and a tiger is that a sword's effectiveness is based largely upon its wielder's abilities (e.g. Strength, BAB, feats, etc.) and operates almost entirely off of the wielder's available actions (an exception being the rare intelligent sword). In effect, a cool sword simply augments the talent that is already there.
Compare that to a tiger, whose effectiveness is pretty much set no matter how good the trainer (i.e. the "wielder") is. I agree that there's a baseline necessity to invest in the Handle Animal skill and spend a move action, but from there the trainer benefits from the animal's full round of actions that are vastly superior to that of most characters level 1–3 (or higher).
I don't see juxtaposing a +1 sword and a combat-trained tiger as a fair comparison, much like comparing a handgun to a programed autoturret with a big red button that says "Shoot Stuff."
I accept that money spent on a combat-trained tiger is money not spent on something else. I also accept that a combat-trained tiger gradually becomes less effective—probably feeling like a non-issue by about 8th level. What is becoming increasingly apparent is that a combat-trained tiger (in addition to several other animals available in PFS) is such a good value for its price and is available so early that it wrecks encounters during a critical point in a PC's career (and a player's exposure to Pathfinder Society Organized Play).
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Thats very true. But please note Im not saying a Tiger is a sword, or even a +1 sword. Im saying that its another "item" you can buy, and it specifically is OP, not all "items" in the same category, are however. It is very cheap for its effectiveness, as are other purchases, many of which are banned in PFS. Even as an Animal Companion, it was very noted that Tiger specifically was knowingly overpowered. In the sense that Paizo was well aware that mechanically, it is one of those options that it is a mistake to take others unless its for flavor or a special build. Heck, back in the day before many of the newer PF material was published, Tiger Encounters where a very common complaint for both TPKs and just far stronger than their CR suggests.
That's why in my opinion, it would be better to simply ban the thing causing the issue than to try to band aid over it. Basing it on CR is just asking for trouble, either in forcing some players to find a loophole, (and that is fine if that is how they enjoy it), but also because each time a new monster book, or anything with new pet options becomes available, it can very easily open the gates all over again.
Id actually point to things like the baby raptor as another good candidate over Bison, as Ive had more personal issues with them and only ever seen 1 Bison in play, and that was a Summon Monster I cast and dropped on an "enemy" for non-lethal comedy (not even PFS). Generally, in PFS, its just too circumstantial for it to be too powerful.
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I just don't see purchased animals as a problem big problem. There are always going to be people the exploit rules. I've played at or run a fair number of tables and just haven't seen this problem. I even have a ranger who started off with a dog that I trained for combat (rolls and all) from level 1, until he got an animal companion at level 4.
I guess I just don't like more and more corner case rules coming out. If it looks like it's going to be a problem, have the GM run all the Handle Animal rules as written. If a PC invests their ability score in Charisma, a trait to have Handle Animal as a class skill and puts their skill points into it, they've invested a lot into an animal that is not a class feature and they still have a good chance of failing a Handle Animal skill check.
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The handle animal rules are not a serious limitation on the power of this technique.
With all that invested the handle animal rules on a combat trained tiger would still be too much bang for your buck.
You don't need to make that much investment. 1 rank and a dwarf with a 5 charisma and no class skill has a -2 modifier. They wake up, and take at worst a minute rolling until they get the 12 they need to set the kitty to defend the front liner. The front liner moves into combat, the animal defends them. (by some reading of the rules even against the undead)
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I'd rather they just removed gold-purchased animals entirely. They are not needed.
The grid gets clogged up enough in this "everything takes up at least 5 square feet" game and makes it less fun at lower levels - the levels critical to attracting and keeping new players.
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I'd rather they just removed gold-purchased animals entirely. They are not needed.
The grid gets clogged up enough in this "everything takes up at least 5 square feet" game and makes it less fun at lower levels - the levels critical to attracting and keeping new players.
Mounted characters need Riding dogs and Horses before class features to give them come online.
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I'd rather they just removed gold-purchased animals entirely. They are not needed.
The grid gets clogged up enough in this "everything takes up at least 5 square feet" game and makes it less fun at lower levels - the levels critical to attracting and keeping new players.
Mounted characters need Riding dogs and Horses before class features to give them come online.
I'd be good with that. Riding dogs and horses. Characters mounted on their beast doesn't bother me. Just get your tigers and buffalo and whatever additional combat pet you aren't riding out of here. But all this is neither here nor there since we're talking about a hypothetical.
When multiple people bring an animal that takes up an additional square on the battlefield and participates in combat, the enjoyment plummets imo.
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Adding creatures to the table slows down the game, destroys action economy, destroys CR and scenario design, and reduces the impact of real players in favor of NPCs. Class feature animals give something up to get it, but any character can drop money on a statbucket that wins the game, while giving up nothing. (And yes, 500gp or 2 PP and a handful of skill points is NOTHING compared to winning every fight. You make the tiger's cost back in CLW wands at the least.)
Adding creatures to the table slows down the game if the player doesn't understand their rules, destroys action economy (seriously? At best, it is one more set of attacks), destroys CR (which is not very well done, anyhow) and scenario design (if it relies on CR and bad tactics, maybe...), and reduces the impact of real players in favor of NPCs (who runs the tiger?). Class feature animals give something up to get it, but any character can drop money on a statbucket that wins the game, while giving up nothing. (And yes, 500gp or 2 PP and a handful of skill points is NOTHING compared to winning every fight. You make the tiger's cost back in CLW wands at the least.)
Seven Aasimar Nature Oracles walk into a dungeon, with their FCB-buffed animal companions. Perfectly legal, doesn't say anything about all their Summon Nature's Ally spells, and really, really bad for the action economy. Not broken, but unbalanced.
Seven Druids, with Animal Companions, and 9 level spellcasting. Broken, or just seriously unbalanced?
Seven Wizards with Improved Familiar Brownies (can't they go invisible at will?) using them to deliver touch spells.
Seven wizards using Spectral Hand to deliver the same touch spells...
Archers getting full attacks every round (isn't that a pet peeve, as well?)
Combat maneuver PCs, destroying the action economy. (Humanoid opponents need to burn an action to stand up, and another action to pick up their weapon or draw a replacement weapon, if they even have one in their inventory)
Rage-cycling Barbarians, using once-per-Rage abilities every round.
Do we ignore that 3 or 5 attacks for minimal damage each does very little through materials DR, where one attack for 2d6+9 (which can be done for a cost of 50 gp, IIRC) will almost ignore the DR?
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I do not have a problem with purchased animals as they are now. I haven't really seen it be a problem, and dislike limiting things.
My sorceress used her Yaks for mobility, to carry things due to her low strength, to make ice cream, and to occasionally move something heavy. I think it only actually fought a few times. Over the course of an entire career, a yak died once and had to be replaced. It was never a problem creature.
The benefit of a bison/yak to a person at low level isn't the damage output - it's durability. It's a life-raft when low-level is very much at the mercy of the dice instead of stats and abilities.
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I know at my lodge we do not have any issues with purchased animals. Ive seen more trouble with class abilities than anything else. As for jons idea's i honestly feel if you tell someone you cant buy this animal till lvl 6 and its worthless at 8 you may as well ban the whole process, if they choose to invest their money that should be their option, i would recommend just not letting people use prestige to buy animals. that would stop a lvl 1 from getting a combat trained tiger for free and the money investment at lvl 1-2 will limit alot of people from buying them that early.
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I've read the thread, and I'm familiar with the issue. I'm not yet convinced that we need a new rule, but I'm going to float an idea and see if it has any merit:
What would this do? It would allow any PC to buy a horse, a camel, or a riding dog at 1st level (CR 1). Pets and pack animals with fractional CRs are likewise unaffected. It also would mean that a PC could not buy a bison or tiger—combat trained or otherwise—until level 5 (CR 4). Of course, these creatures would still be available through the animal companion class feature. The only gap I see is the heavy horse, which is CR 2 (minimum character level 3), yet a combat-trained light horse is still available right out of the gate.
Have the rule apply only to Additional Resources, or equivalently exempt animals listed in the equipment chapter of the Core Rulebook. That keeps the heavy warhorse in play, which is needed for heavy armored mounted characters.
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i would recommend just not letting people use prestige to buy animals. that would stop a lvl 1 from getting a combat trained tiger for free and the money investment at lvl 1-2 will limit alot of people from buying them that early.
It is VERY important to note that prestige is a form of currency. For that same equivalent expenditure, effective magic items that could also aid the party may be purchased, or gear, etc.
It's also the 'get out of death' card if one doesn't have cash reserves later on.
So it's not 'free' and it's also not a 'given' that a given character will get *both* prestige points for a given scenario.
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Have the rule apply only to Additional Resources, or equivalently exempt animals listed in the equipment chapter of the Core Rulebook. That keeps the heavy warhorse in play, which is needed for heavy armored mounted characters.I've read the thread, and I'm familiar with the issue. I'm not yet convinced that we need a new rule, but I'm going to float an idea and see if it has any merit:
What would this do? It would allow any PC to buy a horse, a camel, or a riding dog at 1st level (CR 1). Pets and pack animals with fractional CRs are likewise unaffected. It also would mean that a PC could not buy a bison or tiger—combat trained or otherwise—until level 5 (CR 4). Of course, these creatures would still be available through the animal companion class feature. The only gap I see is the heavy horse, which is CR 2 (minimum character level 3), yet a combat-trained light horse is still available right out of the gate.
The heavy warhorse isn't really needed at 1st level (you couldn't actually get one before your second scenario anyway). If you really need a combat trained mount at 1st level, you can buy a combat trained light horse. You can then buy the heavy warhorse at 3rd level.
That is not a bad rule.
By the way, we've resurrected a topic that was dead for months and John took no action on the proposed plan, so it's obviously a dead horse (heh) at this point.
Having said that, if there is any input I could provide here, it would be as follows:
- GMs must enforce the "only 1 attack animal/pet/companion/follower per player" rule.
- GMs must enforce the action economy -- if you're not a druid with the ability to handle your animal as a free action (and generally, win the skill check even if you roll a 1), then the GM must have you using up your move actions (or full actions), and making the skill rolls, and enforcing that you only have the animal doing tricks that are selected for that creature, and that it does not attack everything as commanded unless you have the attack trick twice.
- The concerns about the heavy war horse and the concerns that John's proposal limits value of purchases (because you'd only get a level or two of "reasonable" utility out of the creature before it was too weak for your tier) are reasonable but not in my opinion a reason to abandon the idea entirely. Someone else suggested CR+1 as the revised option, and I like that. It still holds the tiger purchase off for a couple of levels, and yet allows the warhorse, and allows for purchases to be useful longer.
Banning tiger & bison is an option, but not ideal. At higher levels, buying a tiger is not overpowered. So it'd be a bummer to have it flatly removed. Also, the problem of new overpowered animals appearing in the next supplemental book would just undermine the ruling. Much better to base it on CR, where at least we're outlawing power levels instead of specific individual critters that must be named and named and named (as new products appear).
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There is a particular scenario where one of the villains has Dominate Animal memorized in the 4-5 subtler. I had particular fun taking control of a non-class feature combat pet (a riding dog) and antagonizing the party with it. The owner of said dog was attempting to non-lethal it unconscious and was tied up for much of the fight. He reconsidered the value of having such a pet after that.
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You have my axe on that one!
Seriously, I've been watching this since the early days of the campaign, this is a simple, elegant, and streamlined solution to some of the craziness that can't be remedied by "conversation."
I probably stated this back when this thread was originally active, but I support this 100%
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I apologize for the thread necromancy but it seemed better than starting a new thread.
Did this get resolved? I thought that it did but I can't find the resolution.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Yes. It should be in the AR
Edit: Found it!
A PC can only purchase an animal, mount, or similar creature if its Challenge Rating is lower than that character's level; creatures with a Challenge Rating of 1 or lower are exempt from this restriction, as are horses.
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Yes. It should be in the AR
Edit: Found it!
A PC can only purchase an animal, mount, or similar creature if its Challenge Rating is lower than that character's level; creatures with a Challenge Rating of 1 or lower are exempt from this restriction, as are horses.
Thank you. Never occurred to me to look there :-)
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I was unaware that animal companions were technically NPCs. Still, how many GMs are actually going to control them? I wouldn't.
And sure, using animals for combat isn't required, but we don't ban things for not being required.
A spiritualist's phantom or an arcane's familiar are also an NPC. GM's will usually let you control said npc in combat. But I will cheerfully hand over control of my spiritualist's phantom to the GM. Heck, I'll hand the GM a copy of the phantom's character sheet which includes personality notes. Just because the phantom will usually obey, doesn't mean they do it how you want. Or do it without complaining.
Heck, in one campaign I played a spiritualist in my character was constantly getting headaches from his phantom yelling at him from within his mind. And a few times the phantom dismissed herself back into his mind in a snit because he asked her to scout ahead.
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I was unaware that animal companions were technically NPCs. Still, how many GMs are actually going to control them? I wouldn't.
And sure, using animals for combat isn't required, but we don't ban things for not being required.
A spiritualist's phantom or an arcane's familiar are also an NPC. GM's will usually let you control said npc in combat. But I will cheerfully hand over control of my spiritualist's phantom to the GM. Heck, I'll hand the GM a copy of the phantom's character sheet which includes personality notes. Just because the phantom will usually obey, doesn't mean they do it how you want. Or do it without complaining.
Heck, in one campaign I played a spiritualist in my character was constantly getting headaches from his phantom yelling at him from within his mind. And a few times the phantom dismissed herself back into his mind in a snit because he asked her to scout ahead.
A player who role-plays his class feature to be difficult is one thing, but to GM control a situation like that is taking player autonomy of their character out of their hands. The non-class feature creatures are a different discussion, and asking players to make appropriate handle animal checks to deal with certain situations leaves the players in control, while adhering to the limits of the rules. Actually taking over their creatures is just a lot more work than I am interested in.
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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I think the move to ban the purchase of combat-trained tigers has over all been a good one for my -1 character, Zahra.
Zahra is a sylvan sorceress, and most of the GMs she encountered before the ruling would ask, "You do know you have to use handle animal with that tiger, right?" And they'd look at me suspiciously like I was gaming the system. They would make roll handle animal, over and over, on the tricks that Pumpkin already knew.
I would explain, hey, I have a class feature, 2 feats and a trait invested in that tiger. It's an animal companion. I have an empathic link. It took time for this to sink in. But finally they'd see how I'd trained it -- to be a team player -- to grapple, capture, flank and do other things to help my team succeed -- and Pumpkin started getting welcomes instead of the cold shoulder.
But since the purchased tiger ban, we've had a warmer reception everywhere. Those badly behaved purchased tigers are gone, and all they see is my well-behaved animal companion.
Thank you,
Hmm