Animal Companions
For purposes of this campaign setting, Animal Companions refer to all trained animals that are part of the player party. This includes mounts and pack animals. A PC can have any number of animal companions associated with them. This includes both those that they have trained and those that they have bought or been given. However, they can only have one accompany them during their adventures. This means that the player will need to declare which animal companion is going along on the adventure and which is remaining home.
If at any point an animal companion is sold, traded, given away etc. to an NPC it converts from an animal companion and becomes an NPC. It looses all benefits and associations that an animal companion would have. This does not include temporary NPC custody for services such as a kennel or a veterinary clinic.
Animal companions are different then other animal types in the game and can be part of the adventuring party in addition to those other animal types. This means that a party member can have a side kick that is an animal as well as an animal companion.
Animals
For these purposes, "animal" means a beast with no ability to speak a language (as otherwise it can simply be told what to do directly). An animal is unaligned - an animal with an alignment is intelligent enough to make moral choices and therefore pretty certainly is capable of language. No creature with a Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom of 1 can be trained at all - it's too mentally limited to absorb training. A creature with a Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom of 2 must be reared from infancy to be trained - adults are untrainable.
Acquisition
The animal must be present to be tamed or trained - these rules deliberately do not cover acquiring the creature. How you come to be in possession of the animal is a matter of role playing and story telling rather then of the rule set. However, there are some general principles to keep in mind and consider. Animals have memory and will recall if you have caused them harm. This makes it much harder, if not impossible, for a person to tame and train an animal that once caused it harm. The reverse is also true. An animal will also recall be helped by someone and thus is more likely to respond to taming or training attempts with that person.
Purchased Animals
Purchased animals are already tame. Animals that are bought will come with pre-set tricks. These purchased animals are trained with certain tasks in mind and are trained accordingly. Thus, a purchased animal will come with the tricks that are needed to perform the job that it was sold to complete. That also means that they are generally not taught all the tricks that they could learn. Once an animal has been purchased, they can be trained by the new owner and through that process obtained new tricks.
Handle an Animal
- General DC 10
This skill involves commanding an animal to perform a trick that it already knows. For example: to command a trained attack dog to attack a foe requires a handle animal check. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the trick on its next action. These rolls will not always be asked for when there is no time limit or condition to suggest that the handler would not be able to coax the animal to do what is being asked of it. For example, riding a trained horse on normal terrain without rushing would not usually require a roll of any kind.
The DM decides what constitutes a risk or sacrifice - most animals are too stupid to understand the concept of incoming arrows as dangerous, but they will consider it a major sacrifice to not eat a treat. At the DM's discretion, if you repeatedly give your animal commands that make it suffer, the negative reinforcement builds up, and it may upgrade its risk/sacrifice assessment of commands, or even just stop listening to you. In the worst case scenario, the animal will loose its bond and convert from an animal companion to an NPC.
Asking it do something takes as much time (i.e. action economy) as it does to ask anything else to do something. In general, one command is a free action, two costs a bonus action, three costs an action. This means that if the handler is giving a single command, that command (as a free action) can be taken on the animal's turn. Giving more complex commands requires that the use a portion of their own turn to give the command. Depending on what the commands are, the animal will complete all of them in the next turn if able. If they cannot be completed in a single turn then the animal will complete the commands in the order they were given.
Condition Modifiers
Note: depending on the circumstances, these condition modifiers can stack with each other. This will be up to the GM to decide given the context of the situation.
- If the animal has any damage (even non lethal) or ability score damage: the DC increases by 2.
- If the animal does not know or does not trust the person giving the command: the DC increases by 2.
- If the animal is frightened (not the fear condition): the handler will roll with disadvantage.
- If the animal has gone without food, water or rest in the past 24 hours: the handler will roll with disadvantage
- If the animal perceives the command as being something that would put it at considerable risk or hardship: the handler will roll with disadvantage
Push an Animal
- General DC 20
To push an animal is an animal handling skill check that involves commanding an animal to perform a trick that it doesn't know, but is physically capable of performing. This category also includes getting an animal to travel at a fast pace. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the trick on its next action. This will always require a roll. This requires a full action to perform as you are coaxing the animal to perform the trick.
Note: you cannot push the animal to perform a trick that has a prerequisite that it does not meet or one that is a passive trick (does not require an animal handling check)
Condition Modifiers
Note: depending on the circumstances, these condition modifiers can stack with each other. This will be up to the GM to decide given the context of the situation.
- If the animal has any damage (even non lethal) or ability score damage: the DC increases by 2.
- If the animal does not know or does not trust the person giving the command: the DC increases by 2.
- If the animal is frightened (not the fear condition): the handler will roll with disadvantage.
- For fast travel: Each level of fatigue increases the DC by 2.
Teach an Animal a Trick
- General DC 10 plus the animal's CR rating (round down, with minimum of 0)
- A creature can know a total number of tricks equal to two times its Intelligence score.
You can teach an animal companion a new trick with 1 week of down time and a successful animal handling skill check. If the check fails, it is assumed that the entire week was spent attempting to learn the new trick. If another week of down time is spent, another animal handling skill check can be made to learn the trick without penalty.
Condition Modifiers
Note: depending on the circumstances, these condition modifiers can stack with each other. This will be up to the GM to decide given the context of the situation.
- If the animal has any damage (even non lethal) or ability score damage: the DC increases by 2.
- If the animal does not know or does not trust the person giving the command: the DC increases by 2
- If the animal has gone without food, water or rest at any point during the week of downtime: the handler will roll with disadvantage
Rearing a Wild Animal
In general, rearing a wild animal from an infant to an adult requires more time than a PC can provide to an animal. It requires a commitment of spending most days of the week with the animal for at least several hours until it becomes an adult. Thus, this is not generally something that a PC would be able to do unless years of down time were being woven into the game's time line.
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