Animal Training question

[emeketos]

the end paragraph of animal training is

In addition to teaching the animal commands, the adept can grant the animal a +1
bonus to a skill or talent the animal knows, including their natural Attack Step. At the
gamemaster’s discretion, the adept can use this ability to teach the animal companion
skills the animal doesn’t know, but would conceivably be able to perform. These enhancements
count towards the talent limit and must be maintainted like commands

what does that mean

as a beastmaster as raise animal training (assuming all prerequisites)

I would train a pet
1. one Command
2. Raise a skill/talent point by 1

so at animal training rank 5
pet would have 5 commands
5 points of skills across various skills/talents

one interpretation that was presented was that last sentence means
1 command OR one skill point.

As a beastmaster I believe Animal companions are already penalized enough with one enhance (vs anything at the same skill level of the pet owner) and only 1 skill point, the command is the beastmaster or a Cavalryman).

[Dyrmagnos]

It is problem only when you are looking on normal animals as companions. Now look how it would be if you will take ethandrill, espagra or even bear.
with animal training + enchance animal companion + animal durability you get animal that is hitting like swordmaster and has same hp + this is only improvement to your character.

Second think is limit for your companions that is equal your animal bond level so you can have 5 bears/ethandrills like this on 5-th circle.

Is there any adept or even adepts group that can stand against you alone + 5 enchanted ethandrills?

[emeketos]

would any GM let me have 5 ethandrills?

a blood elf beastmaster patrolling the blood wood might actually have 5 ethandrills, don't piss him off.

a 5th level swordmaster will have more health more PD MD MA PA so against a swarm of 5, he has Forged Armor to 5-6 and a weapon as well likely 2nd attack + Riposte all at 5-6 . Individually he could kill 1 every other turn (at journeyman level). I think the swordmaster would actually win that fight. He will have a higher general step number on all his skills Group Pattern Raising PD +3 durability +3 wound threshold +3. Might even have a blood oath on one of his fighting skills at that level its more than likely it exists. if he has an wizard on his side there are lots of nice buff (mage armor), +4 attack spell(forgot its name)

the pets off of a journeyman beast master will be able to raise its health by 20-25 depending on skill level. its been my experience talent options lag behind 1 rank but will not always be the case, enhance 4-5 items generally I have it split between PD & PA maybe 1-2 points in an attack. know 4-5 commands and have 4-5 points of skill increases. I usually train my pets in avoid blow (with gm permission) since its a new skill 2 points in attack. I am sure other beastmasters do it much differently but I am more on the line a good defence makes a better offense. it doesn't make pets much stronger but more survivable.

I understand balancing this against CP1 vs CP5 and I don't have an answer. The original intent with the beastmaster rebuild is to make 1st circle pets viable in a journeyman campaign (exact words from fasa designer preview #2)

more importantly that doesn't answer the question posed.

I understand your point of view on this 5 circle 5 pets are going to be very powerful, but remember the GM has full control over every companion the beastmaster will get. If the GM thinks x pet is too OP the beastmaster just can't find one. Espargaro don't make good pets as they are too big to go into kaers a griffin would have a hard time going through narrow doors and hallways underground.. Bear's aren't really that strong but make good pets a great bear is what your thinking of. Some pets picked up for one thing end up being unexpectedly good at other things. I picked up an eagle as a high flying scout (non combat pet) but found its dive attack can be scary powerful unenhanced!!! they are novice 2nd circle pets and with a dive attack beats the pants off of all my other pets. (attack step 19 damage 17) that's practically more than my beastmaster. I Don't min max my pets I want flexibility diffrent pets for diffrent purposes. a flying scout, a sneaky animal(too grab things that are out of reach. 1-2 combat pets + mount. I ended up with a now dead eagle that could dish it but couldn't take it.

also consider this with old pets
every time you circle you have +1 too 5-10+ talents increases
pets gain 1 point in a power/ability
enhance is more powerful but its not going to hold up to forging armor&weapons.
depending on your class you still will have more health.
you are +7 per circle pets are +5 also being an optional journeyman talent its going to be not as high but a priority to increase. All my beastmaster can afford is level 4 I am not sure what other players have it but I am relatively recently journeyman. its a hard balance for beast focused beastmasters as optional talents are a priority but they do not help at all to circle up. Do you raise a discipline talent or an optional to boost your pets effectively. If you ignore the discipline talent your other party members will quickly out circle you if you ignore the pet related skills they will not be able to be as effective as they could be. So my optional pet talents all tend to be 1-2 behind my circle rank

reguardless I am not min/maxing my pets
I want them to get better at awareness for my scout pets,give them avoid blow, if they have any points left I will raise attack but I can only do 1 per rank. similarly with my enhance animal companion I tend to split my points evenly between PD & natural armor. if I add creature power or "damage" into this I will be even more spread out. IF you go all attack they die on the 2nd round mostly defense they last longer (much longer) but they hit 1 out of 2 shots at a creature level = my circle.

[Mataxes]

Each rank in the talent allows the animal companion one "trick" or one skill point. The intention is not (generally) to have an animal companion able to replace an adept of "equivalent" Circle (whatever that means) in combat. Instead, the animal companion has some more options to grow alongside the adept, avoiding cases where it doesn't make much sense for a high Circle Beastmaster to bring his menagerie along because the dangers being faced are too great.

Why would this adept, facing powerful opponents, bring the wolf from his first adventures along? In ED1, they were't even able to grant Durability to their companions, so not only were the animal's stats unlikely to contribute, it was likely that any attempt by the opposition to target the animal would result in a dead companion. ED3 brought in the Durability, but didn't offer anything more than added survivability.

The thinking was mainly that each bonus point was equivalent to a "trick" taught to enhance their existing abilities. If you want to change it for your table, that's fine. I don't think that offering points in addition to tricks is game-breaking.

[emeketos]

Most commands after the first 2 are generally mondain

1. Attack that
2. Heel

those two are the core combat commands any more than this is just fluff

1. Scout (direction)
2. Grab that (thief pets)
3. Guard (camp usually) this is semi-combat but nothing more powerful than "attack that"
4. Go there'
5. track this (scent track)
6. we never quite figured what makes a mount "combat trained" and just made it a command "warhorse package"
7. other commands we could think of were sheep dog type commands to herd things the way we wanted them to go.

if I wanted to game the system to keep my combat pets competitive as secondary dps. All I would do is the first 2 commands. the rest are skill points (likely all avoid blow)
Focused fire on 1 pet would always kill a pet since they they are secondary and just don't have the defenses to keep away from any attacks aimed to incapacitate or kill my pet. I lost one of my most effective pet last game due to too much attention at the wrong time.

just for my own curiosity what commands/orders/tricks to you teach your animal companions?

I also collect pets that are very good in specific instances.

1. pet for land(usually mount)/plains
2. for caer exploration (combat)
3. pet that does well in water
4. a flying pet as pets are useless if they can't hit their target
5. sneaky pet (like a small rodent)

I do have an ethandrail companion but just 1 he has one extra command
attack ONLY with lightning their (anti flyer and fighting things across a treacherous canyon)
maybe that's not needed as instinctively he would just lightning the target till he can get his teeth into them. since there normal instincts are to charge in with a lightning blast then attack with tooth and claw. We also use the rule that creature power can onlly be used once per turn so no double lightning at far away targets. I agreed with it as the ethandral needs to recharge that ability. One thing I have been finding he is a poor pet for caer exploration for several reasons
No Climb skill
No great leap
No Swimming

he is great in combat but it becomes tedious having to have him in a harness to lower him down or across terrain that he isn't accustom to. Word to the wise on selecting pets, don't just look at the combat stat for selecting a combat pet, see how well he is going to do when your not fighting. your GM shouldn't be breezing over the in between combat areas they alone can make or break a good pet for this mission.