Training Mundane Animals

[bigdamnhero]

In my current fantasy game, the PCs do not have to pay points for normal animals such as horses. One of the PCs is a falconer, and has Animal Handler. I didn't make him buy his bird as a Follower either: 37 points hardly seems worth it IMO! Because it's not a Follower, he has to make Animal Handler rolls to make it do things, but at this point it's pretty well trained. (He's actually on his second bird, the first one having gotten shot down some time ago.)

 

The player has asked about training the falcon to be better in combat: maybe a CSL or two, that sort of thing.

 

So how would you handle that? Just use some Animal Handler Rolls to train the bird, no XP required? Or would you make him pay the XP for the increased cost of the bird above baseline? Or would you make him buy the bird as a Follower before he can improve on it at all? Or...?

[Cantriped]

I might treat it as a "free" Follower acquired by making the appropriate Animal Handler rolls. Then simply give the Follower the XP it would normally deserve, with the caveat that the character must make Animal Handler Rolls (at a penalty equal to the XP expended) in order to spend follower's XP. I might also eventually need/want to set arbitrary limits to prevent the animal companion from growing super-powerful, such as limiting CVs to no higher than twice their starting value, same for maximum damage, BODY & STUN, etc.

[mrinku]

It's a judgement call, but You Get What You Pay For definitely applies. The player has paid points for Animal Handling and in the setting context this is the benefit.

 

It's perfectly okay for GM to progress any NPC, even an animal, as they see fit. If this is all still within the range of a normal trained falcon I'd not sweat the player having to spend any points. It's the payoff for all that hard work spent training, and will be lost if the bird dies, anyway.

[Surrealone]

If there is continued training/progress, then at some point the animal must become a follower, else the player will be getting too much when compared with what s/he has actually paid.  The GM should hold final decision on where this threshold exists, when it is in danger of being crossed, and how to resolve it.  

 

37 points worth of follower a bit more than 7CP ... which is a -lot- of CP in my world (where I can do a lot with as little as 1 CP).  If the player gets this for merely making animal handler rolls, then you need to make sure others are getting something similar for their skill rolls lest there be a disparity of fairness.

 

You could also have some fun with this.  While the falcon is not a follower, it craps in places where it shouldn't, it knocks things over and breaks them, it squawks and makes all kinds of noise when it shouldn't, it flies off at inappropriate times and the player must burn time chasing it down (while others do something productive), the player has to clean up its messes, etc. -- as a result of actions the animal takes when NOT being animal handled via the skill. (i.e. Often enough, the player finds him/herself just as frustrated by its misbehavior as s/he is pleased by its proper behavior, since s/he can't be animal handling it all of the time.)

 

The moment it becomes a follower (for which points are paid) you could do away with that kind of thing ... as a representation of the change from semi-trained being ... to highly trained follower.  And, as mrinku suggests, if it hits the point where the GM feels it should become a follower and the player doesn't pay for it, it can (and probably should) be killed off to force a restart ... so that an inordinately high value isn't being obtained just from skill rolls.

 

I personally draw the line at combat advantage.  If the being offers that, then I feel more than mere skill rolls are in order. A good example would be a cavalier's war horse.  If the cavalier simply wants to ride it into battle like any other horse, that's just an animal with a handler roll.  If, however, the cavalier wants to be able to command it to rear back and then whack someone with its raised front hooves as it comes crashing down ... or perhaps whirl quickly to knock someone sideways with its flanks ... that's a follower that has some attacks.

[dmjalund]

as a compromise, the falcon can start as free, but to improve the falcon, the player pays 1 CP to improve the falcon by 5 CP

[Ninja-Bear]

BDH if the other characters have access to war horses for no XP then I don’t see a falcon having perhaps an extra csl or two being out of the question. You could compare the relative increase of skills between a results horse and a war horse to get an idea of how much a trained Falcon should be above a regular falcon. ( I think war horse have some csls.)

[bigdamnhero]

Thanks everyone for the input!

 

11 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

BDH if the other characters have access to war horses for no XP then I don’t see a falcon having perhaps an extra csl or two being out of the question.

Yeah, I think I'm inclined to allow changes for free within a range of what would be considered "normal" for a falcon. Maybe +/- 10%? Or even 20%? At some point, there's probably a line where "super bird" needs to be paid for, tho I don't see us getting there in this case.

 

Follow-up question. For purposes of discussion, let's say anything within +/- 10% of baseline is free; here that would be 18 CP. But then say at some later point, the character trains the bird up to 30 CP above baseline, and has made some really good Animal Handler rolls to justify it. Would you charge the PC for:

• the full price of the bird (now 214/5 = 43 CP),
• just the points that are above baseline (30/5 = 6 CP),
• just the 12 points that are outside the 10% window (12/5 = 2 CP), or
• give it to them for free because they made the Rolls?

 

13 hours ago, Surrealone said:

37 points worth of follower a bit more than 7CP ...

Yeah, and it's actually worse than you think: the 6ed Bestiary write-up for a normal falcon is 184 points, so that's 37 CP! 

 

I have observed before that the cost of Followers (and to some extent, vehicles & basis) is the one thing that IMO completely broke in the transition to 6ed. In 5ed you could buy a Standard Heroic sidekick for 15 CP (Follower built on 75 base points, plus 75 points from Disads which do not add to the cost of the Follower Perk). But in 6ed characters cost more to build - Competent Normals are 175 points now - and you don't get to subtract the cost of Complications, so buying one as a Follower costs 35 CP. In my last Superhero game, I house-ruled it to 1 per 10 instead of 1/5, and even that only partly addressed the problem. But I digress...

[Surrealone]

1 hour ago, bigdamnhero said:

Follow-up question. For purposes of discussion, let's say anything within +/- 10% of baseline is free; here that would be 18 CP. But then say at some later point, the character trains the bird up to 30 CP above baseline, and has made some really good Animal Handler rolls to justify it. Would you charge the PC for:

• the full price of the bird (now 214/5 = 43 CP),
• just the points that are above baseline (30/5 = 6 CP),
• just the 12 points that are outside the 10% window (12/5 = 2 CP), or
• give it to them for free because they made the Rolls?

I'm a YGWYPF (You Get What You Pay For) kind of guy, so I'd charge the 43CP.  That said, I'd also make the character buy it along the way to avoid it getting out of hand.  (I personally see the Animal Handler rolls as justification for previously getting something for very little ... but don't consider them adequate justification for continuing down that slippery slope without paying the piper -- unless, of course, you've house ruled such that every other character is also getting to use some skill ... to get something cheaper than normal ... or free.  Fair is supposed to be fair, not skewed toward falconry, after all.)

 

1 hour ago, bigdamnhero said:

it's actually worse than you think: the 6ed Bestiary write-up for a normal falcon is 184 points, so that's 37 CP! 

You've given 37 CP to someone for making some skill rolls ... without giving that to everyone ... and your other players haven't called that out?  Wow.  If I found I'd done that, I'd be prone to rectifying it by killing the bird ... which the player could then quest to resurrect or somesuch ... with that quest taking as long as it took the character to buy it back to life using Follower costs.  (That's the nice thing about rezzing an animal; it can come back to life missing chunks of its memory without much of an issue from a human standpoint.  i.e. The player could retrain it ... by spending CP a la Followers, as dictated by the success/failure of more Animal Handler rolls.)

[mrinku]

I'm assuming the players don't need to pay for their mundane equipment like regular bows and swords and armour?

 

That's your fair comparison for normal animals.

 

At the end of the day what matters is how much of an advantage this trained bird is. If it's just becoming really good at intercepting other birds, killing them and bringing back the small ones, that's normal Falconry stuff.

 

Once it starts to be a guided missile in combat against any target, it's probably time to look at Follower.

 

A third option is to buy some powers that require the bird and an Animal Handling roll as specific tricks that you've trained it to do. 

[Cantriped]

I think it is important to remember that one of the "thrills" of Heroic Fantasy is amassing things that make you more powerful. Finding ways to give/take away "Experience In The Form Of Loot" is just a basic part of how a GM maintains game balance in a D&D-like Campaign. So sure, a War Falcon you've spent precious downtime training over the course of months (possibly both in and out of character) with multiple Success Rolls at various steps might be worth a fair few points. The same could be said of a unique Magical Sword you forged by leading the party on an epic quest to gather it's materials and find a place suitable to perform the forging... Or the Ring of Invisibility you plucked from a Dragon King's in an daring heist. Any of which could be lost at a moments notice if the plot called for it (or if they were disrupting game balance in an unfun way). What is important is that everybody is getting rewards that make them equally happy, not exactly how we give them out (or what they are worth objectively).

 

[Surrealone]

Cantriped,

Sure -- but then you put it on the character sheet ... first as a 7 CP Falcon, then an improved 10 CP falcon, then a 15 CP falcon, etc.  That would be the proper way to represent getting a war falcon and pouring precious training into it, right? (As opposed to handwaving it for months and then bang, finding yourself in this sort of dilemma.)

 

I mean, the swords and armor and other loot that have been found have been added to other characters' sheets as write-ups in as-they-go fashion, right?  If so, the falcon is no different from any other loot ... when using your loot analogy.  Moreover, someone who finds a sword and has blacksmithing should be able to pour precious downtime into it (without using XP) to get a better weapon ... using only blacksmithing skill rolls ... since the falconer can do so to improve his looty falcon using only animal handler skill rolls ... in a game that's treating everyone's characters similarly/fairly ... right?

 

 

[bigdamnhero]

5 hours ago, Surrealone said:

I'm a YGWYPF (You Get What You Pay For) kind of guy, so I'd charge the 43CP.

I get that. So when you run heroic games, do you make characters pay points for their horses, vehicles, etc? If not, why do you feel this is different? (Not saying you're wrong - just thinking it through.)

 

5 hours ago, Surrealone said:

You've given 37 CP to someone for making some skill rolls ... without giving that to everyone ... and your other players haven't called that out?  Wow. 

Well, the other characters have all had various horses and such, which are built on a similar number of points. And quite frankly I don't think anyone at the table feels like the falcon has done anything worth a fraction of 37 points.

 

5 hours ago, mrinku said:

I'm assuming the players don't need to pay for their mundane equipment like regular bows and swords and armour?

 

That's your fair comparison for normal animals.

That's exactly the same thing I was thinking about it.

 

1 hour ago, Surrealone said:

I mean, the swords and armor and other loot that have been found have been added to other characters' sheets as write-ups in as-they-go fashion, right?  If so, the falcon is no different from any other loot ... when using your loot analogy.

Yes, but "added to the character sheet" isn't synonymous with "paid points for it." This is a Heroic game, remember.

[Surrealone]

1 hour ago, bigdamnhero said:

I get that. So when you run heroic games, do you make characters pay points for their horses, vehicles, etc? If not, why do you feel this is different? (Not saying you're wrong - just thinking it through.)

Yes -- everything costs points in our heroic level games, with Resource Points (APG p191) and their associated rules being used to properly lock down Equipment and Vehicle/Mount/Follower costs so that everyone is assured even treatment in YGWYPF (You Get What You Pay For) fashion.  Loot awards are quantified in terms of their cost ... and result in direct additions to Resource Point pools to cover them.  In this way, the Resource Point pool totals allow an easy gauge of who has been given how much 'loot' ... without having to inspect every item on the character sheet each time one wants to know.

 

1 hour ago, bigdamnhero said:

Yes, but "added to the character sheet" isn't synonymous with "paid points for it." 

I believe it should be.  i.e. I feel that if one awards loot, part of doing so should entail awarding the points to cover said loot ... such that the bookwork is complete ... so that one can (with a simple glance) compare the power levels of each character ... just by looking at either: 1)  its build total ... or, 2) if using Resource Points, its build total in conjunction with its Resource Point total.  I personally prefer the Resource Point angle because it separates the build's base+XP total ... from the Resource awards that represent loot one has received.  Part of this is that I happen to like quick numerical comparisons that allow one to easily gauge power levels ... with zero handwaving/guessing.  (I detest handwaving/guessing/eyeballing when it comes to gameplay, XP, and loot; it's so ... haphazard and clumsy ... while often being less than equitable for all involved. If I wanted to deal with those problems, I'd go back to playing 2nd Edition D&D. )

[Ninja-Bear]

BDH is guard dog in 6th bestiary? I ask because I was glancing over it and the animal handler skill in 5th bestiary. The guard dog has several PS skills such as guard, attack and defend which with the expanded animal handler rules make the guard dog more “combat” without the increase in csl. Also guard dog has defensive PRE - which I think a war horse has also.  So giving these skills for free is fine in my humble opinion.

[Doc Democracy]

The difference between, you have it, and, it is on the character sheet, in my games is that things you have can be taken away, sometimes arbitrarily, by the GM.  Things that are on the character sheet you may be deprived of (based on how you bought it) but you will inevitably get it back and somethings you simply almost never lose access to.

 

I think that if your player wants a better falcon then he can buy a better falcon or can spend the same resource and time training it himself.  Then he will have a better falcon until I decide to deprive him of it, permanently by killing it, or temporarily by any number of means.  If I decide the falcon will ruin a particular encounter, then I will ensure that it has been distracted by a juicy rabbit or fine looking lady falcon for the duration.  I will make sure the player knows that is the case.  I will also deprive players of their weaponry and horses in much the same way.

 

If the falcon is on the character sheet then I will feel a need to engage game mechanics to deprive him of the falcon whether or not it will ruin an encounter.

 

Doc

[mallet]

Maybe have the normal animal free (like horses, etc...) but any improvements paid for by the character as a special ability. For example:

 

Animal Attack Command:  +1 OCV (5 Active Points); Only with Animals character has spent time training (-1), Requires A Roll (Animal Handler Skill roll; -1/2), Usable On Other (-1/4), Grantor can only grant the power to others, Recipient must be within Limited Range of the Grantor for power to be granted, Recipient must remain within Line of Sight of Grantor, Incantations (-1/4), Gestures (-1/4) RC:1

 

This way any normal (non-follower) animal the character trains over the course of the campaign can be commanded to attack better then normal, but only when the character is giving the commands. 

[LoneWolf]

Surrealone is on the right track.  Treat the falcon as a DNPC instead of a follower.  Even though the falcon is there all the time the frequency is how often it causes problems. 

[bigdamnhero]

5 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Surrealone is on the right track.  Treat the falcon as a DNPC instead of a follower.  Even though the falcon is there all the time the frequency is how often it causes problems. 

Well, except that's not what the player wants the bird for...

[Ninja-Bear]

BDH have you come up with a solution then? I also like Mallets idea.

[Surrealone]

7 hours ago, bigdamnhero said:

Well, except that's not what the player wants the bird for...

All the more reason for it to cost points (be they resource points that have been awarded or what have you), right?

[bigdamnhero]

11 hours ago, Surrealone said:

All the more reason for it to cost points (be they resource points that have been awarded or what have you), right?

If I was making players pay points for mundane equipment, horses, etc. But since I have repeatedly said I'm not doing that, no I don't feel it's appropriate to make a lot of fuss over one bird. Don't get me wrong: I understand your argument, I see the logic, and it's a perfectly sound way of running a game. But it doesn't really fit how I tend to run my games, and I certainly don't feel like retooling in the middle of an existing campaign.

 

The nature of this campaign in particular would make implementing a points-for-everything policy difficult. Early on, they had use of a ship, but then they went inland and had to leave it behind. Later on, they captured another ship and sailed it around for awhile...until the crew mutinied and abandoned them. They've gone through multiple horses, either buying them (Money Perk) or convincing a friendly monarch to give them as rewards (accomplishments + Persuasion Skill), but in all cases have had to leave them behind sooner or later. At one point, they were captured by the bad guys, lost all their gear, and had to escape with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs. Keeping track of the point cost of all those would add a great deal of unneeded complexity and IMO distract from the point of the campaign. Again, all YMMV, etc.

 

15 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

BDH have you come up with a solution then? I also like Mallets idea.

Yeah, as long as we're just talking about adding a CSL or the like, I'm going to let it pass for free. If he tries to turn it into Super Bird or something - which I know is not the player's intent, but hypothetically - then I'd most likely charge him for anything over ~110% of the bird's baseline cost. I think that allows it to stay focused on the roleplaying of training the bird, while keeping a safety valve to prevent it from getting unbalanced.

 

I forgot to mention there is one special ability that is on the PC's sheet, which is that he can develop a Mind Link with any bird he's had long enough to train up. (He's currently looking at buying that up to Clairsentience, Only Through The Bird's Eyes.) We specified it was a PC ability, not something special about the bird itself, precisely so if the bird ever got killed he could buy & train a new bird and eventually use  the Link with it. Which is exactly what happened: he let the bird get too close to a battle, it got shot down, and he went without for several sessions until his new bird was sufficiently trained.

[LoneWolf]

How does having it be a DNPC affect what the player uses it for?  In the hero system there is often more than one way to define something.  You could easily have the same creature as a follower or as a DNPC.  The only difference is that if it were bought as a follower it does not cause any problems for the player.  As a DNPC it would occasionally cause problems.  You could define it as a DNPC as powerful with an appearance of infrequently for 0 pts.  The problems it causes could be related to feeding and caring for it, or the fact that it draws attention to him, or a whole lot of other things.    If the player just wants a slightly better normal falcon this would be a good way to handle it.  If he wants a significantly more powerful falcon he should purchase it as a follower as per the rules.

[dsatow]

On 12/10/2017 at 2:12 PM, LoneWolf said:

How does having it be a DNPC affect what the player uses it for?  In the hero system there is often more than one way to define something.  You could easily have the same creature as a follower or as a DNPC.  The only difference is that if it were bought as a follower it does not cause any problems for the player.  As a DNPC it would occasionally cause problems.  You could define it as a DNPC as powerful with an appearance of infrequently for 0 pts.  The problems it causes could be related to feeding and caring for it, or the fact that it draws attention to him, or a whole lot of other things.    If the player just wants a slightly better normal falcon this would be a good way to handle it.  If he wants a significantly more powerful falcon he should purchase it as a follower as per the rules.

 

Because "you get what you pay for", is a basic tenant of HERO.  If a DNPC is more useful than not, its not really a complication.   Lets look at two other bird examples in the comics.

 

The Falcon is a follower of Captain America.  He helps the Cap fight the big bads and when he gets into trouble, its usually as a part of all the Avengers in trouble.  Falcon is a follower.

 

Robin the Boy Wonder is not a follower of Batman.  Why?  Because even though he can hold is own against the agents, when he's with Batman, he's often captured by the major villain and either held hostage or used as bait.  No matter how many skills and abilities he has to aid Batman, he complicates Batman's crime fighting more than help.  When the Robins get enough experience, they end up going their own route, but even then, when they are occasionally with Batman, they cause more problems than help.

 

If the bird is mostly helpful, it should be bought as a follower.  If it ends up more of a liability than a help, its a DNPC.  If its neither, the GM is free to interpret it either way.

[Ninja-Bear]

To me the biggest point made is that everyone at BDH tables feels that what BDH is just fine. 

[Surrealone]

5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

 everyone at BDH tables feels that what BDH is just fine. 

Please translate for me, as I didn't quite follow what you meant, here.  (Yes, I know what you meant by BDH, that wasn't the issue ... I just couldn't make sense of 'feels that what BDH is just fine'.)