Animals, magical beasts, animal companions and armor.

[killem2]

My questions started in the simple question data base above but its gotten a bit specific and complex. I need to get to root of all the rules for these things because my group is basically a circus lol.

After this next session we'll have:

2x Rangers with elven hounds
A fighter with a riding dog that is trained for war and most likely a growing brown bear cub (wild one that has been trained to attack, follow, and heel right now)
Two wizards, one that will have a snake familiar and then I'm not sure what the other will use but chances are it won't be used for combat anyway.

I have confirmed (from the sticky thread) that:

there are types to these animals:

Magical Beast
Animal

Under their types it states magical beasts are never proficient with armor and normal animals are proficient with armor if trained for war.



Now, where does an animal companion fall? I don't believe it has its own type, so I assume for example the elven hound though it is an animal companion it is actually a magical beast and there for can never be prof with armor.

However for the cases of the Riding Dog and the Bear, how does one train for war? Is it as simple as being able to use the commands attack and down? Is it decided by handle animal skills?

For some reason my group really likes controlling animals, so this is going to be a big thing that comes up a lot.

[bloodtide]

Now, where does an animal companion fall? I don't believe it has its own type, so I assume for example the elven hound though it is an animal companion it is actually a magical beast and there for can never be prof with armor.

An animal companion is still an animal. They are animal(augmented), but still animals.

Note you Can use Handle animal to train things other then animals if they have an intelligence of 1 or 2, with a penalty. So you can train a elven hound(if your using the hound from Races of the Wild that is a magical beast and has an Int of 2.)





However for the cases of the Riding Dog and the Bear, how does one train for war? Is it as simple as being able to use the commands attack and down? Is it decided by handle animal skills?

It's under Handle Animal, both the Combat Riding and the Fighting purposes are 'training an animal for war'.