Would buffing an animals int allow it to speak?

[flamewolf393]

Such as with foxes cunning or a headband of intellect? I am hoping to interrogate some lab animals, and need them to understand more complex situations and ideas than the limited scope speak with animals would provide.

[Trasilor]

Such as with foxes cunning or a headband of intellect? I am hoping to interrogate some lab animals, and need them to understand more complex situations and ideas than the limited scope speak with animals would provide.

Note that Fox's Cunning and Headband of Intellect don't stack...

Technically Fox's cunning would increase the animals intelligence to 5. So you are basically dealing with a small child - not really able to understand complex ideas but better than normal animal intelligence.

Alternatively, the DM may rule the spell fails b/c animals are not a viable 'target' as you cannot increase an animals intelligence beyond 2.

Of course Awaken brings full sentience.

[Xintas]

I would argue that there are two important parts to this particular dilemma:

1. Can the creature speak?

and

2. Can the creature convey the information you are trying to get?

As for the first one, the creature is now intelligent, but that does not give it intrinsic knowledge of a language. It seems like you would need to make it intelligent, cast tongues on it, and also make it willing to speak with you.

As for the second, bluntly put, no. The creature was not intelligent enough to truly understand what was being done to it and is now so vastly more intelligent than it was at the time that it could not possibly reconcile that information (think of a baby being made an adult all at once). The language needed to convey the information you want was not there at the time.

TL;DR Even if it could learn a language and speak to you, that intelligence is not "backwards compatible". It could not answer your questions.

[Red Fel]

Note that just because a thing has intelligence doesn't mean that it's capable of speech, or even if it is, that it's capable of speech in your language. Even if you have a super-smart fox, for example, does it even have the physical capacity to form human language?

Look at the Buomman. They have intelligence. But they don't speak. Vow of silence. They have their own language, but use it more for musical than communicative purposes.

[Zombulian]

Well for one thing, once an animal's int goes above 2 it technically becomes a magical beast, so if you boost your animal companion's intelligence you may lose the ability to have it as a companion.

[Deophaun]

There's something that we need to separate out: being able to speak versus being able to understand a language. Boosting intelligence only gives you the later. So, a fox with an Int of 7 will understand your questions, but his response is going to be limited to barks or yips and body language. You'd need to give him a pearl of speech to have a conversation.

Now, if you cast it on a parrot, the parrot would be able to talk back, because it's physically capable of speech.

[weckar]

Would an animal with an INT of 12 be able to take common as a bonus language?

[Deophaun]

Would an animal with an INT of 12 be able to take common as a bonus language?
The animal would already know common as a result of having an INT above 3.

[weckar]

Not all intelligent creatures know common.

[Larkas]

An animal is a living, nonhuman creature, usually a vertebrate with no magical abilities and no innate capacity for language or culture.

Animals don't have the vocal apparatus for speaking. Let's put it this way: a Tarrasque has Int 3, the bare minimum for a PC (and speaking). Can it speak?

[Deophaun]

Not all intelligent creatures know common.
Technically true, but not for this case:

Intelligence: A creature can speak all the languages mentioned in its description, plus one additional language per point of Intelligence
bonus. Any creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher understands at least one language (Common, unless noted otherwise).
As there is nothing in the animal entry that says they understand a language other than common, then they know common at INT 3.

[weckar]

Technically true, but not for this case:

As there is nothing in the animal entry that says they understand a language other than common, then they know common at INT 3.

So, if the caster doesn't know common.... It might be better to increase an animal's INT than to cast awaken on it, if the aim is to have it know common?

[Larkas]

Note that understanding is not the same as speaking.

[Coidzor]

Buffing Int probably would just buff Int. If your DM has a houserule where their bodies are physically reconfigured to allow for speech or magically allowed to speak simply by having their Int raised above the limit for Animals, thereby causing them to turn into Magical Beasts, well, that's your DM. And makes Fox's Cunning a debuff against Druids' animal companions. :smallamused:

A Pearl of Speech would be one way of rectifying the communication problem. Or Speak with Animals + Buffing the Animal's Int.


Animals don't have the vocal apparatus for speaking. Let's put it this way: a Tarrasque has Int 3, the bare minimum for a PC (and speaking). Can it speak?

Yes, it speaks Tarrasque. :smallamused: Which is kind of a shame, because it should speak laser beams. (http://youtu.be/d44qIO6_sxE)

[Clistenes]

Plenty of intelligent Magical Beasts can't speak. Griffons have intelligence 5 and can understand human speech, but they can't speak. Pegasi are so intelligent as average humans, but they can't speak (they understand human speech, however). Blink Dogs can communicate with each other using barks, yaps, whine and growls, but can't speak human lenguage...etc. All those creatures just aren't physically able to pronounce words due to the shape of their vocal cords, throats, tongues, lips and mandibles.

And even if an animal were able to pronounce human words (think of a raven or parrot), he would still have to spend a skill point to learn a human language.

Awaken is different than Fox's Cunning (besides being permanent instantaneous) in that it changes the animal in many ways, giving it two more HD, changing its creature type and allowing it to speak.