Chicken splendor and racoon wisdom

[noob]

Chickens are amongst the most charismatic animals(much more than eagles 13 instead of 7 (I think they are amongst the best animal choices if you want to become a charisma based character like a sorcerer or a bard))
And racoons are the wisest animals I have seen in the pfsrd(16 wisdom instead of the 15 of owls)
Squirrels are way more agile than cats(19 instead of 15) so why not squirrel grace instead of cat grace?
Well I am very silly and weird but I see that pathfinder like chickens as much as me(I have not seen yet creatures with higher charisma amongst animals).

[Honest Tiefling]

And racoons are the wisest animals I have seen in the pfsrd(16 wisdom instead of the 15 of owls)

Well, I don't know how wise the actual animal was, but when I was a kid I went to a camp with my school where the cabins had no doors or windows. So of course the raccoons knew to sneak in to grab the food no one was supposed to bring. Luckily, I was a heavy enough sleeper to avoid being waked when the adult in the cabin tried to sweep the raccoon du jour out the door. Those things were either very wise or very dumb.

I think the names are a bit of a tradition from 3rd edition, and using 'cool' animals as opposed to vermin or snacks.

[noob]

I think raccoons would do awesome clerics or druids if you give them an headband of vast intellect(cost 2000 at least)
Imagine a +6 racial modifier to wisdom that is nearly worth of la(but since pathfinder run on cr it does not gives la)
The low intelligence is the only catch.
Alternatively a racoon who learn to speak get 3 int and stops being an animal(but what it becomes is not clear especially if you do that through non magical means since you can not argue it would become a magical creature) due to "Any creature capable of understanding speech has a score of at least 3"(written about int) So a chicken who retrains with the option New Language(since it allows to have 1+int bonus so if you have a malus due to int then it is not factored since it is not a bonus) or retrains with the option Skill Ranks for placing points in linguistic would get 3 int due to it being the minimum when you understand a language.
Now you stop being an animal due to "no creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher can be an animal"
Alternatively if you think retraining a racoon is silly you can use psychic reformation.

[Slipperychicken]

Using the ecological definition, charismatic animals are the ones that humans care about, that appear on posters for preservation efforts.

Maybe "Panda's Splendor" would be a more fitting name :smallbiggrin:

[Gildedragon]

Using the ecological definition, charismatic animals are the ones that humans care about, that appear on posters for preservation efforts.

Maybe "Panda's Splendor" would be a more fitting name :smallbiggrin:

Panda's splendor. +4 Cha, -20 to Perform (BoEF-style)

[Sagetim]

Well, I don't know how wise the actual animal was, but when I was a kid I went to a camp with my school where the cabins had no doors or windows. So of course the raccoons knew to sneak in to grab the food no one was supposed to bring. Luckily, I was a heavy enough sleeper to avoid being waked when the adult in the cabin tried to sweep the raccoon du jour out the door. Those things were either very wise or very dumb.

I think the names are a bit of a tradition from 3rd edition, and using 'cool' animals as opposed to vermin or snacks.

It's a traditional hold over from second edition if anything, where most of those spells started cropping up in splat books (Cat's Grace, for example). That was also the edition where it was in vogue to set ability scores to particular values, so Bull's Strength set you to 18/75 (because fighters had a special range of strength values called exceptional strength that came in four tiers, but ranged from 1-100 with each tier being 25 points of that).

What do you mean that sounds absurd? I'll have you know that drinking bull semen potions for strength is a fine tradition (for fighters) in dungeons and dragons! I'm not even joking on that one, it's one of the material components for the spell.

And if they picked the names from anything, it was traditional associations of animals to corresponding abilities. If they had known a thing or two about the animal kingdom, we'd have honey badger's endurance (and it would grant dr in addition to a bonus to con). And Dolphin's Intelligence.

Edit: And obviously the best way to get racoon druids is to Awaken raccoons. It gives them a 3d6 int and a +1d3 charisma or something like that as I recall. But it doesn't replace wisdom, so you're still good there.

[noob]

No it is very bad for having a racoon druid:
1: You get increased hd which gives you cr(when you are an Magical beast with 3 hd you are cr 2 due to some table (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/monsterCreation.html)) thus making you having a lower level than a racoon druid that used my methods
(the other thing that suggest that increasing hd increase cr is the monster adjustment page)
2: You get no bonus in wisdom which is the only mental stat that really matters to druids and since you got cr increase you could have just played a higher cr creature that gets more wisdom.

Do not forget that ECL is cr in pathfinder.(thus increase in hd increase cr and thus increase your ecl without giving you more druid casting)

Now on whichever animal is the smartest in real life it is a very disputable matter(some people says it is humans) here we were speaking of pathfinder animals and the smartest ones are all the ones with 2 int(because when you have 3 int you stop being an animal)

[KillianHawkeye]

When they say that Int 3 is the minimum for understanding a language, they don't mean that you can raise an animal's Intelligence by teaching it Common, they mean that animals cannot learn languages at all. No, not even with the Linguistics (PF) or Speak Language (D&D) skills.

[noob]

Tell me where it is written.
There is no rules imposing where you can spend skills and it says that creatures that can understand a language have at least 3 int not that creature with less than 3 int can not learn language.
What you said is house rules unless you quote something that means the exact same thing as what you says.
So now you have a typical team with an half orc barbarian(with 1 int) and one half orc druid(with 1 int) and one bard(with 12 int) the bard want to communicate with the barbarian and the druid.
Since these can not learn a language with your house rules he tries casting Speak Local Language on them.
What happens with your house rules?
The spell itself makes no distinction on the target and allows it to speak and understand a language but the target can not learn a language due to your house rule so what happens?

[Ellrin]

And Dolphin's Intelligence.

Mouse's intelligence.

[KillianHawkeye]

Tell me where it is written.
There is no rules imposing where you can spend skills and it says that creatures that can understand a language have at least 3 int not that creature with less than 3 int can not learn language.
What you said is house rules unless you quote something that means the exact same thing as what you says.


Okay. This is from the description of the animal type which is the same in D&D and Pathfinder.

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

There you have it. No capacity for language, ergo it cannot be taught a language.




So now you have a typical team with an half orc barbarian(with 1 int) and one half orc druid(with 1 int) and one bard(with 12 int) the bard want to communicate with the barbarian and the druid.
Since these can not learn a language with your house rules he tries casting Speak Local Language on them.
What happens with your house rules?
The spell itself makes no distinction on the target and allows it to speak and understand a language but the target can not learn a language due to your house rule so what happens?

First of all, PC races have a minimum Intelligence value of 3, even Half-Orcs, so your proposed scenario is impossible unless they've been knocked below 3 by ability damage, ability drain, or other penalties (in which case, yes, they lose their ability to understand language).

By the way, Pathfinder Half-Orcs don't even have an Intelligence penalty anymore. They get the same "+2 to any ability score" that Humans get.

As for your spell, it allows them to speak and understand a language because it's magic, and that's what it says it does. You can cast that spell on a squirrel and it will temporarily be able to speak and understand a language (because MAGIC), but that won't raise its Intelligence score. Magic is kinda like cheating that way, sort of like how casting feather fall lets you ignore the rule about taking damage from falling.

[noob]

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

Where is it said that an human have an innate capacity for language?
Not having an innate capacity for language does not means that you can not learn it at all it is a house rule you made which says not having an innate capacity to do something prevents you from learning it.
An human have no innate capacity to do magic unless he is a sorcerer(because in the rules it is not written that humans other than sorcerers have an innate capacity to do magic and when the rules does not gives you something you have it only if you would have in in real life by default but the rules does not says that humans other than sorcerers have an innate capacity for magic and in magic no human have the innate capacity to do magic) but they can still learn magic and become wizards but if we considered that having no innate capacity to do something prevented you from learning it then humans who are not sorcerers would not be able to learn wizardry.
also in my interpretation of the rules an animal can not speak(and so my interpretation is not incoherent with the text you quoted) since when he learns how to understand a language he gains int 3 and thus lose the animal type(and then either have no type or gain another one)
And if you say that it is impossible to do something who change your type then congratulations you forbid all the transformative classes capstone from working.

[Dagroth]

Wait... wait... wait.

Raccoons have 3 HD in pathfinder?

Really? That's insane!

[noob]

They have 3 hd when awakened(awaken give 2 bonus hd and people sometimes attempt to cheese that) not when becoming intelligent without being awakened(so wearing an headband of intellect do not make a racoon have high cr but being awakened give high cr).

[Daefos]

Not having an innate capacity for language does not means that you can not learn it at all

Yes it does. That is exactly what "no innate capacity" means.


innate
ADJECTIVE
1. Inborn; natural.


capacity
NOUN
2.1 The ability or power to do or understand something.

So an animal, by the D&D definition of the term "Animal", has no inborn or natural ability to understand language. It cannot understand, let alone learn to speak, a language without some outside force changing what it is capable of.

[KillianHawkeye]

Where is it said that an human have an innate capacity for language?

In the languages section of their racial description. Humans speak Common.


Not having an innate capacity for language does not means that you can not learn it at all it is a house rule you made which says not having an innate capacity to do something prevents you from learning it.

No, that's EXACTLY what it means. You have no capacity to learn a thing, therefore you cannot learn it. That's what "capacity" means: "The ability to learn or retain knowledge." Animals lack the ability to learn languages, period.


An human have no innate capacity to do magic unless he is a sorcerer(because in the rules it is not written that humans other than sorcerers have an innate capacity to do magic and when the rules does not gives you something you have it only if you would have in in real life by default but the rules does not says that humans other than sorcerers have an innate capacity for magic and in magic no human have the innate capacity to do magic) but they can still learn magic and become wizards but if we considered that having no innate capacity to do something prevented you from learning it then humans who are not sorcerers would not be able to learn wizardry.

This is all wrong. Sorcerers have the inborn ability to use magic, but all humans have the capacity to learn it. Nothing says they don't, you just made that up. The fact that humans can use magic is made obvious by the fact that they can become spellcasters. They have that capacity. This isn't like AD&D where dwarves couldn't become wizards.


also in my interpretation of the rules an animal can not speak(and so my interpretation is not incoherent with the text you quoted) since when he learns how to understand a language he gains int 3 and thus lose the animal type(and then either have no type or gain another one)
And if you say that it is impossible to do something who change your type then congratulations you forbid all the transformative classes capstone from working.

First, a creature can't not have a type. That's insane. Where are you getting this stuff? And you don't even know what type the animal would become in this hypothetical scenario! If you can't see how far you're reaching, then I'm not certain there's a point to having this conversation.

Second, I never said it's impossible to change your type (that's a straw man argument), I'm just saying that animals can't learn a language without changing type and raising their Intelligence score first. Not the other way around as you're baselessly claiming. The rules say that animals are incapable of learning languages. The rules say that you need a minimum Intelligence of 3 to understand language. There is no rule saying that an animal can learn a language and suddenly gain a higher Int and stop being an animal. You are the one making up BS house rules here, not me. :smallannoyed:

[noob]

The rules say that you need a minimum Intelligence of 3 to understand language
No the rules do not says that: it says that Any creature capable of understanding speech has a score of at least 3
it do not imply that a creature with less than 3 int can not learn a language.
It is like saying "The sentence "Any creature with a bonus of 1 to his strength has a score of at least 1"" means that a creature with less than one strength can not gain a bonus to his strength of 1".
There is no rule saying than learning to speak do not make you smarter (by the way it is a known fact in real life that learning a language(by opposition to not learning any language and being unable to communicate with others) makes you smarter(there is multiple experiences going this way for humans in real life))
So there is no reason that learning a language would not bring you to the minimum of 3(as written in the rules: any creature able to understand speech have at least 3 int) and that would not need any rule unlike saying that you can not learn speech when you have less than 3 int.



In the languages section of their racial description. Humans speak Common.
That is both different from having innate capacity for language and having the ability to understand language: that is speaking a language.
Speaking a language do not imply you understand it:deaf people can speak English without understanding people speaking English(they understand someone communicating with sign language but not one speaking english(unless they read on lips but that is not easy))
It is never said that humans can understand people speaking to them.(by raw they can not do that until they take ranks in linguistics)
And since it is never written that humans have an innate capacity for language(absolutely different from speaking) then humans might just be unable to learn language since you said that people needed an innate capacity for language for learning a language.

Also you can stop having a type if you stop being a creature.

(PS: learning a language still do not allows you to understand people speaking it but it allows you to understand people writing it since it says that you can read)