When do mundanes surpass animals?

[RoboEmperor]

At level 1, 3 guard dogs are 75gp and they outperform any fighter or barbarian I know of. Action economy, flanking, meat shield, etc. etc.. Not to mention dirt cheap to replace.

Heavy Warhorses are 400gp each and they're CR2. They have +6 to hit and 3 attacks. Each one is better than a mundane and since they're so dirt cheap you can buy an army of them. Their only limit is how cramped the dungeon you are crawling is.

A war elephant is 4,000gp and a CR7 creature. Less than half the WBL of a 5th level PC.

So when does the Barbarian or Fighter start outfighting animals? I noticed when creatures with DR/good, evil, magic, etc. start to appear animals start to fall flat as you need good weapons and power attack to slay these creatures. But some campaigns don't have enemies with DR.

[HouseRules]

Never. There's always a bigger fish.

[tiercel]

What are your comparison criteria? You can purchase a riding dog / heavy warhorse, but you can't "purchase" a fighter/barbarian/etc (unless you are in a slavery-enabled part of a campaign world, but in general the DMG talks about *hiring* followers, not buying them).

Are we talking about 1v1? Because then it depends a lot on build and available resources.

A potential intangible is that animals have Int 2. Humanoid sword-swinger types generally have *substantially more,* and to a certain degree, pull ahead when their contribution to combat can be tactical/positioning as well as pure to-hit/damage numbers.

By raw numbers:
Riding dog: 13hp, AC 16, +3 attack, d6+3 damage
NPC Barbarian (straight from DMG), ignoring feat choice or racial ability score adjustments OR use of rage, assuming greatsword use: 13hp, AC 16, +4 attack, 2d6+3 damage

If the barbarian can use feat(s), class ability (rage), actual tactics (even one round of thrown-weapon ranged attack before closing to melee is something the riding dog can't do, much less wielding a reach weapon, or even single-use items like potions), it's a little spurious to blithely just say "a dog is better than a barbarian" without being a little more specific what the grounds for comparison are.

[Mike Miller]

I agree with tiercel. I think you are being deliberately misleading or are using specious reasoning. My only addition is why are you comparing a single PC to three NPCs? Action economy is king in many cases. Try comparing three fighters to your three dogs. Let me know how that works out. It is a much better comparison. Otherwise, you may as well say NI housecats are better than one barbarian, what gives?

[RoboEmperor]

What are your comparison criteria?

Performance in an adventure. In all level 1 encounters I've been dominating most of the encounters with my 3 guard dogs.


Are we talking about 1v1? Because then it depends a lot on build and available resources.

One PC fighter v.s. 1 PC whatever that spends most of their WBL on animals.


A potential intangible is that animals have Int 2. Humanoid sword-swinger types generally have *substantially more,* and to a certain degree, pull ahead when their contribution to combat can be tactical/positioning as well as pure to-hit/damage numbers.

By raw numbers:
Riding dog: 13hp, AC 16, +3 attack, d6+3 damage
NPC Barbarian (straight from DMG), ignoring feat choice or racial ability score adjustments OR use of rage, assuming greatsword use: 13hp, AC 16, +4 attack, 2d6+3 damage

If the barbarian can use feat(s), class ability (rage), actual tactics (even one round of thrown-weapon ranged attack before closing to melee is something the riding dog can't do, much less wielding a reach weapon, or even single-use items like potions), it's a little spurious to blithely just say "a dog is better than a barbarian" without being a little more specific what the grounds for comparison are.

One on one yeah but how about 3 on 1 since a PC spending all of their money on guard dogs can afford 3.

Or two Heavy warhorses v.s. 1 barbarian at level 2.

Or six heavy warhorses v.s. 1 barbarian at level 3.

I ask because I feel a hell of a lot stronger than my party mundanes using multiple heavy warhorses to fight my battles.


I agree with tiercel. I think you are being deliberately misleading or are using specious reasoning. My only addition is why are you comparing a single PC to three NPCs? Action economy is king in many cases. Try comparing three fighters to your three dogs. Let me know how that works out. It is a much better comparison. Otherwise, you may as well say NI housecats are better than one barbarian, what gives?

Money. I can afford 3 dogs for 75gp at level 1. 2 Warhorses for 800gp at level 2. 6 warhorses for 2400gp at level 3. My concern is that a PC spending 2400gp on warhorses outperforms a mundane PC spending 2400gp on gear by a significant margin to the point the mundanes might feel trivialized by my strategy. So I was wondering at what level do they start surpassing the animals so I don't feel like I'm sort of breaking the game.

[Troacctid]

Money. I can afford 3 dogs for 75gp at level 1. 2 Warhorses for 800gp at level 2. 6 warhorses for 2400gp at level 3. My concern is that a PC spending 2400gp on warhorses outperforms a mundane PC spending 2400gp on gear by a significant margin to the point the mundanes might feel trivialized by my strategy. So I was wondering at what level do they start surpassing the animals so I don't feel like I'm sort of breaking the game.
In that case, mundanes surpass animals immediately. For the same price as a single guard dog, you can hire four mercenaries for a month. They have better stats than dogs, and enough intelligence to carry out complex orders.

[Malroth]

These are skill based tricks any mundane can do themselves, probably better than the caster can as they don't have to invest any skillpoints in knowledge arcana, spellcraft, knowledge the planes. Whats better than a wizard with three dogs is a wizard and a ranger with 6 dogs or a wizard, ranger, drudid and barbarian with a whole pack.

[Lapak]

I'm curious how you're commanding this pack of dogs / herd of warhorses. Outside of classes that specialize in animal handling, i assume you're either having the DM hand wave the issue or investing a lot of character resources and combat actions in Handle Animal checks?

[RoboEmperor]

In that case, mundanes surpass animals immediately. For the same price as a single guard dog, you can hire four mercenaries for a month. They have better stats than dogs, and enough intelligence to carry out complex orders.

Not what I was asking but ok.


These are skill based tricks any mundane can do themselves, probably better than the caster can as they don't have to invest any skillpoints in knowledge arcana, spellcraft, knowledge the planes. Whats better than a wizard with three dogs is a wizard and a ranger with 6 dogs or a wizard, ranger, drudid and barbarian with a whole pack.

Most players who go mundane spend money on weapons and armor because they need it to function. Spellcasters can cast spells naked so they got money to spare on animals.

So you see how I dominate the encounters. I got 3 dogs meleeing more than our fighter and spellcasting on top of that to boot.


I'm curious how you're commanding this pack of dogs / herd of warhorses. Outside of classes that specialize in animal handling, i assume you're either having the DM hand wave the issue or investing a lot of character resources and combat actions in Handle Animal checks?

If they're trained you just pass a DC 10 handle animal check at the start of the day to defend you and that's that. Anytime creatures act hostile to me or my party they attack the nearest creature. No advanced strategies like take out the spellcaster first or protect a party member, but at low levels none of these tactics matter when you got the numbers and brute force.

[Crake]

Are you using the CR1/3 guard dog, or the CR1 "guard dog" that's actually a riding dog? Because guard dogs have a measly 15AC, +2 to hit (+4 with flanking), 6hp (so die in one hit to a barbarian, better hope he doesn't have power attack and cleave), and only do 1d4+1 damage. A barbarian with power attack and cleave, or a fighter with power attack, cleave and great cleave have a pretty decent chance to literally just, in one attack, erase the dogs from the fight without ever getting hit.

Elephants will have a hard time fitting in dungeons, as will horses, not to mention neither can do some of the potentially difficult tasks such as climbing ladders or operating doors.

If the animals are trained properly, then ordering them to fight isn't really a problem, at worst it's an action per animal, at best, they're all already ordered to defend, and won't require any additional actions to engage. Still, if you're treating them as WBL, what's to stop the barbarian from buying 3 of his own dogs, and then engaging you in a one on one fight. Or, you know, buying an item that lets him fly, and completely avoid the animals, or an item that lets him charm animals and turn them on you. You're basically just talking about equipment and saying that animals are good equipment, right? The opportunity cost isn't being mundane or not, it's the other gear you can buy, so you're not making a equatable comparison.

[tiercel]

I'm curious how you're commanding this pack of dogs / herd of warhorses. Outside of classes that specialize in animal handling, i assume you're either having the DM hand wave the issue or investing a lot of character resources and combat actions in Handle Animal checks?

This is a good point — having 3 dogs doesn’t mean having 3 soldiers one can play Sun Tzu with. Best case scenario is that all the dogs have the Defend trick, it’s activated (with patience) outside combat, and then the PC wades into melee, letting the dogs follow along into melee as best they can.

Actually commanding an animal to Attack is a move action, with no particular rules supporting being able to command multiple animals with a single move action (if the DM allows it, that is... nice). Animals won’t Attack just anything without extra training, though, and Handle Animal DC 10 (or 12 if animal wounded) is hardly an auto-pass for most 1st level characters.

As for the dogs being expendable... well, presumably you’re stuck without them until you are between adventures and can go back to Town, shops don’t always have 99999 highly trained capable fighting animals, shopkeepers start looking at you funny if you keep...using up... your purchases, and having a ranger, druid, nature cleric, or even any form of conscience might eventually be a problem for treating animals as mere catapult fodder.

A character who isn’t very Handle-Animal optimized probably shouldn’t be able to direct animals as anything like mini-PCs, and one who *is* is going to lose a lot of utility any time animals drop (and intelligent foes will realize at some point that a Beastmaster with a pack of animals has a glaring single point of failure: the Beastmaster himself).

And this assumes that foes also never play on weaknesses of animals (ranged fire, actual fire, illusions, specifically animal-targetting magic, Int damage, etc).

[zfs]

So you see how I dominate the encounters. I got 3 dogs meleeing more than our fighter and spellcasting on top of that to boot.


And? Of course superior numbers are causing you to dominate encounters at Level 1. If you had 3 NPC Warriors with you, you'd be doing the same thing.

And as already pointed out, three riding dogs are 450 gp. The dogs you have are just regular dogs.

[RoboEmperor]

Are you using the CR1/3 guard dog, or the CR1 "guard dog" that's actually a riding dog? Because guard dogs have a measly 15AC, +2 to hit (+4 with flanking), 6hp (so die in one hit to a barbarian, better hope he doesn't have power attack and cleave), and only do 1d4+1 damage. A barbarian with power attack and cleave, or a fighter with power attack, cleave and great cleave have a pretty decent chance to literally just, in one attack, erase the dogs from the fight without ever getting hit.

The CR1/3. This isn't a PvP scenario because as you say the Barbarian can potentially knock the dogs unconscious with cleave. We're comparing their performance against monsters. Like 6 goblins.

For example, there was this 2 boar encounter against us 4 (wizard, cleric (me), warforged fighter, and a worthless druid (total noob)). All of us level 1. I had 1 heavy warhorse and 2 guard dogs (I donated a dog because I had too much action economy as it is) and I took out a boar myself while the rest of the party spent all of their resources taking out the 2nd boar slower than me. I know that luck has some factor in it but in this situation my character was stronger than all 3 of my party mates.

Contrary to our level 6 encounter where all of my warhorses were powerless to hurt the bearded devils due to DR. I didn't have an elephant because my DM didn't use oriental adventures which is where they state elephants are purchasable. But if I did I'm pretty sure I'd still surpass the mundanes in brute force.

So it's somewhere around that neighborhood where flying creatures, ranged attacks, spellcasters, etc. start making manufactured weapons mandatory and that's when mundanes start to surpass animals. I was just wondering if you guys had an opinion on the exact level.

[Telok]

Mundanes out perform animals when anyone uses intelligence, tactics and planning. A CR appropriate animal(s) can replace a mundane who is played badly (only takes attack & damage feats, only buys bigger number magic items, no real tactic beyond run up and full attack, etc, etc).

Mind I'm specifically considering animal to mundane comparisons that are reasonably equivalent. The boar/badger types compared to barbarians, stuff like that. This isn't considering ToB 'mundanes' that are capable of real out-of-combat utility or more than simple ground based damage output. It also presumes that you tailor the animal selection to the environment and combats, no elephants in a dungeon, choose flying animals for cliff fights.

[Maat Mons]

Let me propose a modification to your question: "When is it better to invest in doing something yourself, than to invest in having a minion who does it for you?"

My favorite 1st-level beastmaster is a Druid with the Wild Cohort feat. I like to call the 2-dog variant "the bitchmaster."

[tiercel]

Mundanes out perform animals when anyone uses intelligence, tactics and planning.

This.

At level 1, animals won’t dominate a fight with kobolds using simple pit traps and crossbows. Or situations requiring even moderate stealth. Or enemy spellcasters.

As others have pointed out, this is less a “animals > beatsticks” issue and more a “more actions > fewer actions” issue. If combat tends to run to the “kick in the door, numbers mash on numbers” kind of melee, then animals will be kinda strong because melee numbers is what they do...and not much else. Even a standard Fighter will usually have more than raw numbers (if nothing else, because of equipment).

[Crake]

The CR1/3. This isn't a PvP scenario because as you say the Barbarian can potentially knock the dogs unconscious with cleave. We're comparing their performance against monsters. Like 6 goblins.

For example, there was this 2 boar encounter against us 4 (wizard, cleric (me), warforged fighter, and a worthless druid (total noob)). All of us level 1. I had 1 heavy warhorse and 2 guard dogs (I donated a dog because I had too much action economy as it is) and I took out a boar myself while the rest of the party spent all of their resources taking out the 2nd boar slower than me. I know that luck has some factor in it but in this situation my character was stronger than all 3 of my party mates.

Contrary to our level 6 encounter where all of my warhorses were powerless to hurt the bearded devils due to DR. I didn't have an elephant because my DM didn't use oriental adventures which is where they state elephants are purchasable. But if I did I'm pretty sure I'd still surpass the mundanes in brute force.

So it's somewhere around that neighborhood where flying creatures, ranged attacks, spellcasters, etc. start making manufactured weapons mandatory and that's when mundanes start to surpass animals. I was just wondering if you guys had an opinion on the exact level.

Again though, as I said, you're comparing what essentially is "gear" to a class. It's like asking "When does a mundane surpass a +5 vorpal sword?" it's not a valid question. Literally anyone could get a dog or horse and add it to their arsenal.

Regarding you taking out the boar faster, well, you were 4 characters vs the rest of the party's three, one of which was, as you said, a total noob, so probably wasn't contributing, a wizard who probably didn't want to blow anything on a boar, and a fighter. So essentially, you're comparing yourself, a warhorse and 2 guard dogs vs a single fighter, not really a fair comparison.

The real question you should be asking is: At what point does actual gear surpass buying an extra turn in the action economy, which you'll PROBABLY find is "it depends on the price". The limiting factor for additional turns in the action economy is twofold, one IC and one OOC: The logistics of moving that many creatures around (teleporting an elephant for example is very hard, even horses are a pain), and the logistics of manging longwinded turns with lots of animals that individually don't contribute a lot, but add up when put together.

Essentially, yes, having 3 guard dogs is probably pretty decent for it's cost at low levels (though a boar should have had a roughly 1/4 chance to kill a dog in any given turn), and yes, horses are VERY good for their price (I've played a mounted knight before in pathfinder using spheres of power, and even with the destruction sphere on my melee attacks, the horse was contributing a huge amount of damage), but you're just asking the wrong question.

[RoboEmperor]

Let me propose a modification to your question: "When is it better to invest in doing something yourself, than to invest in having a minion who does it for you?"

My favorite 1st-level beastmaster is a Druid with the Wild Cohort feat. I like to call the 2-dog variant "the bitchmaster."


Essentially, yes, having 3 guard dogs is probably pretty decent for it's cost at low levels (though a boar should have had a roughly 1/4 chance to kill a dog in any given turn), and yes, horses are VERY good for their price (I've played a mounted knight before in pathfinder using spheres of power, and even with the destruction sphere on my melee attacks, the horse was contributing a huge amount of damage), but you're just asking the wrong question.

You two are absolutely correct.

When does buying actual GEAR for mundanes surpass buying animals? Not casters because I know when gear surpasses animals with casters ranging from TO game breaking to just PO.

[RoboEmperor]

I get the intelligence argument. Don't think I'm ignoring you guys. But low levels intelligence doesn't really matter. So when does it start to matter? Is part of the question I guess. Because you got the animal handler's intelligence too.

[Troacctid]

Why doesn't it matter at low levels?

[Florian]

Why doesn't it matter at low levels?

Let me make a guess: Robo is one of those that don't have the animal act like an animal and it will be an automatic extension of the owning character.

To answer the initial question: The moment there's a ladder or rope to climb or the door has a door knob instead of a handle or is... *gulp*.... locked.

[Telok]

Why doesn't it matter at low levels?

I think intelligence would matter more at low levels. A low level fighter can deal with a puddle of burning oil in a hallway or being set on fire by a kobold with an alchemists fire on his own initiative. Making a DC 25 check per animal because someone knocked over a lantern or it failed the save to not be on fire is not a trivial task at low levels.

[Crake]

You two are absolutely correct.

When does buying actual GEAR for mundanes surpass buying animals? Not casters because I know when gear surpasses animals with casters ranging from TO game breaking to just PO.

The answer to this question is: When the gear starts helping you solve problems beyond "we need more damage". Because honestly, that's all that animals can REALLY bring to the table, damage. As such, the question is the same as asking "when is it better to buy utility items over damage-based items?" to which the answer is: it depends on your table. After all, a political intrigue game, or hell, even just an urban game where you can't just have a posse of dogs, horses and elephants following you about, yeah, magic items are probably better. Likewise: A potion of lesser vigor will heal you for 11 hit points, vs the two dogs that could soak 12 hit points, but those dogs have less AC, so are easier to hit, so their "effective" hit points are lower than a 25AC fighter, and there are also 2 dogs plus yourself, so you become more vulnerable to aoe attacks (effectively taking "triple" damage), so you ask yourself, what's better: two dogs, or healing myself for 11 hp? This is assuming of course that you're on a time-sensitive mission, where you can't just sit back and rest to heal the damage instead.

This is turning into a bit of a rant, but frankly, what gear you buy isn't really cookie cutter, I've found. The things you buy are shaped by your character, the world around you, and the plot.

[RoboEmperor]

Let me make a guess: Robo is one of those that don't have the animal act like an animal and it will be an automatic extension of the owning character.

I already said I make the animals attack the nearest hostile creature exclusively, can't do any advanced tactics like taking out the spellcaster first, and I doubt this is considered "automatic extension of the owning character"


To answer the initial question: The moment there's a ladder or rope to climb or the door has a door knob instead of a handle or is... *gulp*.... locked.

These are out of combat stuff that can be remedied by the animal handler itself or some teamwork. Haven't had any dungeons that required rope or ladder climbing with horses yet but with dogs the party mundane carried them up for me.


Why doesn't it matter at low levels?

In my experience all fights at low levels can be solved just through brute force because you don't have the options for advanced tactics yet due to being restricted to low level spells. You're gonna have to give me an example here for me to understand. Like there are no hydras at low levels and they require intelligence to take out.


I think intelligence would matter more at low levels. A low level fighter can deal with a puddle of burning oil in a hallway or being set on fire by a kobold with an alchemists fire on his own initiative. Making a DC 25 check per animal because someone knocked over a lantern or it failed the save to not be on fire is not a trivial task at low levels.

True but why would fire blocking a hallway matter? If you're trying to prevent someone from escaping I guess it matters. If the fire acts like a wall for archers to shoot through then yeah I don't see the animals doing anything other than total defense actions until the fire runs out.

I think an animal set on fire would drop everything and immediately try to put it out. Question is, can they stop drop and roll or something? Or would they just run around til the fire goes out?


The answer to this question is: When the gear starts helping you solve problems beyond "we need more damage". Because honestly, that's all that animals can REALLY bring to the table, damage. As such, the question is the same as asking "when is it better to buy utility items over damage-based items?" to which the answer is: it depends on your table. After all, a political intrigue game, or hell, even just an urban game where you can't just have a posse of dogs, horses and elephants following you about, yeah, magic items are probably better. Likewise: A potion of lesser vigor will heal you for 11 hit points, vs the two dogs that could soak 12 hit points, but those dogs have less AC, so are easier to hit, so their "effective" hit points are lower than a 25AC fighter, and there are also 2 dogs plus yourself, so you become more vulnerable to aoe attacks (effectively taking "triple" damage), so you ask yourself, what's better: two dogs, or healing myself for 11 hp? This is assuming of course that you're on a time-sensitive mission, where you can't just sit back and rest to heal the damage instead.

This is turning into a bit of a rant, but frankly, what gear you buy isn't really cookie cutter, I've found. The things you buy are shaped by your character, the world around you, and the plot.

This isn't a rant. A rant is someone whining.

You seem to be discounting the -10 hp to die thing. Low level characters rely on it. I cast lesser vigor on my dogs to save its life and use em for the next fight.

Ok so it seems pretty unanimous animals > mundanes cost for cost in the damage/hp department and inferior to all other departments. So me dominating encounters might just be the DM's fault rather than mine? For making encounters just straight up melee v.s. melee? And I shouldn't feel bad for outfighting the mundanes with animals?

[zlefin]

the problem is you're playing at a higher optimization level; and the dm is using a low optimization level for general play and for the monsters; also the rest of your party is playing at a much lower optimization level. it's not about mundanes surpassing animals; it's about players using different optimization levels.

[Lapak]

Ok so it seems pretty unanimous animals > mundanes cost for cost in the damage/hp department and inferior to all other departments. So me dominating encounters might just be the DM's fault rather than mine? For making encounters just straight up melee v.s. melee? And I shouldn't feel bad for outfighting the mundanes with animals?
If your DM is treating every encounter as 'all combatants run at each other on a level field and fight in melee until they die,' with no consideration of tactics or terrain? Then yes, that's the main source of what's making you ask this question. Enemies who have superior ground would trivialize them and/or present a situation where the dogs are strictly inferior to a hired soldier. Examples: fighting you from on top of a wall with long spears, attacking with missile weapons from across a gap, using fire or chemicals to distract or disable the dogs, using nets to entangle them, taking advantage of their terrible Grapple checks, or confounding them with low-level illusions they're not smart enough to question.

And that doesn't even really begin to take their intelligence limits into account; dogs being fire-and-forget and not clever enough to read terrain means that they are fantastically vulnerable to traps on prepared ground and unable to respond to tactical shifts. Enemy shoots at you, dogs charge in, dogs fall into pit trap / run onto patch of flammable oil / dash through field of caltrops that would be avoided by an intelligent combatant. A hired warrior will hang back and protect you if you get hit with a Sleep spell or a Hold Person; the dogs will harry the immediate threat and leave you to be CDG'ed.

(And yes, as everyone points out, the out-of-combat utility is not even comparable. Though since you mention bringing the downed dogs back from death's door it's worth calling out the corner case of end-of-combat utility in the other direction; a hired warrior can try to stabilize you if you're dying, try to carry you off the field of combat or out of the dungeon, give you a healing potion, even in an extreme negotiate a surrender.)

[Khedrac]

Mundanes out-perform animals when you meet undead, magical beasts or similar scary monsters.

Against a pathetic 1HD skeleton a Common 1st is better than a riding dog!

Unless an animal has been specifically trained, it's not going to attack unnatural creatures:

Normally, an animal will attack only humanoids, monstrous humanoids, giants, or other animals. Teaching an animal to attack all creatures (including such unnatural creatures as undead and aberrations) counts as two tricks.
Of course, if you have an animal trainer in the party the animals get a lot more effective.

[Albions_Angel]

It sounds like your DM is letting your dogs have an awful lot of autonomy that other DMs might not give them.

You said you set them to guard you each morning. Fine. DC 10 Handle animal. Sure. (Side note, a MEAN DM would have those dogs rolling sense motive in non combat situations, and sometimes the dogs would misread that intra-party argument and might try and "protect" you from the rest of the party).

So lets look at your boars. From what you said, you encountered them, they were hostile, and rather than guard you (stand in front of you and bark at the boar. Only attack if IT came to THEM. Probably get super confused if you headed off towards the threat ahead of them), they went and attacked it. Thats not guarding you. I would have ruled they didnt do that. That would have required you to sic the dogs on the boar, which is another handle animal check. For each dog. In combat. You arnt bonded to these dogs. They arnt your companions or cohorts. You dont get to magically communicate your intent (unless you use speak with animal).

Also, your reasoning regarding the fire is super in your favour. If a dog is happily charging up a corridor ready to attack and a SHEET OF FLAME springs up in front of it, its not going to stop and take full defense. Hell, can an animal even take the full defense action without command? What does that even look like? Anyway, best case scenario is the dog stands there, super confused at where the hot wall came from, taking arrows with its regular AC. It might even be flat footed. Worst (but probably fairly accurate) case scenario? Those dogs see the flames roar up 5" wide (maybe 10" wide) and 10" high and RUN. Hell, most PEOPLE would run in that situation. To my mind, thats such an unexpected, scary thing for an animal, that it would trigger the 25 DC check to keep them there and under control. They may even get so terrified with the party running up behind them (panicked) that with nowhere to go, they attack the party.

As for getting on fire. Look, we are all human. We have all stopped to the lowest depths of the internet in our youths. Even if we havnt, we all know roughly what it looks like when an animal gets burned. Let alone set on fire. They dont stop to put it out. Hell, humans dont stop to put it out. Thats why "stop, drop and roll" is drilled into us from childhood. Because when you are set on fire, every nerve in your body is screaming "RUN". It doesnt care that the pain will come with it. All it cares about is "Pain Bad. Pain Here. Go Elsewhere." That dog isnt putting itself out. That dog is gone. Either further into the flames, or back out the way it came.

You have a lenient DM. Your dogs are currently effective. They wont continue to be as the fighter gets more feats and can do more things. Any other animal is bigger and less efficient inside. And even with battle training, theres 101 things the enemy can do to simply scare the animals away. Guard dogs are good at single targets, or small groups. But they dont like getting hurt. And they dont like being outnumbered. Any DM worth his salt will see that and have contingencies. What happens when your dogs encounter a magical beast? What happens when they encounter a pack of wolves? What about your horses? Hell, your elephant is taken out by a mouse (if the DM is a real nasty one)! The fighter isnt. The fighter has autonomy. The fighter stays there until he is forced to fail a save, and poor as his saves are, they are a damn sight better than the dogs saves after 3rd level (or should be).

Though, and here is the real problem:

Stop trying to be better than the mundane character with your pack of dogs (which he could also buy). Stop calling the druid useless, and a noob. They are not opponents. D&D isnt a game to be won with a high score. If you are overshadowing the fighter because you bought dogs and he bought plate armor and a sword, maybe sell the dogs and buy some buffing scrolls (or use that wand on your party, and not your dogs?). If the DRUID (arguably the one of the most brokenly OP classes from 1 through 20) isnt doing very well, maybe sit down after a session and say "hey, did you see somewhere you could have used entangle" or "your animal companion can do more than mine. He can go flank even if he struggles to hit. Hes really very useful".

You spent some of your coin on some dogs. Congratulations, you are a summoner now. We all know summons make the game trivial. But your "summons" are mundane and fail against incorporeal foes, foes with fear auras, anything with intimidate, anything with handle animal better than yours, environmental effects, illusions, the DM getting fed up with you breaking action economy more than everyone else, the fighter getting fed up with you posting stuff like this (which may be intended to be a genuine question, but comes off rather smug at times), a ladder, a pit, a tree, an interesting smell, a pepper bomb, a squirrel, a bad dice roll, a dog in heat, feats, level 2, the druids enhanced companion (with feats and level 2), the druid, the druids summons ("you have 3 dogs? Cool. I have 3 flaming dogs. Your move."), a will to play the game cooperatively...

[Troacctid]

Ok so it seems pretty unanimous animals > mundanes cost for cost in the damage/hp department and inferior to all other departments.
Uh, no, mundanes are clearly superior for HP and damage. Unless your DM is letting you use bison stats for cows, then mercenaries have better damage AND a better price. I thought we established this.

[zfs]

Stop trying to be better than the mundane character with your pack of dogs (which he could also buy). Stop calling the druid useless, and a noob. They are not opponents. D&D isnt a game to be won with a high score. If you are overshadowing the fighter because you bought dogs and he bought plate armor and a sword, maybe sell the dogs and buy some buffing scrolls (or use that wand on your party, and not your dogs?). If the DRUID (arguably the one of the most brokenly OP classes from 1 through 20) isnt doing very well, maybe sit down after a session and say "hey, did you see somewhere you could have used entangle" or "your animal companion can do more than mine. He can go flank even if he struggles to hit. Hes really very useful".


Exactly. It's a Druid - it's the easy mode Tier 1 class. If he's not contributing, give him advice on how he can. It's literally impossible to have a broken Druid build - you can have the worst feats, animal companion and gear selection possible but still just prepare more useful spells the next day.

[RoboEmperor]

If your DM is treating every encounter as 'all combatants run at each other on a level field and fight in melee until they die,' with no consideration of tactics or terrain? Then yes, that's the main source of what's making you ask this question. Enemies who have superior ground would trivialize them and/or present a situation where the dogs are strictly inferior to a hired soldier. Examples: fighting you from on top of a wall with long spears, attacking with missile weapons from across a gap, using fire or chemicals to distract or disable the dogs, using nets to entangle them, taking advantage of their terrible Grapple checks, or confounding them with low-level illusions they're not smart enough to question.

And that doesn't even really begin to take their intelligence limits into account; dogs being fire-and-forget and not clever enough to read terrain means that they are fantastically vulnerable to traps on prepared ground and unable to respond to tactical shifts. Enemy shoots at you, dogs charge in, dogs fall into pit trap / run onto patch of flammable oil / dash through field of caltrops that would be avoided by an intelligent combatant. A hired warrior will hang back and protect you if you get hit with a Sleep spell or a Hold Person; the dogs will harry the immediate threat and leave you to be CDG'ed.

(And yes, as everyone points out, the out-of-combat utility is not even comparable. Though since you mention bringing the downed dogs back from death's door it's worth calling out the corner case of end-of-combat utility in the other direction; a hired warrior can try to stabilize you if you're dying, try to carry you off the field of combat or out of the dungeon, give you a healing potion, even in an extreme negotiate a surrender.)

I've never seen a DM use traps in combat. Ambushes yes but not traps.


Mundanes out-perform animals when you meet undead, magical beasts or similar scary monsters.

Against a pathetic 1HD skeleton a Common 1st is better than a riding dog!

Unless an animal has been specifically trained, it's not going to attack unnatural creatures:

Of course, if you have an animal trainer in the party the animals get a lot more effective.

I have overlooked this rule. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. This gives me an incentive to kill my animals and turn them into zombies if I don't have the weeks to train them this new trick because animals trained for war bought as-is don't have this trick, and Undead have a built in limit so... I guess problem solved when facing a mostly undead and the like campaign.


Uh, no, mundanes are clearly superior for HP and damage. Unless your DM is letting you use bison stats for cows, then mercenaries have better damage AND a better price. I thought we established this.

Help me out here. From what I understand, you can only have 1 mercenary captain who is above level 1 and all other mercenaries must be a level 1 warrior by RAW. And adventurer hirelings are an entirely separate thing that costs an entire share of the loot on top of a daily fee.


Exactly. It's a Druid - it's the easy mode Tier 1 class. If he's not contributing, give him advice on how he can. It's literally impossible to have a broken Druid build - you can have the worst feats, animal companion and gear selection possible but still just prepare more useful spells the next day.

While true this druid was brand new. She didn't even know you needed handle animal checks to get the snake to fight so she spent the entire encounter trying to pass a handle animal check. She will train her snake to learn the "defend" trick as per my advice.

FYI I don't use noob as a derogatory term. Noob**** is the derogatory term for me. When I say someone is a noob I mean someone who doesn't know how to play the game and is just learning.

[zfs]

While true this druid was brand new. She didn't even know you needed handle animal checks to get the snake to fight so she spent the entire encounter trying to pass a handle animal check. She will train her snake to learn the "defend" trick as per my advice.


Handle Animal checks are a free action for Druids if used on their animal companion, so even if she couldn't pass the check to push an animal, she could still be doing other things. Also, animal companions come with a bonus trick - since building an animal companion is hardly intuitive, I would guess she hasn't chosen a bonus trick yet.

If she didn't know Handle Animal was needed, perhaps your DM would let her repick skills. At level 2, with max ranks and the Druid's +4 with her animal companion, it's a straight up 50/50 to train the harder tricks. With just a Cha of 12, she can Take 10 and auto-succeed.

[Troacctid]

Help me out here. From what I understand, you can only have 1 mercenary captain who is above level 1 and all other mercenaries must be a level 1 warrior by RAW. And adventurer hirelings are an entirely separate thing that costs an entire share of the loot on top of a daily fee.
1st level warriors are CR 1/2 compared to CR 1/3 for a guard dog. They have the same HD, but better attack, damage, and AC due to their BAB and ability to use weapons and armor. They can use advanced tactics and do not require Handle Animal checks.

[denthor]

A couple of points.

1. An animal does not attack to the death. Somewhere in the rules it says most animals run at 1/2 hit point damage. Now a trained dog may not.

2. Three dogs. 10 kobolds. They will not coordinate the attacks. So you can expect the first three kobold to go down. Round 1. 7 left

Round 2 dogs In different parts of the room and most likely have taken 4 hit points a piece. Now tactics kick in. Movement to flank and attack. One is able to use missile attack. The dogs are most likely going to take another 4 hit points apiece. They are no longer controllable. 4 left


Round 3 3more kobolds go down. Leaves 1 the missiler.

Dogs can not get to him in the elevated position dogs lose kobold takes the field.

[Jack_McSnatch]

I would rather have four total noobs playing mundanes and having fun, to a single elitist jackass who tries to ruin everybody else's. You're a cleric. Play a cleric. Let the fighter play his role, and stop trying to take it over with wbl.

[RoboEmperor]

1st level warriors are CR 1/2 compared to CR 1/3 for a guard dog. They have the same HD, but better attack, damage, and AC due to their BAB and ability to use weapons and armor. They can use advanced tactics and do not require Handle Animal checks.

They don't scale is my point. Animals scale by buying more expensive ones. Only the merc captain scales.


A couple of points.

1. An animal does not attack to the death. Somewhere in the rules it says most animals run at 1/2 hit point damage. Now a trained dog may not.

Actually locating this rule would be helpful. I have been making my dogs run away from less than half hp but not my warhorses.


2. Three dogs. 10 kobolds. They will not coordinate the attacks. So you can expect the first three kobold to go down. Round 1. 7 left

Round 2 dogs In different parts of the room and most likely have taken 4 hit points a piece. Now tactics kick in. Movement to flank and attack. One is able to use missile attack. The dogs are most likely going to take another 4 hit points apiece. They are no longer controllable. 4 left


Round 3 3more kobolds go down. Leaves 1 the missiler.

Dogs can not get to him in the elevated position dogs lose kobold takes the field.

I hope a DM that I play with does something like this.


I would rather have four total noobs playing mundanes and having fun, to a single elitist jackass who tries to ruin everybody else's. You're a cleric. Play a cleric. Let the fighter play his role, and stop trying to take it over with wbl.

I have to ask, why are you posting in this thread? Are you someone who got butthurt by a caster? Why are you in 3.5 then? Go to 5e.

You're off-topic, haven't contributed to the discussion at hand, and all you've done is spew hate that someone who plays a cleric isn't a healbot supporting mundanes and insult me. I'm kindly asking you to not participate in my threads because clearly someone like you has far too little system mastery or gaming experience to appreciate anyone who decides to deviate from the stereotypical pcs.

[Troacctid]

They don't scale is my point. Animals scale by buying more expensive ones. Only the merc captain scales.
I thought your premise was that animals start out better than mundanes, but eventually mundanes overtake them at higher levels. Now it's the opposite?

[Jack_McSnatch]

I have to ask, why are you posting in this thread? Are you someone who got butthurt by a caster? Why are you in 3.5 then? Go to 5e.

You're off-topic, haven't contributed to the discussion at hand, and all you've done is spew hate that someone who plays a cleric isn't a healbot supporting mundanes and insult me. I'm kindly asking you to not participate in my threads because clearly someone like you has far too little system mastery or gaming experience to appreciate anyone who decides to deviate from the stereotypical pcs.
This is my point. You are not a very pleasant person. And I've ling since surpassed your "system mastery" of buying three untrained dogs.

I once built a character who could do EVERYTHING. Skill, spellcasting, mundane combat, you name it. I've never played that monster because -and this is the important part you're oh so clever three dog majesty- d&d is a TEAM game. It's the FIGHTER'S job to run up and **** people with a stick. Your job is to heal him when he gets twatted back.Whether you play healbot or not is irrelevant, that is the cleric's actual role in the party. You're the only one with the heals.

[zfs]

You're off-topic, haven't contributed to the discussion at hand, and all you've done is spew hate that someone who plays a cleric isn't a healbot supporting mundanes and insult me. I'm kindly asking you to not participate in my threads because clearly someone like you has far too little system mastery or gaming experience to appreciate anyone who decides to deviate from the stereotypical pcs.

It doesn't mean it's right to flame you in this thread, but your entire shtick on the board is minion-mancy and Planar Binding. You have in your signature a guide on how to have minions at every level. And the genesis of this thread was your contention that you are outshining your party, which you also insulted in this thread.

I guess my point is, what's your endgame here? If you find out that the answer to your question is, completely hypothetically Level 6 - that's the level where mundanes outdo animals - are you going to start buffing the fighter more? Or just start summoning? Buying bigger and better animals, even if the fighter is more effective, because hired animals can also be cannon fodder and unlike another PC, they're under your control (which again, seems to be the playstyle you enjoy). No one can tell you how to RPG - you obviously like a character that has control over lots of moving parts/minions. I'm just wondering what you're going to do with whatever conclusion this thread reaches.

Either way, you have a Druid and a Wizard in your party - if they're not contributing, you should use that system mastery to help them. Your eventual planar binding minions will probably outdo your fighter no matter how he specs, but they likely won't outdo a well played Wizard and Druid. The Druid is new, so keep it easy. Just show her a small list of the best summon(s) per SNA level, and the optimal Wild Shape form once she gets it. Let her know that it's basically mandatory to take Natural Spell as your Level 6 feat.



I once built a character who could do EVERYTHING. Skill, spellcasting, mundane combat, you name it. I've never played that monster because -and this is the important part you're oh so clever three dog majesty- d&d is a TEAM game. It's the FIGHTER'S job to run up and **** people with a stick. Your job is to heal him when he gets twatted back.Whether you play healbot or not is irrelevant, that is the cleric's actual role in the party. You're the only one with the heals.

I mean, I don't necessarily agree that the cleric simply MUST bring da healz - I guess at the very least, you've got your spontaneous conversion to cure spells, you should be using that if another party member is about to die. The issue isn't not being a healbot, it's treating your other party members as roadblocks instead of teammates and assets. And like I said above, it's not like your other team members are a Soulknife and a Sohei and a Marshal and then you might have a point that it's just going to be very hard gimping yourself enough to let them keep up with you. Two of the other party members are the other elite Tier 1 classes.

[RoboEmperor]

I thought your premise was that animals start out better than mundanes, but eventually mundanes overtake them at higher levels. Now it's the opposite?

When I meant mundanes i mean PC mundanes. But you have made your point that NPC mundanes are better than animals at level 1.


This is my point. You are not a very pleasant person.

Right. I am totally gonna be pleasant to someone who calls me a jackass and the person calling me a jackass is totally an innocent person. I'd call you what you are except that will probably get me a citation so I'll leave it just implied. Anyways seriously stop posting. Someone who calls someone else a jackass and then plays the victim is sickening. And calling necromancer clerics' true role in a party is a healbot is, well, I think you've proved my point for me.


It doesn't mean it's right to flame you in this thread, but your entire shtick on the board is minion-mancy and Planar Binding. You have in your signature a guide on how to have minions at every level. And the genesis of this thread was your contention that you are outshining your party, which you also insulted in this thread.

I insulted no one. The wizard is a very optimized conjuration wizard complete with cloudy conjuration and abrupt jaunt. He didn't do anything because it's a wizard at level 1, and the party doesn't exactly benefit from cloudy greases at level 1 especially since the clouds give concealment against the Warforged Fighter. I have no idea how optimized the warforged fighter is but he has power attack and is planning to go into warforged juggernaut. The druid is a noob because she's brand new to the game. Is calling a noob a noob an insult? Then what's the pollitcally correct term for a noob? newbie?


I guess my point is, what's your endgame here? If you find out that the answer to your question is, completely hypothetically Level 6 - that's the level where mundanes outdo animals - are you going to start buffing the fighter more? Or just start summoning? Buying bigger and better animals, even if the fighter is more effective, because hired animals can also be cannon fodder and unlike another PC, they're under your control (which again, seems to be the playstyle you enjoy). No one can tell you how to RPG - you obviously like a character that has control over lots of moving parts/minions. I'm just wondering what you're going to do with whatever conclusion this thread reaches.

I was genuinely considering a different early game schtick. If this was on par with "hire 20 level 1 warriors at level 1 and solo a dungeon to get solo experience" I would've skipped animal handling and went straight for cold blooded slaughter of the animals I bought to raise them as zombies. That's my ultimate goal with the whole animal thing. A reliable way to get CR approrpriate zombies regardless of setting, but slaughtering trained animals I bought just for their corpses seemed a bit evil (despite this is how we get our meat) so I thought I'd have them die naturally in combat first before I raise them.


Either way, you have a Druid and a Wizard in your party - if they're not contributing, you should use that system mastery to help them. Your eventual planar binding minions will probably outdo your fighter no matter how he specs, but they likely won't outdo a well played Wizard and Druid. The Druid is new, so keep it easy. Just show her a small list of the best summon(s) per SNA level, and the optimal Wild Shape form once she gets it. Let her know that it's basically mandatory to take Natural Spell as your Level 6 feat.

The wizard is fine. The wizard, the DM and I are helping the druid who chose snake because she likes Jaffar from Disney. I'm not worried about the druid, as others said they cannot fail even with 0 feats. I was worried that my whole animal thing was replacing the entire party like the aforementioned army of level 1 warriors.

[zfs]

The wizard is fine. The wizard, the DM and I are helping the druid who chose snake because she likes Jaffar from Disney. I'm not worried about the druid, as others said they cannot fail even with 0 feats. I was worried that my whole animal thing was replacing the entire party like the aforementioned army of level 1 warriors.

Then you probably don't need to worry too much about outshining the party with animals, except for sheer numbers if you are still eventually going to have an undead animal army. Snakes aren't amazing but trading out for a bigger one once that's feasible and buffing it makes it a passable grappler and Poison can still be a decent trick until high levels where too much is immune or easily passing save DCs. If the Warforged is going down any of the Power Attack buffing feat chains, then there's no worry that any individual animal is going to outdo him in melee usefulness.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Right. I am totally gonna be pleasant to someone who calls me a jackass and the person calling me a jackass is totally an innocent person. I'd call you what you are except that will probably get me a citation so I'll leave it just implied. Anyways seriously stop posting. Someone who calls someone else a jackass and then plays the victim is sickening. And calling necromancer clerics' true role in a party is a healbot is, well, I think you've proved my point for me.

I will not, cause you're so butthurt over me saying a mean word that you aren't even trying to see my point. So, tell you what, I apologize for calling you a jackass, so let me qualify why you're the exact kind of elitist who turns new players off to the game.

You've spent the entire thread insulting -yes, insulting- your party. Who are ostensibly your friends. Noob is an insult. New player is not. You turn your nose up at their lack of system mastery, and the entire PURPOSE of this thread is so you can gloat about how you've made your fighter irrelevant. You don't know how optimized he is, because all he can do is stand in the back and twiddle his thumbs, cause you've taken his role. I feel sorry for him.

And your necromancer cleric is STILL THE ONLY ONE WITH HEALING SPELLS. The wizard can't heal. The warforged DEFINITELY can't heal, and the druid's heals are sub-optimal at best. That is why I called you a mean word. Because you are your party's weakest link. In trying to do everything and be "da bestest evar" you're screwing your other players out of their own fun. You aren't the star, the entire party is.

[zfs]

I'm also confused about what level you're at. Earlier you mentioned low level but then you mentioned a Level 6 encounters against Bearded Devils. If you're Level 6, even if you can buy an elephant (and I don't think you can), the Druid can just summon a Dire Wolf or a Lion or 3 Black Bears, all of which could be augmented or greenbound, and those are free. I know that you want animals that stick around to turn into zombies, but from a utility standpoint, Druid summoning is quickly going to outdo your purchased animals, and does it without using any WBL.

[RoboEmperor]

I'm also confused about what level you're at. Earlier you mentioned low level but then you mentioned a Level 6 encounters against Bearded Devils. If you're Level 6, even if you can buy an elephant (and I don't think you can), the Druid can just summon a Dire Wolf or a Lion or 3 Black Bears, all of which could be augmented or greenbound, and those are free. I know that you want animals that stick around to turn into zombies, but from a utility standpoint, Druid summoning is quickly going to outdo your purchased animals, and does it without using any WBL.

Two separate tables. It's the same build. One started at level 1 and I replaced a dead PC in the other one. The table where my animals are dominating is right now 2nd level. The bearded devils one is right now 8th level and my 2 zombie tigers + Celestial Griffon (from persistent lesser planar exchange) were doing jack. DR rendered the griffon's secondary attacks worthless so its pounce was worthless. Our party fighter with Aligned Weapon cast on him took out everything while I barely took out 2/3rds of one.

The difference between zombies and SNA is that one lasts all day while the other doesn't. I'm the type of guy who would go for the endurance build in any game over the burst-cooldown build. Lasting all day is very important to me which is why I dislike all the summoning spells. If the druid's summoning outshines me I'll be happy because I'm here to play a shtick not to dominate games.

You're right that it's highly unlikely i can get an elephant since oriental adventures is its own setting so unlikely to be included in any game except the most lenient game.

[Cosi]

It's the FIGHTER'S job to run up and **** people with a stick.

No, it's the job of people who want to beat people with sticks. Building a character that can do something does not -- absent an agreement to the contrary -- empower you to complain when other people do that thing. If the Cleric is outperforming the Fighter at the Fighter's job, that's (again, absent an agreement about power level or party roles) as much the Fighter's problem as the Cleric's. Suppose that instead of a Cleric that overshadowed the Fighter, he'd shown up with a Warblade that overshadowed the Fighter, or a Fighter that overshadowed the Fighter.

This is not to say I endorse Robo's behavior or view of the game, but the idea that the Fighter is entitled to be the only guy who hits people because he made a character who can only hit people is deeply toxic. The game can, should, and (when played right) does support multiple people having similar roles. If you can't stand someone else wanting to have the same kind of fun as you, you may want to pick a hobby less social than TTRPGs.

[Jack_McSnatch]

No, it's the job of people who want to beat people with sticks. Building a character that can do something does not -- absent an agreement to the contrary -- empower you to complain when other people do that thing. If the Cleric is outperforming the Fighter at the Fighter's job, that's (again, absent an agreement about power level or party roles) as much the Fighter's problem as the Cleric's. Suppose that instead of a Cleric that overshadowed the Fighter, he'd shown up with a Warblade that overshadowed the Fighter, or a Fighter that overshadowed the Fighter.

This is not to say I endorse Robo's behavior or view of the game, but the idea that the Fighter is entitled to be the only guy who hits people because he made a character who can only hit people is deeply toxic. The game can, should, and (when played right) does support multiple people having similar roles. If you can't stand someone else wanting to have the same kind of fun as you, you may want to pick a hobby less social than TTRPGs.
That's a good point, but ypu're mistaken in what I was saying. I'm not saying ONLY the fighter should fight. I'm saying that warforged guy made a fighter cause that's the kind of fun he wants to have, and robo should stop cucking him with the dogs. If two people want to play martial types, and choose to do it two different ways, that's fine, so long as they both get to do what they want to do. It becomes not okay when one player ends encounters before the fighter even gets to roll his dice.

[Karl Aegis]

Mundanes surpass animals when they become characters. Characters have options.

[zlefin]

as another observation: the prices in game are often roughly based on some sort of real world data, but the combat stats for many animals are inconsistent with their real world threat level. this may exacerbate the deadliness of some of the animals, while mitigating some others. I don't think dogs should be as dangerous to a low-level human as they are in the game.

[Jack_Simth]

The answer to this question is: When the gear starts helping you solve problems beyond "we need more damage". Because honestly, that's all that animals can REALLY bring to the table, damage. Oh, I don't know. A good donkey or mule is a great for carrying things (although ladders, ropes, and so on are a pain). It's even explicitly mentioned that they'll follow you into dungeons.

[emeraldstreak]

So when do mundanes start outfighting my character and his three dogs?

1st level (PO) because the Aristocrat is a mundane who will bring dozens more animals than you do.

1st level (TO) because a Paladin Kobold who lacks spellcasting is mundane-ish.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: That's about enough of that. Locked pending clean up.