Capturing A Crawling Claw

[Palanan]

As another example of “be careful what you give your players,” in our last session I unleashed some crawling claws on the party, and now the alchemist has his heart set on capturing one.

I don’t mind if he does, but I’m wondering how exactly to go about it. Bestiary 2 describes how owners can give them commands—but how does one become an owner? Do you need a monster trainer, or is there some other process to tame one of these?

[Uncle Pine]

The spells command undead, control undead, as well as the rebuke undead class feature are all good ways to have an undead creature do your bidding.
Creating an undead (usually) makes you its owner.
If the undead is not mindless, sharing at least one language with it means you can attempt to make it friendlier with Diplomacy and the like (certain abilities, like telepathy, can be used to circumvent language barriers).

[Trandir]

I do not know what source you are referring to. But on monsters of faerun the crawling claw answer to the one who created them. So probably one can become those creatures' master only by creating them. If you where to capture one you probably can't train one by conventional means.

That sayed the epic level manual offers epic uses for handle animal and one of this is rear and train other creatures. The hand has - intelligence so one could consider it at the same level of a vermin. So if your alchemist is trurly dedicated he can spend 6 months after a succesful handle animal check with DC 40 to rear the hand. And 2 more months and a DC 60 to train it. And it would still be just a trained creature and not bonded to the alchemist.

Or you could tell him that if he spends "roll the money" on research and "roll time" to actually do it he can discover a spell to bond himself to low level constructs.
.

[DrMotives]

Crawling claws aren't undead, unless that's a change to them in Bestiary 2. They're a "gotcha" monster, constructs made by animating severed hands to make people think they're undead. Snagging control of a construct may be possible, but it won't work the same way as an undead.

[Vizzerdrix]

Crawling claws aren't undead, unless that's a change to them in Bestiary 2. They're a "gotcha" monster, constructs made by animating severed hands to make people think they're undead. Snagging control of a construct may be possible, but it won't work the same way as an undead.

Techsmiths can command constructs.

[Uncle Pine]

If we're talking about this (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/crawling-hand/) (I couldn't find a PF mention of crawling claws, just crawling hands), it's indeed an undead and even has Int 2.

[Vizzerdrix]

If we're talking about this (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/crawling-hand/) (I couldn't find a PF mention of crawling claws, just crawling hands), it's indeed an undead and even has Int 2.

Crawling claw is found in monsters of faerun. Page 29.

[DrMotives]

Crawling claw is found in monsters of faerun. Page 29.

There were updated to 3.5 as a swarm (still constructs though) in Lost Empires of the Faerun, page 163.

[Skum_Overlord]

Hey! Those claws have feelings too! Ask Thing!