What action is it to command an animal companion?

[SangoProduction]

I tried Googling it, but I keep getting results for Pathfinder 2e. Which is excessively obnoxious.
So, instead I decided to ask the most knowledgeable forums I know of for how I command an animal companion (particularly one that's serving as a mount).

[Rynjin]

I tried Googling it, but I keep getting results for Pathfinder 2e. Which is excessively obnoxious.
So, instead I decided to ask the most knowledgeable forums I know of for how I command an animal companion (particularly one that's serving as a mount).

Technically, the answer is a Move action. Realistically, the answer is more complicated.

Basically, the player with the Animal Companion still needs to teach their Companion "tricks". They get a bonus number of tricks from the Animal Companion class feature:


The value given in this column is the total number of “bonus” tricks that the animal knows in addition to any that the druid might choose to teach it (see the Handle Animal skill). These bonus tricks don’t require any training time or Handle Animal checks, and they don’t count against the normal limit of tricks known by the animal. The druid selects these bonus tricks, and once selected, they can’t be changed.

A regular animal take sa Move action and a Handle Animal check to perform their tricks, or can be "pushed" to do something it hasn't learned as a Full Round action and a more difficult check.

However, there is a separate clause for Animal Companions in the Handle Animal skill, reducing the actions required. They can be ordered to perform tricks as a Free action, or pushed as a Move.



Varies. Handling an animal is a move action, while “pushing” an animal is a full-round action. (A druid or ranger can handle her animal companion as a free action or push it as a move action.) For tasks with specific time frames noted above, you must spend half this time (at the rate of 3 hours per day per animal being handled) working toward completion of the task before you attempt the Handle Animal check. If the check fails, your attempt to teach, rear, or train the animal fails and you need not complete the teaching, rearing, or training time. If the check succeeds, you must invest the remainder of the time to complete the teaching, rearing, or training. If the time is interrupted or the task is not followed through to completion, the attempt to teach, rear, or train the animal automatically fails.

But even more realistically...this is never enforced, because it's almost never relevant. It's always going to be a Free/non-action at most tables.

For a Mount, things are a bit different though, as you then have to interact with the Ride skill and Mounted Combat rules. Long story short, directing your Mount while riding it is a non-action out of combat, and Move action in combat.


As a move action, you can attempt to control a light horse, pony, heavy horse, or other mount not trained for combat riding while in battle. If you fail the Ride check, you can do nothing else in that round. You do not need to roll for horses or ponies trained for combat.

(The Mount being combat trained removes the roll, but not the action.)

I recommend very, very thoroughly reading over the Animal Companions (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions/), Handle Animal (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/handle-animal/), and Ride (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/ride/) pages for greater detail.

[ciopo]

I almost always take +1 INT on animal companions at 4th level, because INT 3 is the watershed "must be this tall to ride" number for being allowed to take non-animal companion feats.

A byproduct of that is that nominally INT 3 is when the animal companion "act indipendly according to his own thoughts", which more or less translates to "he has his own initiative counter and doesn't need to be commanded", nominally becoming an NPC under the GM control but realistically that will be delegated to you.

I don't remember where that is from for pathfinder however