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Thread: [3.5] Animal Empathy Feat
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2011-09-18, 12:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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[3.5] Animal Empathy Feat
Animal Empathy
Required Wis 14 or Cha 14
Gain the Wild Empathy class feature that does not apply to magical beasts.
You may take 10 when using the Wild Empathy feature to influence animals of indifferent or better attitude, and can make the check passively.
Gain +2 to your diplomacy and sense motive checks.
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2011-09-18, 05:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [3.5] Animal Empathy Feat
Ability score prerequisites are conventionally always odd numbers.
As a +2/+2 skill bonus feat that also grants other stuff, this is strictly better than any other skill bonus feat.
Does that Diplomacy bonus stack with the other skill bonus feats? If so, things get broken even faster. But that's a Diplomacy skill issue, not an issue with this feat.
Quite why Diplomacy and Sense Motive are added, I'm not sure. They seem a little out of focus for the concept given by the feat's name.
Passively taking 10 on Wild Empathy checks is dangerously close to being overpowered, depending on the encounters the DM feeds the party. The DM is quite able to make this a waste of a feat by controlling the encounters though.
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2011-09-18, 07:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [3.5] Animal Empathy Feat
I agree.
Yes, as I consider it more like a skill synergy, except it's a specific use of diplomacy syn with diplomacy and sense motive, with a feat in-between.
Whether this synergy bonus stacks with your existing synergies, that's up to the DM's discretion.
Body language study, mostly.
I've never been asked to break out the minis for an indifferent animal.
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2011-09-19, 01:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [3.5] Animal Empathy Feat
I think a clever DM would find a way to render this feat useless if he wants to. So no, I don't think it's overpowering.
ad maiorem Dei gloriam !
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2011-09-19, 06:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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2011-09-19, 07:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [3.5] Animal Empathy Feat
re: skill bonuses (Body language study, mostly.):
Human body language and animal body language vary quite noticeably. As a basic example, what humans typically recognise as a smile on a non-human primate's face is most usually a snarl indicating an over-stepping of personal space. Even within the human race, body language varies a lot between cultures (the Japanese body language for "me" looks a lot like the UK body language for "I have a secret"). To suggest that knowledge of animal body language would improve knowledge of human body language is odd; the two are simply too far unrelated.
re: passive wild empathy checks: Once a PC has pushed hisdiplomancerwild empathy check high enough, this effectively gives him a small army of followers ready to fight and die for him any time he steps into a wild area, without him having to do so much as gaze in the animals' direction. is that really your intent?
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2011-09-19, 09:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [3.5] Animal Empathy Feat
The difference between human and animal body language is mostly due to the self importance of humans, animals (including humans) are pretty simple.
This is about you and your presence and how you have observed animals being affected by the way you act, this could be compared to alexander technique.
Humans appear to be more complicated mostly due to their actions in response to body language, a good enough sense motive check should reveal that it affects them regardless of their complexities, real life or in-game.
As far as raising an animal army, I'm not seeing it. Maybe if you had a speak to animal spell active and you fanatic'd them then sure, but with only a +4DC higher with Wild Empathy for druid you could be getting an army of magical beasts instead. But hey, you want to go slosh around in the woods for several hours collecting animals that work together well then sure, I'd allow it as a DM.
Either way, the animals are still NPC's, and cannot be played by the players, leaving all final decisions in the hands of the DM.
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2011-09-19, 10:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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2011-09-19, 10:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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