How does a character with Beast Friendship “hire” animal companions? Is there a “Market Class” for woods and mountains? Is there a way to search for specific animals instead of rolling on encounter tables to find something?
Hi Rodriguez,
It's not intended that the proficiency gives access to markets for exotic animals, no. The number of characters with Beast Friendship is too low to justify the existence of a secondary market.
The adventurer may purchase domesticated animals such as dogs, cats, horses, and so on in town. Wild animals have to be encountered in the wilderness.
You could, of course, customize this for your campaign. Perhaps elven fastnesses offer exotic animals for sale.
Thanks for your quick reply Alex!
My phrasing was misleading it seems, what I was wondering was: Should mountins, hills, woods and so on have something equivalent of a market class when it comes to searching that place for viable animal companions.
Like the pristine elven forest would be considered Market Class III (with 4D8 vaiable companions with less then 1 HD, 1D4 of 1HD,1D3 of 2HD,85% chance for 3HD and 45% of 4HD) while the mountain range near the river only counts as Market Class V.
I just thought that just roaming trough the forest till finally a viable animal comes up via random encounters probably gets one killed pretty fast…
Have a couple more questions (we have a player contemplating taking Beast Friendship):
Do animal henchmen have a similar loyalty / morale-type score to that of normal henchmen?
Likewise, how does ‘hiring’ a wild animal work? Is it just that positive reaction rolls with wild animals can result in them sticking around to be friendly longer?
Do animal henchmen have a similar loyalty / morale-type score to that of normal henchmen?
APM: Yes
Likewise, how does 'hiring' a wild animal work? Is it just that positive reaction rolls with wild animals can result in them sticking around to be friendly longer?
APM: Exactly. A positive reaction roll with a wild animal would normally just avoid violence and perhaps allow, e.g., a shared watering hole, or perhaps the opportunity to tame the creature through Animal Training. With Beast Friendship, the animal starts following the character around, lets him ride it, protects him when he's hurt. The creature will act like the character is his herd or pack leader, etc. The character is the "beast whisperer", more or less.