Handle Animal
You are trained at working with animals, and can teach them tricks, get them to follow your simple commands, or even domesticate them.
Check
The DC depends on what you are trying to do.
| Task | Handle Animal DC |
|---|---|
| Handle an animal | 10 |
| “Push” an animal | 25 |
| Teach an animal a trick | 15 or 201 |
| Train an animal for a general purpose | 15 or 201 |
| Rear a wild animal | 15 + HD of animal |
| General Purpose | DC |
|---|---|
| Combat Training2 (or "Combat Riding") |
20 |
| Fighting | 20 |
| Guarding | 20 |
| Heavy labor | 15 |
| Hunting | 20 |
| Performance | 15 |
| Riding | 15 |
Uses
Handle an Animal
This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.
Push an Animal
To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing. This category also covers making an animal perform a forced march or forcing it to hustle for more than 1 hour between sleep cycles. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.
Teach an Animal a Trick
You can teach an animal a specific trick with one week of work and a successful Handle Animal check against the indicated DC. An animal with an Intelligence score of 1 can learn a maximum of three tricks, while an animal with an Intelligence score of 2 can learn a maximum of six tricks.
Rear a Wild Animal
To rear an animal means to raise a wild creature from infancy so that it becomes domesticated. A handler can rear as many as three creatures of the same kind at once.
A successfully domesticated animal can be taught tricks at the same time it’s being raised, or it can be taught as a domesticated animal later.
Action
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.
Try Again
Yes, except for rearing an animal.
Special
- Low Intelligence Non-Animals You can use this skill on a creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 that is not an animal, but the DC of any such check increases by 5. Such creatures have the same limit on tricks known as animals do.
Untrained
If you have no ranks in Handle Animal, you can use a Charisma check to handle and push domestic animals, but you can’t teach, rear, or train animals. A druid or ranger with no ranks in Handle Animal can use a Charisma check to handle and push her animal companion, but she can’t teach, rear, or train other nondomestic animals.