Animal Empathy Skill/Feat

[Dagesh]

NWN1 had Animal Empathy as a skill that allowed the PC to empathy animals as companions. I was thinking that it could be added and used similarly however, also add in a way to "send creatures running off" so you don't have to kill them.

[metaquad4]

What about a "turn undead" ability, that works off your diplomacy score? Could call it "Wild Empathy". Your diplomacy score determines how many HD worth of animals you can turn with it.

That would work for rangers and druids.

Similar to turn undead, if you have a diplomacy score higher than 2x the animal's HD then the animal could be instantly killed with the flavor text "The animal decides not the fight you, and flees."

Turning the with "Wild Empathy" animal would represent a simple attitude adjustment, like charm, where the animal would cease hostilities. If you have enough diplomacy, "Wild Empathy" would instead force the animal away (effectively killing them, but with flavor text that says you didn't kill them).

[Dagesh]

What about a "turn undead" ability, that works off your diplomacy score? Could call it "Wild Empathy". Your diplomacy score determines how many HD worth of animals you can turn with it.

That would work for rangers and druids.

Similar to turn undead, if you have a diplomacy score higher than 2x the animal's HD then the animal could be instantly killed with the flavor text "The animal decides not the fight you, and flees."

Turning the with "Wild Empathy" animal would represent a simple attitude adjustment, like charm, where the animal would cease hostilities. If you have enough diplomacy, "Wild Empathy" would instead force the animal away (effectively killing them, but with flavor text that says you didn't kill them).

What about your diplomacy + 1/2 (or some division) of the druid/ranger level? Maybe make it 1/2 for druids and 1/3 for rangers + diplomacy. Rangers don't get diplomacy so that would make things that more difficult for them.

[YourMoveHolyMan]

Survival instead of diplomacy

[chad878262]

Yeah, kind of silly to tie the DC to a skill that is not a class skill. Survival makes more sense.

[metaquad4]

The reason I tied it to diplomacy was mostly a druid reason, I didn't realize rangers didn't have it. Druids got diplomacy in nwn2, because wild empathy wasn't a thing and it was supposed to replace it.

[aaron22]

could also run it as a similar feat to the bard's haven song. only effected to animals and works on deafened. could be countered by "enraged" spell. just a though.

[Hrafnar]

I played on a NWN server back in the day that had a cool feature--every time a character with AE skill was attacked by a beast a skill check was auto triggered and if successful the animal would become non-hostile. This applied to whole groups of animals. It made walking through the wilds as a druid very satisfying.