Talk to the animals?

[ThisIsVictor]

Quick question, not terribly important but I'm curious how others would handle it:

A player in the game I just started burned her character with a companion animal (a hawk). She didn't take Animal Husbandry or Falconry. Instead she took Low Speech as a trait.

It seems to be like the character can just talk to the hawk and ask it to do things. I'm thinking it would be a Persuasion test instead of Falconry to get the hawk to do something it didn't want to do. Of course, the character doesn't have Persuasion either, but hawks only have a B2 will.

I think I just answered my own questions, but any thoughts? Other ways of handling Dr. Dolittle?

--Victor

[luke]

She can talk to it, but not motivate it. Sounds like good fun -- they'll have a contentious relationship until she learns how to better control the animal.

"Falcor, my trusted friend, go forth and scout the enemy positions!"

"I think I'd rather go fishing."

Animal Husbandry, Falconry or Persuasion can all be learned in play.

[eruditus]

Cool question. Hmmm, has there been any precedent to use Animal Husbandry or Falconry as Dueling Skills against animals? Or would they just be forked in?

My concern would be something like sure you can communicate with the animal but you don't "understand" one another, I wouldn't think.

Also with a Will of 2 I suspect it's communication skills are lacking. It's not putting together sentance structures nor are you speaking with it. How do you bring across commands and complex ideas without the understanding of the relationships between nouns and verbs, etc.

I would suspect there would at least be an ob penalty to the Persuassion test. You'd squawk at it "FLY! SEE! ME SEE!" The hawk would leave and come back with "FISH! HAPPY!" I think that complex ideas probably get miscommunicated in the animal kingdom all the time (if they ever happen at all). It's more like "FUCK OFF!" or "FUCK ME!"

Unless your a bee and I would require the player to do a little dance! ;)
- Don

[stormsweeper]

Don't forget to give her ferrets at some point.

[eruditus]

And Tanya Roberts...

[ThisIsVictor]

Great, thanks for the ideas!

I really like the idea of a contentious relationship. She did pay points for the falcon, so it's likes the character and isn't going to just fly off at the first chance. But actually getting the falcon to be useful might take a bit of work at first.

--Victor