Pets, Another rules question from a 4th editio Options

[Exodus]

I was looking through the premade characters and noticed the Bounty Hunter whom has animal empathy, and I was thinking about having a pet attack/guard dog. Are there any rules that anyone made up for controling animals, or training animals for their new jobs for attacking on command or defending the owner.

[Jaid]

well, i'm pretty sure there were some suggested rules for rigging a horse a while back =D

might have even had stuff for other animals, who knows? =D

[WhiskeyMac]

I had a player who had every single character he made have a pet, usually a large dog. I said it was OK if he took an animal husbandry or animal handling knowledge skill. If the dog was trained as an "attack/guard" dog then the character would roll knowledge dice against the animal's willpower in an opposed test. If the animal won, it would refuse the "order" and simply bark at the "intruder/attackee."

This was mostly to control the character from bringing along a cyber-dog who would bite every NPC opponent's nuts off. :D

[BishopMcQ]

In the old MJLBB, there was a contact who trained paracritters. It's possible that a similar type of contact will be converted and listed in the book of contacts which I believe is being included with the GM screen. Anyone who bought the PDF could probably answer that question.

In the mean time, add Riding (Rea) and Animal Handling (Cha) and you will be set to go for specific skills. Without house rules, you could simply use a Judge Intentions roll from the critter in question and allow the runner to add the bonus dice for the resisted test in order to convey the proper feeling.

[Samaels Ghost]

Whatever you do just make sure that there are checks involved in training an animal and then checks involved in controlling an animal. Both should be needed. An extended check with day or week intervals and reasonable limitations on how many commands and animal can learn. D&D had some pretty good rules.