skill for training and commanding hunting critters?

[Beoferret]

Hello all. In a game I'm about to start, one of the characters is a hunter follower of Yinkin who's got a vrok hawk companion animal (because taking a shadowcat would be too "stereotypical.") So, how does he end up controlling/commanding the hawk and how can he train others. Ride skill can be used for training and commanding horses, etc. Herd enables you to train and command herding critters. What about hunting animals (whether avian or otherwise)? Suggestions?

[Lordabdul]

I can't find any existing skill that could fit, so I guess I would make up one ("Bird Lore" or "Bird Training" or whatever), and write it down in the "Other Skills" part of the character sheet. I would make that a Knowledge skill.

[Beoferret]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

I can't find any existing skill that could fit, so I guess I would make up one ("Bird Lore" or "Bird Training" or whatever), and write it down in the "Other Skills" part of the character sheet. I would make that a Knowledge skill.

That sounds like a good solution. Or even a broad "Hunting animal lore/training" skill that could cover all relevant animals and then be added to the starting skills for the hunter profession.

 

[Austin]

6 hours ago, Beoferret said:

What about hunting animals (whether avian or otherwise)?

I'd just use their Animal Lore skill, unless the player wants a unique/special skill to be working on training. Sometimes it's fun to have your own piece of bling.

Another option could be using their Beast Rune to see if it listens to their commands.

[Akhôrahil]

Agree about Animal Lore.

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, Crel said:

I'd just use their Animal Lore skill, unless the player wants a unique/special skill to be working on training.

The downside of it being a lore skill is that you can't get a tick in it. The munchkin in me wants it to be a communication skill.

[GAZZA]

15 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

The downside of it being a lore skill is that you can't get a tick in it. The munchkin in me wants it to be a communication skill.

Yeah I house ruled all skills to be tickable skills. Sue me.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, GAZZA said:

Yeah I house ruled all skills to be tickable skills. Sue me.

Same here. Otherwise you can’t even improve them with Occupational Experience, which strikes me as ridiculous.

[French Desperate WindChild]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Same here. Otherwise you can’t even improve them with Occupational Experience, which strikes me as ridiculous.

I allow occupational experience for all skills

for experience it s a little bit more complex : do you remember => no check, do you understand/discover => check

but back to the topic. I would say animal lore, although I would not allow a disruptive yinkini to have a bird as allied animal. Other hunter god why not (after all use something else than a shadowcat is not "stereotypical" for Odayla) but here you are trusting an ennemy of your god (spirit versus god, bird versus cat) your (my ? oO)  glorantha may vary

[Kloster]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I allow occupational experience for all skills

Same for me. This seems to me more logical, as it can be experience, or what is learnt during one season, or anything.

[Darius West]

13 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I can't find any existing skill that could fit, so I guess I would make up one ("Bird Lore" or "Bird Training" or whatever), and write it down in the "Other Skills" part of the character sheet. I would make that a Knowledge skill.

Agreed. This is how RQ3 handled it.  I would also draw people's attention to page 167 of RQ:RiG, and "training riding animals", wherein it says that if you have a riding skill of 50%+ you can train an animal to rideable status, but only a master of Ride (90%+) can train mounts to cavalry or warbeast status.  I would suggest that skills like Animal Lore, and Beast Speech could be used in a similar way for training hunting animals.  The notion being that you can train dogs and shadow cats to co-ordinate in hunts relatively easily, but you need to be a master in those skills to train them to fight humans in a melee.  Remember that you need to actually know how the animals fight most effectively in order to train them to do so, and that is difficult, but training them to hunt (as they sort of know how to cooperate in a hunt alread), is easier.  If you want to overthink it, you could allow players to train their animals to understand and follow 1 type of targeted order per 10% of skill.  This could be anything from "flush partridge from bush" to "hump fool's leg".  Back in RQ3 with the concept of fixed intelligence, you could potentially limit the number of commands an animal could learn to their fixed int, but not it will probably have to be based on the trainer's skill.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Darius West

[Lordabdul]

9 hours ago, Crel said:

I'd just use their Animal Lore skill, unless the player wants a unique/special skill to be working on training. Sometimes it's fun to have your own piece of bling.

The reason I didn't suggest Animal Lore is that it seems to be more about knowing what animals look like, what tracks they leave, what's their habitat, what they eat, etc.  But what we want is to be able to train the animals, i.e. take them out of their natural habitat, tame them, make them do stuff they wouldn't otherwise.  I see it as a similar thing to the difference between a botanist (who knows how to recognize and where to find plants) and a chef (who knows how to cook them).  And RQG uses the Ride skill to train animals for that, so that's another reason to use a Bird-related skill for training birds.  But I can totally understand if someone wants to avoid adding more skills and splitting experience/training points.

34 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Agreed. This is how RQ3 handled it. 

AFAICT, RQ3 required both skills for riding animals?  You need Animal Lore at >50%, and Ride at >25%.  So the equivalent here would be that you would require both Animal Lore and Bird Training.

[soltakss]

21 hours ago, GAZZA said:

Yeah I house ruled all skills to be tickable skills. Sue me.

The writ is in the post.

[PhilHibbs]

On 5/20/2020 at 5:31 PM, lordabdul said:

AFAICT, RQ3 required both skills for riding animals?  You need Animal Lore at >50%, and Ride at >25%.

I don't remember that.

[Lordabdul]

8 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I don't remember that.

 

Like many things with RPGs, it's very possible that a lot of people house-ruled this away  

Edited May 22, 2020 by lordabdul

[PhilHibbs]

That's for training a riding animal, not just riding it. To ride a trained animal all you need is the Ride skill. Ah, of course, that's what we're talking about here isn't it, training a bird to hunt. Ok I see. I read "RQ3 required both skills for riding animals" as "for riding an animal".

Edited May 22, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[Lordabdul]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I read "RQ3 required both skills for riding animals" as "for riding an animal".

Oh right, sorry    Yes, poor wording on my part.

[g33k]

I vote for a new skill.  The one you want is "Falconry."

Note that the Vrok, in particular, is a Sun/Sky - Rune critter; I hope the character-concept can encompass this?  It's a GREAT hunter-rune, IIRC, because I think the rune gives bonus on Perception skills...  Also, it makes for an interesting variation of the Storm thing that Orlanth's bud Yinkin normally has going on...  😁

 

But Animal Lore is  really  over-broad; I've never bothered narrowing it, because I have never had a player who cared...   It sounds like you do!

 

Consider:  the professional carter -- a guy who owns a cart or a wagon, and some draft-beasts (horses, oxen, bison, donkeys, whatever) -- is going to have a reasonably high Animal Lore, because controlling his beasts is a core professional skill for him.  But frankly, he knows jack-all about training a war-horse... or a raptor!  (Similarly, FWIW, the falconer and the warhorse-trainer don't much understand one anothers' critters; nor the stolid draft-animals!).

It's not (IMHO) generally worth considering, for most adventure-centric RPGs.  But at your table... I think it might be.

And I think I envy you that!

 

[Lordabdul]

9 minutes ago, g33k said:

The one you want is "Falconry."

Oh yes good call. When I was writing "Bird Training" earlier I was thinking that there must be a more correct term for this, but I was too lazy to look it up (I should have known given that there's a birds of prey tourist show here on the mountain that I have seen a few times!)

[g33k]

43 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Oh yes good call. When I was writing "Bird Training" earlier I was thinking that there must be a more correct term for this, but I was too lazy to look it up (I should have known given that there's a birds of prey tourist show here on the mountain that I have seen a few times!)

Near where I live, there's a wild-bird-rescue center.  Birds they cannot rehab, they try to place with zoos &c.

Every year, they have a competitive-entry exam to the part of the program that handles their raptors; they have a couple of dozen resident raptors, birds that cannot be rehab'ed and (for whatever reason, cannot / will-not go to zoo's); I was fortunate enough to get in, one year.  There's a college professor (biologist, specializing in raptor ecology) running that program... who is also a Master Falconer, an entirely separate skillset.

Edited May 23, 2020 by g33k

[David Scott]

On 5/20/2020 at 1:44 AM, Beoferret said:

What about hunting animals (whether avian or otherwise)? Suggestions?

Usually I just assume that it works - what ever it is. However if outside the hunting norm and depending on the situation:

Normal words - Fast talk, speak Own Language, charm

Hand signals, non-verbal - Fast talk, speak Own Language, charm. Language contains gestures as well as commands at about 3/4 skill

Whistling / Clicking Yodelling (I also include joiking as it contains animal calls) - singing

I always try to avoid NPCs - animals in this case, making rolls. 

Almost all hunting companions are reared by the hunter from birth / hatching, so training them is a bit different.

Go and watch some hawking or sheepdog trials.

[g33k]

5 hours ago, David Scott said:

 ... Almost all hunting companions are reared by the hunter from birth / hatching, so training them is a bit different ...

Actually, some falconers begin with wild-caught birds, preferably (but not necessarily) juveniles.  Older birds born wild are called "haggards."

 

n.b. -- "do not try this at home, folks!"  Yes, you can YouTube it, but most jurisdictions require permits, often a lengthy apprenticeship under a Master Falconer, etc.  Penalties can be VERY high.

 

[olskool]

On 5/19/2020 at 8:44 PM, Beoferret said:

Hello all. In a game I'm about to start, one of the characters is a hunter follower of Yinkin who's got a vrok hawk companion animal (because taking a shadowcat would be too "stereotypical.") So, how does he end up controlling/commanding the hawk and how can he train others. Ride skill can be used for training and commanding horses, etc. Herd enables you to train and command herding critters. What about hunting animals (whether avian or otherwise)? Suggestions?

The skill that comes to mind immediately is ANIMAL HANDLING.  It was a Knowledge skill in some article or module I read back in the days of RQ2, long before RQ3 introduced the LORES... Animal Lore, World Lore, Plant Lore, Mineral Lore, and Magic Lore.  I'm not sure if it was ever cannon or just something somebody suggested in a magazine article though.