Advancements for Animals?

I posted this on the Decipher board, but thought I'd repost it here to see if anyone had any suggestions/advice.
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I'm just curious if anyone has thoughts on players spending advancements on animals (horses, hunting hounds, falcons, hawks, etc.).

For example, my own character is a Rohir warrior with a horse of Rohan. Sadly, the horse's combat skills aren't that impressive, which means that when it rears to kick someone in combat, it almost always misses.

Have any Narrators had players asking if they could spend advancement points of their own on their animals? Or would the Narrator assume that the animal has gained a little bit of experience on their own and award an advancement once in a great while?

Also, should it be assumed that any skills an animal has are racial skills, with a 1 pick advancement cost, or are they 2 picks?

If any official word on this can be had, it would be greatly appreciated.

I would agree that animals need advancements. But I would make the player keep track of the exp that his animal gains. at the normal exp levels, then he can put 2 points into skills or class abilities. ie. A horse that fights would be able to take swift strike. possiblly putting skill into his kick attack or his tracking skill.

First I have to make an assumption here, that being a Horse of Rohan being considered in the War horse category. This would give them Steady and War trained...If your horse doesn't have these traits then yes it will miss in combat. If you are using my assumed settings then my question is "what have you been fighting?" The average warhorse has an armed combat of +6 with a Nim mod of +0 which would, with out further mods, give him an average attack roll of 8 (4 and 4 on 2d6) +6 =14. All things being equal that should leave a nice horse shoe print in the forehead of any orc.

Follow that up with a 2D6 +4 (str) =a healthy 12 pts dam as well. I think you will find that, trained, horses are well represented in the game.

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Originally posted by Phantom
First I have to make an assumption here, that being a Horse of Rohan being considered in the War horse category. This would give them Steady and War trained...If your horse doesn't have these traits then yes it will miss in combat. If you are using my assumed settings then my question is "what have you been fighting?" The average warhorse has an armed combat of +6 with a Nim mod of +0 which would, with out further mods, give him an average attack roll of 8 (4 and 4 on 2d6) +6 =14. All things being equal that should leave a nice horse shoe print in the forehead of any orc.

Follow that up with a 2D6 +4 (str) =a healthy 12 pts dam as well. I think you will find that, trained, horses are well represented in the game.

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You haven't so much as answered my question as disagreed with my opinion, which is fine, but not what I was looking for.

I agree with everything you're saying (except that the average roll of 2d6 is 8 - it's 7, from a 3 and a 4), but sadly, my play experience is simply that the warhorse has missed almost every time it's kicked out at someone, which feels less than heroic.

I don't doubt either that warhorses are represented well in the system. My question wasn't a complaint about the game or the way stats go, but a question of how Narrators would handle "pets" like this, which I believe should be allowed to improve as player-characters, if more slowly.

For example, capturing and training a wild animal would be an appropriate thing for a Rohir (a horse), or a ranger who wanted a hound or hawk.

How would a Narrator represent the increase of abilities as the animal goes from untrained to trained?

Ok, not sure about the hound or Hawk, they, IMO, should be fairly weak animals to begin with. Even a fully trained war dog shouldn't be able to very much to an Uruk.

But, what you say about horses does have merit. As a narrator if I had a Rohir who wanted to capture a horse and train it, I probably would, once he had the horse, have him spend about a week then make a ride check (Ride will have to do as there is no Animal Training skill) to break the animal so it would accept a rider. Then spend a couple of months (accumulated because adventuring has to be figured in) training it to be 'Steady' then another roll to see how he has done...Then he would have to train a further X months for the horse to get 'War trained'. Once the horse was 'War trained' I would give it a number of picks to work up its skills (going from an ordinary horse to a warhorse.) Once it reached what is in the book I would probably stop giving it picks to spend, but I would first have to see for myself how horses handle battle. The game I am running is a forum based game so we haven't got to a situation where a horse has gotten into it. Going on what I have seen in the book the above is what I would do. Is this of some help?

The idea of advancements on animals I think is a good one but I would have a top limit of how many they could have. maybe a random roll between 1-6 to measure how much it could learn.

I did post a reply to this on Decipher's boards, but it likely got lost in the shuffle of that lame software.

I think it's cool for a player to spend some of his advancement picks on their mount or other animal. I wouldn't track XP for an animal. If a hero wants to spend some of their own hard-earned advancement picks on improving their animal, I say let them go for it.

Within reason, of course. There are some traits that just don't make sense for a horse to have. :)

Good idea. I'll mention this to my group and see if any of them are interested.

Well, I know that in the Starships book for Trek, there will be guidelines on using PC advancements to improve your crew's ship, so IMO, there shouldn't be a problem using some of your own advancements to improve an animal companion (like a horse or a pet). The costs would still be the same (and as a Narrator, I'd treat the skills listed in the creature's stats as racial skills for the purpose of advancement), but tghe PC would be sacrificing his own improvement for that of his steed/pet.

:)

Doug

Thanks, guys, for the feedback.

If you're reading this, Jeff, this sort of thing might make a useful part of a Ranger sourcebook, wouldn't it?

I guess it's too late to have guidelines like these in Fell Beasts, as well.