So I recently started a Hermit character, who I've really been enjoying. I was looking forward to getting a bit more versatility in my pet, and quickly grabbed the 10 point Menace talent. I then went and read the full talent text. The talent as written only works if you have a silhouette 2 companion, which requires a force rating of 4.

This is seems awfully limiting for a 10 point talent in a characters starting tree. It's going to sit unused for an really long time. When I finally build this character up to such a high force rating, is one black on the badguys attack on you really worth it?

I checked the errata and there's no notes on this. Does it seem reasonable to house rule in that it will work on a silhouette 1 companion? A force rating 2 is a whole lot more achievable in a reasonable amount of time and there's plenty of silhouette 1 creatures that are pretty darn menacing.

I don't think this is particularly unbalancing, thoughts?

I think Menace is fine, and that the main issue here is that Animal Bond has requirements that are too steep.

Force Rating 4 to bind something that can serve as a mount is ridiculous. FR 4 should let you bind a Rancor.

I don't have FaD, but it seems to me that saying you can tame a creature as long as their Willpower and/or Silhouette is lower than your force rating seems appropriate, but I think that it might have been intended for use on things like Rancors as opposed to house-cats, meaning that you could have a pet Tauntaun easily enough, but it would be harder to have a pet Dianoga.

The restrictions for the Animal Bond talent are that you can bond with animals of a Silhouette of half your Force Rating, rounded down. So even at FR 3 you're still restricted to Sil 1, human-sized or smaller. Willpower isn't a factor at all (but if it were, Tauntauns have twice the Willpower a Dianoga does). Tauntauns and Dianogas are both Sil. 2, so you need FR 4 to bind one. At FR 1 you're restricted to Sil. 0, basically a large dog at most. Rancors are Sil 3, requiring FR 6 and probably GM permission.

Now, just regularly training an animal of course doesn't require a Force rating at all, just skill, and size wouldn't factor into that.

1 hour ago, micheldebruyn said:

The restrictions for the Animal Bond talent are that you can bond with animals of a Silhouette of half your Force Rating, rounded down.

Ha, that was my first idea! I just thought that it might make it too hard.

1 hour ago, micheldebruyn said:

Willpower isn't a factor at all (but if it were, Tauntauns have twice the Willpower a Dianoga does). Tauntauns and Dianogas are both Sil. 2, so you need FR 4 to bind one. At FR 1 you're restricted to Sil. 0, basically a large dog at most. Rancors are Sil 3, requiring FR 6 and probably GM permission.

Now, just regularly training an animal of course doesn't require a Force rating at all, just skill, and size wouldn't factor into that.

I mentioned Willpower because of the animal resisting your attempts to control it. The reason for the Tauntaun was that it is easily domesticate-able, where as a Dianoga would be harder, but it was off the top of my head, I wasn't thinking about actual stats.

I like those rules, I think they are probably fine, though the requirements might be a bit high (maybe tweak to Force Rating - 1?).

If the dog is a Pitbull or a golden retriever, it might be only sil 0, it'll work well for Menace. I mean dogs have been used for war since the ancient Rome (and perhaps even before that) to the point that breed specially designed to be weapons were made. And any dog is a lot easier to train than any rancor, tauntaun or dianoga.

I had a player who had the Menace talent and a Silhouette 0 Loth-cat. She used the talent a lot, and it wasn't gamebreaking. I agree with the OP that if you the PC has the talent, it should be applicable to any size pet.

On 9/7/2019 at 2:26 PM, micheldebruyn said:

I think Menace is fine, and that the main issue here is that Animal Bond has requirements that are too steep.

Don't underestimate the tremendous impact that doubling your Action Economy can have...

IME (I've had it as a Player), Animal Bond's cost/mechanics is just fine.

1 hour ago, emsquared said:

Don't underestimate the tremendous impact that doubling your Action Economy can have...

Agreed.

This sort of thing caused all sorts of headaches in D&D 3rd edition with summoning spells and animal companions (especially the Druid who got to start off with a free 2nd level fighter at 1st level), and from what I hear still does in Pathfinder, which makes sense as it's the same ruleset with several coats of paint to try and hide the cracks.

Even without additional talents, Animal Bond can cause issues with one player getting what amounts to an extra turn each round, especially if they've got a pet that's heavily combat-focused, which becomes a lot easier once the PC gets to Force Rating 2, which Pathfinder does pretty easily.

True but what I have seen is unless they have some form of Strain management, having to use a maneuver to allow the creature to take an action helps some. Especially if fighting anyone or with a style that tends to use strain.

21 hours ago, emsquared said:

Don't underestimate the tremendous impact that doubling your Action Economy can have...

IME (I've had it as a Player), Animal Bond's cost/mechanics is just fine.

I suppose that is very true.

In that case I have to agree with the OP that Menace is rather on the weak side, considering that Animal Bond already lets you do far more than Menace, for the same cost.

Unless it just is very badly written, and the Menace maneuver is part of the action+maneuver the pet receives from animal Bond.