Post/Author/DateTime	Post
khyron1144 02-22-04, 01:06 AM	What character classes is a non-awakened, non-familiar, non-bonded mount, non-animal friendshipped, regular pet ferret elligible for? I let my 12 year old brother 's character have a pet ferret. Then I decided to roll random attributes for it using the standard 4d6 method. In a weird circumstance like this I consider an animal to essentially be a person with a massive Intelligence penalty (in this case a minus 8 with a minimum of 1, that being the dividing line between animals and turnips). So now, I've got a ferret NPC with an 8 intelligence that is not awakened or a familiar or a bonded mount or even a druid animal companion. It's just a normal pet ferret that happens to be very bright.
sparkster4242 02-22-04, 02:22 AM	generally speaking, any creature is eligible for any class. Of course, for a creature unable to speak, and without hands, most of the spell-casting classes are a bad choice. most animals dont take class levels, just monster hit-dice ... but thats probably not the answer you are looking for. Off-hand, i would guess that a ferret would have a favored class of rogue, if it had one at all.
Sheer_FALACY 02-22-04, 02:27 AM	Nonawakened animals have 1 or 2 int. Period. If it has intelligence, treat it as awakened. That is the easiest way to deal with this.
Ottergame 02-22-04, 04:16 AM	An exceptionaly bright, but otherwise normal, should not have an INT higher than 2. More than that, and they become sentient. An 8 is only sub human level intelligent, much like a slightly retarted human.
khyron1144 02-22-04, 02:44 PM	Originally posted by Sheer_FALACY Nonawakened animals have 1 or 2 int. Period. If it has intelligence, treat it as awakened. That is the easiest way to deal with this. May be easiset, but it's not my way of dealing with this. An exceptionaly bright, but otherwise normal, should not have an INT higher than 2. More than that, and they become sentient. An 8 is only sub human level intelligent, much like a slightly retarted human. I'm the DM. I said he has an 8. End of story. The written rules provide the framework to run my game, but I change them and ignore them where I see fit. This is one of my changes: Rolling 4d6 for stats for all important NPCs, even ferrets. They have a massive INT penalty, but If he gets a 16, that does translate into an 8 final score.
Mith 02-22-04, 02:51 PM	Then you are gonna have to come up with a solution on your own. We all use the base rules so that we have a common ruleset. If you want to change the rules, you can't come asking what the rules say about the situation you just modified. The rules say that a non-awakened ferret can not have classes. The rules also say that a non-awakened ferret can not have an Int higher than 2. You mess with one rule and then ask about a rule that is predicated on the rule you just messed with? How 'bout you just make some more stuff up, if you don't have an aversion to it?
shortdog1 02-22-04, 02:55 PM	Originally posted by sparkster4242 ...Of course, for a creature unable to speak, and without hands, most of the spell-casting classes are a bad choice. Ferrets sorta do have hands, actually. I think... [/pointless, random post]
Thorak 02-22-04, 03:43 PM	Like Mith said; if you're houseruling to allow something that is massively different from the core rules, you're going to have to houserule everything else that's affected by it. In the core rules, animals have a max of a 2 int, and cannot have classes. If you want a ferret that's as intelligent as a dumb human, you're going to have to work out rules on your own. Or you could just use the standard rules, and animals can't be as smart as people unless they're Awakened or something similar.
Nick Soapdish 02-22-04, 03:53 PM	So you've got a "normal" ferret that's smarter than a 10th level paladin's warhorse or 5th level wizard's familiar? I think that's a bit beyond "unusually bright". I guess I'm with the rest in saying that you should've just rolled for the rest of the stats and assigned a 1 or 2 for intelligence. I mean this ferret is smarter than your average politician. ;) Even with that intelligence, he's not necessarily eligible for classes. I mean, familiars, animal companions, or paladin's mounts don't get classes and they participate just as much as this guy would in the adventure or more (or so I'm speculating). Just call him a quasi-animal companion and leave it at that. Originally posted by shortdog1 Ferrets sorta do have hands, actually. I think... [/pointless, random post] Sort of. They're paws, but I think spellcasting or lock picking or a lot of things for that matter are gonna be pretty tough without opposable thumbs.
Ottergame 02-22-04, 09:19 PM	Yeah, if you're going to fundamently change how the game works in one direction, you might as well do it in another. In a world where common animals can be as smart as people, expect animals to devolp tools and make use of technology they discover. Deers setting up traps against hunters, raccoons using cloaks and boots of elvenkind to steal, monkies building bombs against animal testing labs.
khyron1144 02-22-04, 09:24 PM	Originally posted by Ottergame Deers setting up traps against hunters, raccoons using cloaks and boots of elvenkind to steal, monkies building bombs against animal testing labs. I will use this idea. Excellent. I'm not too lazy to work more out; I simply want some outside ideas beofre I use my own. I might just give him commoner levels until the druid can cast awaken on him. That wouldn't break anything.
khyron1144 02-22-04, 11:05 PM	And what makes animals are dumb such an integral part of the rules? The game can work with animals with an intelligene of 8, it just takes a bit of imagination.
Mith 02-23-04, 01:41 AM	Maybe it's the way that in situations where magic is not involved, D&D is supposed to be a reasonable if simplified depiction of real life. The abstractions that are absurd, like hit-points, get picked at all the time, just because people expect D&D to, in general, mimic real life. In real life animals are not intelligent. You refuse to use the awaken spell as an explanation for having an intelligent animal - that is, you are claiming magic is not involved. This badly violates normal expectations of D&D players. Good luck pulling this one off.
Thorak 02-23-04, 09:19 AM	Originally posted by khyron1144 And what makes animals are dumb such an integral part of the rules? The game can work with animals with an intelligene of 8, it just takes a bit of imagination. Animals are dumb. They almost always have an intelligence of 1 or 2, though I believe there are some exceptions that get slightly higher (3 or 4, but still not sentient-level intelligence). Sure, that's the real world, but unless otherwise stated, things are the same in D&D as they are in the real world. If you drop something, it falls. If you light something of fire, it burns. And animals are stupid. However, given that D&D has magic, things aren't always the same as the real world. That's why there's things like the Awaken spell; it allows for intelligent animals. In other words, the game already allows for intelligent creatures. You're insisting that animals are naturally as smart as humans, which they're not. We'd also point out your error if you claimed gravity didn't exist in D&D and all your PCs could fly weightlessly; there's a Fly spell for that, and no good reason to make it a natural feature.
khyron1144 02-23-04, 04:00 PM	Originally posted by Mith Maybe it's the way that in situations where magic is not involved, D&D is supposed to be a reasonable if simplified depiction of real life. The abstractions that are absurd, like hit-points, get picked at all the time, just because people expect D&D to, in general, mimic real life. In real life animals are not intelligent. This badly violates normal expectations of D&D players. Good luck pulling this one off. In real life animals are intelligent. They solve porblems and communicate (with others of their kind). They also learn. The player in question is thrilled to have a pet ferret with an Intelligence greatly above the norm and a Dexterity slightly lower.
klyre 02-23-04, 04:59 PM	Originally posted by khyron1144 The player in question is thrilled to have a pet ferret with an Intelligence greatly above the norm and a Dexterity slightly lower. The player in question is also 12 years old. Make of that what you will.
Kaya Kenobi 02-23-04, 05:09 PM	The ferret's an expert with skills as sleight of hand, move silently, hide, jump (yes, they can jump!), use rope (for climbing), hmm... What else? PERFORM! :D That's a ferret for you, if it was an intelligent animal. Now, as far as being an animal companion, a pet, just use standard stats for a ferret.
Cathon 02-23-04, 05:34 PM	I say levels in swashbuckler! Who was that masked ferret? Of course, racoons would be better, they have hands, and all of them are masked. Other than that, rogue is probably the best choice for a ferret, with an emphasis on hide and move silent, probably a massive penalty due to lack of thumbs for fine manipulation skills. Racial enemy could be rats or prairie dogs depending on the type of ferret. (Hmm, racial ability Poing?) Now wolverines should be barbarians clearly. I may throw a wolverine barbarian at some pcs of mine if they go into the wood elf forest. Reincarnation has some interesting effects. (The wood elves have a favored class of druid in that game)
tiggrhoo 02-23-04, 08:13 PM	Well, Cathon beat me to it: a ferret rogue sounds great, as a few have pointed out, but so does swashbuckler. If you're going to arm the little fuzz ball, don't forget the Duelist. What about Thief-Acrobat? I could really see a clever ferret such as yours running tightropes and tumbling his little heart out. Although I don't think in real life even the smartest dolphins or primates (other than people) would qualify for an intelligence of 8, much less a ferret, I think your idea to have an extra-smart ferret in the game sounds like a lot of fun. That being said, however, if you can find it, Carl Sagan wrote some very interesting things about how much smarter some animals are than I would ever have believed. His book is called "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors". I would give those macques (I think was the name) about a 6 intelligence. For example, he wrote about them learning on their own to separate grain from sand by floating it in water. Incredible! If I were on survivor island with those monkeys, I might be eating sandy grain until I saw the right way to do it. :) As for your actual question, I would say the ferret is eligible for fighter and rogue (preferred). If any animal should be a rogue, a ferret is what I would pick for it. I would not allow any spellcasting classes, even if you allow him to speak, unless you want to suspend disbelief even further.
FenixZero 02-23-04, 08:39 PM	khyron1144 I feel for you, because IMC every major person (PCs, NPCs, BBEGs, etc.) will have a tiger but the tiger start at lvl 1 and gain PC classes too, I just say that you go ahead a do it. But the limitation that I put in mine was that they leveled at 3/4th the character with no penatly if the PC gets level drained, unless its permentant (sp?). This way the animals at higher level can hold their own but aren't the main figthing force. Just my version. FenixZero
mrurbanitesmiley 02-23-04, 09:41 PM	I had an idea similar to this, though the campaign i was planning on running was based off of fairy tales, with the big bad wolf as a primary enemy type, every third enemy turning out to be an evil fox spirit, and the primary form of magic was 'storyteller magic', that basically let the PC say 'no, actually, it did'nt happened that way'... it was a little odd idea, though i would never consider this idea of crazyness for a regular game...
Conaill 03-18-04, 07:30 PM	Originally posted by Mith Maybe it's the way that in situations where magic is not involved, D&D is supposed to be a reasonable if simplified depiction of real life. The abstractions that are absurd, like hit-points, get picked at all the time, just because people expect D&D to, in general, mimic real life.:heehee Good one, Mith. For a moment there I thought you were actually being serious! :D khyron: sounds like a lot of fun, but you may want to reserve the super-smart animals for PCs and important NPCs. Guess it depends on whether you're aiming for a "Stuart Little" type of game, or more of a "Redwall" or "Tom&Jerry" where just about everyone plays an intelligent animal. Also, have a look at the table in the Monsters as Races (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/monstersAsRaces.html) section, on rolling ability scores for monsters with standard ability scores below 10. You could easily extend that table downwards.
ids the bum 03-18-04, 08:32 PM	Actually, if any scenario would use the hit points system, it would be tom and jerry. After all, they could be hit with a sledge hammer, cooked in the face with a hot frying pan, dumped in a toastered bathtub, then subjected to countless other outrageous forms of torture, yet not seem to die. well, just switch all the weapons mentioned with a D&D dagger or something of the sort, and there you have it! Battles that make as much sense as a T&J cartoon. Speaking of which, why not make that a game itself? three players, as Tom Jerry, and the dog! I think intelligent creatures would be interesting, since they simply become less powerful races than the normal races... No problem with that IMHO.
Darkest90 03-18-04, 08:35 PM	Wait a minute... the movie Polly had a talking parrot! At least an intelligence of 10 or 11 there. Then again, since he was an animal, no one taught him a class (except maybe Commoner). Poor, poor Polly. In real life animals are intelligent. They solve porblems and communicate (with others of their kind). They also learn. No, animals are not intelligent. The way animals solve problems is by conditioned reflexes. Trainers command the animals do a certain trick or solve part of a problem with a certain trigger phrase (like "Jump"). If they don't do the trick, they give them an electric shock. If they get it right, the animal gets a snack. After a while, animals will start to do the trick right when the trigger phrase is given (the dog jumps when the trainer says "Jump"). Why? Because the good emotions caused by the treat, or the bad emotions caused by the bad treatment, caused the dog to be 'programmed'. The same goes for tricks and puzzles. So, animals DO NOT solve problems. They have conditioned reflexes, which are imbedded into their small brains after a long period of training. Animals cannot communicate emotions like humans do. They cannot communicate ideas or thoughts (well, sometimes thoughts, like "I am hungry", but very simplistic thoughts). Read the book "Planet of the Apes", it'll give you some insight on what the definition of 'sentient' is, and what the definition of 'animal' is. Animals that are stupid (like say, a lizard) have INT of 1. Animals that are slightly smarter (say, a dog, cat, or horse) have an INT of 2 or 3. On rare occasions, an animal will arise that would be the equivalent of an INT of 4 (certain parrots and horses). An Intelligence of 8 is not possible without the means of magic or un-earth-like intervention.
Thorak 03-18-04, 09:01 PM	Just to nitpick; Studies have shown some apes to have relatively close to human intelligence; gorillas in the 80-90 range on average, and chimps fairly close as well. And, interestingly, in a recent study of various 'smart' animals, the African Grey Parrot came out on top. The test was a vertical pipe with 10 'traps' preventing a piece of food from coming out the bottom. Each animal was let into the room and timed. The parrot got the food in less than 2 minutes. So it analyzed and figured out each trap in less than 12 seconds. Which is pretty darn good for a bird, especially since it was up against chimps, amongst others. As well, fairly recent studies have shown that some parrots, especially the African Grey, can learn to understand and use human language to a certain extent. Both understanding complex spoken commands and responding with sentence-type structure, not just single words. Not to mention, it says a lot that the birds, apes, and dolphins can learn to understand our language, but we've got a great deal more difficulty understanding theirs. But I digress, and my original point regarding this topic I still remain firm on; animals are generally dumb, and in no case should have a class.
khyron1144 03-18-04, 09:06 PM	Originally posted by Darkest90 No, animals are not intelligent. The way animals solve problems is by conditioned reflexes. Trainers command the animals do a certain trick or solve part of a problem with a certain trigger phrase (like "Jump"). If they don't do the trick, they give them an electric shock. If they get it right, the animal gets a snack. After a while, animals will start to do the trick right when the trigger phrase is given (the dog jumps when the trainer says "Jump"). Why? Because the good emotions caused by the treat, or the bad emotions caused by the bad treatment, caused the dog to be 'programmed'. The same goes for tricks and puzzles. So, animals DO NOT solve problems. They have conditioned reflexes, which are imbedded into their small brains after a long period of training. Animals cannot communicate emotions like humans do. They cannot communicate ideas or thoughts (well, sometimes thoughts, like "I am hungry", but very simplistic thoughts). Read the book "Planet of the Apes", it'll give you some insight on what the definition of 'sentient' is, and what the definition of 'animal' is. Animals that are stupid (like say, a lizard) have INT of 1. Animals that are slightly smarter (say, a dog, cat, or horse) have an INT of 2 or 3. On rare occasions, an animal will arise that would be the equivalent of an INT of 4 (certain parrots and horses). An Intelligence of 8 is not possible without the means of magic or un-earth-like intervention. My contention is that yes they are. It is, however, not a debate for this forum. Prove that your learning and problem solving really operates differently. When you were a kid, I bet you got a whack on the butt or sat down in the corner for a time out or something when you hit other kids, right? And now you play nice. So you came to associate pain or negative emotions with an undesired behavior. Ever owned cats? They come swarming when you take the can opener from the cupboard. If that isn't leanring, I don't know what is. As for my system, the average ferret would still have an intelligence of 2, it's just that exceptional individuals (the equivalent of humans who roll a 12+) can do better. I'll take the book recomendation under consideration and thank you for the response.