Major Taming thoughts

[Islet]

We were having a discussion on what Major Taming could be like on CHAT today, so I said I'd summarize the points and idea that I brought up on the BBS for the GMs to see and think about.

The ideas (Basics):
Islet: Instead of going out and being able to tame just any old creature, the Tse Gaiyan had a project to build a massive wildlife shelter where you can trade reputation points to be able to meet with certain creatures. When you Major Tame that creature, it's a permanent bond. When the creature takes critical or life-threatening injury, it's teleported to safety like our horses are and are taken care of by healers. It'll take more reputation points to retrieve your furry or feathery or scaley companion. (In hindsight, this is less of Major Taming and more of Animal Bonding)

Comparisons between Islets idea and reanimation:
Yeah, I know rooks can summon familiars on a whim, but animals aren't the same, so I didn't try to connect the two. If an animal dies, it should die permanently. The teleportation to safety thing doesn't fit in line with the realism we have in game, so it was a bit of an appended thought. We ended up leaning towards permadeath near the end of the discussion.
"17:36:52 [CHAT - Sojourner Fayne the Herb Hoarder]: Plus, the thing about teleporting animals doesn't sound that great. I think
perma-death would be better for animal companions."

Further explanation on the idea I had:
I didn't see going out and taming pre-existing animals as the most useful ability. Most animals flee in the company of people, and the ones that don't tend to be ridiculously strong (I.E. Bison...) I didn't want to see every person with Major Taming walking around with a bison as their animal companion, so I came up with the idea of that Tse Gaiyan Wildlife Sanctuary. It doesn't have to be a building, it could be a separate area completely where the druid has to seek out and befriend their animal companion. I was treating it more along the lines of a stable where you purchased your companion with reputation points, then trained alongside it.

Things of note
-Striking it would irrevocably damage your bond with the animal companion, and it'll leave your side and never return (so you'll have to get a new one, or lose it forever.) No safe-grinding by beating on your poor animal companion, you monster.
-All animal companions start at a base ability level. You'll have to train it by fighting alongside it and caring for it in order for it to be "strong".

Final thoughts on my own idea: It might end up being more of a status symbol than actual combat ability with perma-death. I've heard of minor taming, but that's temporarily borrowing the power of a bison to fight alongside you (let's be real, everyone uses it on bison) and I enjoy the idea of having options.

Oh, right I mentioned there being multiple animals to choose from, as well, right? I added that thought in when I remembered there are a lot of different animal types with different abilities.
Spiders, snakes, birds, boars, bears, wolves... Each one could have its own quirks.
Bears can hit pretty hard, but they're pretty slow.
Wolves are decent speed, hit pretty lightly.
Boars could help you forage, and use their tusks and teeth and randomly charge at foes.
Birds can fly so leg-based attacks tend to not work and have a higher dodge, but have very light strikes.
Spiders can poison, they're like the tree ones but without webs because webs OP.
Snakes have no arms or legs but have massive torso health and poison.

Fayne's idea: Major Taming can affect any animal, but it has to be calmed or asleep in order to be tamed. Then, it also takes a varying amount of time to tame said animal, which decreases as your druidry skill increases. If the animal wakes up before the taming is successful, they get pissed off and attack you. (This sounds a lot more like Major Taming)

[jilliana]

The idea sounds really good in theory.
What about people going into towns/hamlets with their animal companions? Somehow I don't think that townsfolk would be fans of this idea seeing how other types get treated.

[blindndangerous]

That's true. Maybe something would have to be done about that...but yes, I love this idea.

[Fayne]

Actually, another thought: perhaps make any animal tameable, but they have to be under the effects of Minor Taming before you can use Major Taming on them. That way it's more of an expansion on Minor Taming like it should be, and it prevents you from just going out and getting any animal you want all willy-nilly.

Also, spiders and insects aren't affected by druidry. I think reptiles are, barely, but mainly birds and mammals are the only ones druidry affects.

[Lysse]

It'd be a nice side effect if striking your animal companion actually made it so you can't tame another one for a few days.

[Fayne]

My only issue with adding restrictions to what animals you can or can't tame are these two: One, how is that expained lore-wise, and two, why should druids be limited in the companions they can have when rooks aren't? As it is, we're both already restricted the same amount: Ours has to be an animal, specifically birds or mammals, whole rooks' have to be human. I think whatever restrictiins are implemented should only restrict WHEN we can tame certain animals rather than restricting us FROM taming certain animals.

[Lysse]

My only issue with adding restrictions to what animals you can or can't tame are these two: One, how is that expained lore-wise, and two, why should druids be limited in the companions they can have when rooks aren't? As it is, we're both already restricted the same amount: Ours has to be an animal, specifically birds or mammals, whole rooks' have to be human. I think whatever restrictiins are implemented should only restrict WHEN we can tame certain animals rather than restricting us FROM taming certain animals.

Rooks are pretty limited, though, aren't they? Incorporeal nethrim (that I've seen) are mostly humanoid.

And Rias has explained that insects have too foreign/alien of a mind, for humans to affect them. I think the same applies to aquatic animals, and maybe even large reptiles such as Drakolin. I could be wrong, but I think that's the reasoning at least. The human mind just can't comprehend everything regarding the Gaea.

[Islet]

Wild animals have homes to return to. The wildlife sanctuary kind of came up because they don't have that kind of thing for them. Those wild bison are travelling with their herds, those rabbits you hunt have their burrow, etc etc. They always have something more important to return. I wanted to emphasize the connection between the PC and their animal companion. Like a lifetime bond, one thing does it all.

Rooks familiars come from their own soul, or something like that. So when the familiar dies it just returns to the body.

[Tangela]

I love the idea of major taming. However, I prefer the idea of the animal sanctuary from which taming would occur because animals wouldn't have to be asleep to be tamed. It seems more in line with the overall druidic emphasis on personal responsibility, since the bond would be a willing choice on the part of animal and human rather than just a human putting an animal to sleep and forcing it to be loyal to you.

[Rias]

I'm not particulary keen on the animal sanctuary thing. I don't think an animal that had a family or a pack or other obligations would respond to a call for something like a Major Taming anyway, so when you put out the call or however this ability works, you'll be getting responses from critters that are already loners or don't feel any particular obligation to stick around their fellows (who says all animals are nice happy family friendly critters?), and maybe in some cases they've actually been seeking a companion to help take care of them or something, and they find that in the druid. I'd like to think that in a wolf pack there could well be the bitter one who never managed to make alpha and was like "screw these guys." Perhaps a surly young bear sticks with its group just because that's all it knows, and when it feels the call of a druid, it longs for new experiences and adventure just like any human would who was tired of the daily grind and seemingly meaningless life of routine. This spell would be less the druid saying "You will follow me and obey because I am your master," and more "I'm calling out for a companion willing to share in my life and experiences." So, you don't have to feel all "Awww, I made that rabbit leave his poor family and ripped him away from his friends." If the rabbit responded to the call, it obviously didn't have any feelings of obligation or desire to stick around doing whatever it was doing. Maybe it was bored of rabbit life, maybe its family was eaten by a wolf and it was the only one that survived, maybe rabbits just don't form particularly strong bonds with one another. The wolf who just birthed a litter of puppies or the falcon who just founds its mate - they're not gonna respond to the call in the first place. So, don't worry too much about guilty feelings.

The thing where horses never die and just teleport to a stables is awful and horrendous. That's going to go away at some point (yes, horse/mount permadeath will be a thing), one of the many reasons being that there's absolutely no lore reason or anything behind it. Horses (and other mount critters) aren't Undying. They're incapable of teleportation. When they die, they should stay dead. That they don't is because ... probably because we were testing mounts at the time of release and figured permadeath shouldn't be a thing quite yet. It's been that way for years now, but I don't take that as any reason why we should conjure up some silly lore reason why these horses are somehow Undying or anything. Just getting that out there.

While an animal companion could (and should) certainly be capable of assisting someone in combat in many cases, I don't think that should be where the focus is. It would likely be primarily an RP thing, since the death of a companion will almost certainly be permanent, and on top of that, if some druid keeps bonding to animals and they keep dying, that knowledge is going to spread in some druidic fashion and critters are going to realize "bonding to this guy is a death sentence" and that druid will probably be shunned and incapable of using this power for at least quite a long time (and probably not be in the good graces of animals in general for a while). This is one of those things where it'd an awesome RP tool and a really cool, appropriate, and flavorful ability, but I can see the majority of people just treating it as a combat aid rather than as a creature your character has a bond to and actually cares for. That's not going to stop me from working on and releasing something like this, but expect us to be very severe about people who abuse their companions or treat them as little more than some extra combat damage/fodder and forget they exist otherwise.

[Fayne]

The main reason I've been wanting this skill implemented is so I can have a bunny campanion. Well, either that or some feline friend if I can find jaguars or leopards, but not because I want a combat minion. I've always found minions cooler as an RP tool, a sort of show of status, because a minion means that you are very skilled in some way (right now it means you're a decent sorceror). I like the idea of animal companions being mainly for RP and not combat. And I like your explanation of how Major Taming works. I would have never thought of it that way.