[Sorenant]

Clearing some stuff

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

I'm not entirely sure why Falconry wasn't folded into Handle Animal; it is in essence a specialised function of that skill after all.

Originally Posted by Kromm

Falconry cuts across several other skills: Animal Handling (training a falcon), Naturalist (finding a nest), Veterinary (caring for a falcon), and a Sports skill ("hawking"). We did consider making it simply another specialty of Animal Handling, but it didn't quite ring true. You're welcome to fold it into Animal Handling, but then be prepared to answer questions like, "Why does specialty X include finding baby animals and caring for them, but specialty Y only includes training them?" Or you can allow the full spectrum of tasks for all Animal Handling specialties, but then you'll have people finding, raising, and hunting with tigers, which isn't realistic. Unfortunately, not all critters are equal . . . some really do merit special skills (like Riding, which certainly can't be learned for every animal).

Originally Posted by Not

I'm a little surprised there's no interaction between Advantage: Speaks with Animals and animal handling or falconry. You'd think it would help at least a little.

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'd come at it this way: If you can barely communicate in a language, then you have -3 to use Teaching in that language; see p. B24. The game doesn't specify anything similar for animals . . . so presumably, teaching animals is a task that already assumes the -3 for barely being able to express yourself, and offsets that penalty with a hidden +3. It stands to reason, then, that if you can speak with animals, you'd be at a net +3. Even if you aren't rolling dice (pp. B458-459 says that you need Animal Handling, not that you roll for it), you can fudge that into a 30% time reduction by way of Time Spent (p. B346).