Animal Handling

[Carver]

Animal Handling

Animal Handling represents a character's ability to understand, communicate with, calm, train, and control animals. It covers working with both domesticated and wild animals, as well as caring for animals and understanding their behaviour.

Skill Levels

0 — Untrained

You have little understanding of animal behaviour and no meaningful training in handling animals. You can interact with familiar, docile animals under normal circumstances, but you struggle to calm, control, or understand unfamiliar or distressed animals.

1 — Novice

You have basic experience working with animals. You can care for common domesticated animals, follow basic training methods, and handle calm animals with reasonable confidence. Difficult, frightened, aggressive, or unfamiliar animals remain challenging.

2 — Competent

You are comfortable working with most ordinary domesticated animals. You can train animals to perform basic tasks, recognise common signs of fear or aggression, and maintain control in moderately difficult circumstances.

3 — Skilled

You are an experienced animal handler. You can train animals to perform complex tasks, calm distressed or frightened animals, and work effectively with unfamiliar species. You can recognise subtle changes in an animal's behaviour and respond appropriately.

4 — Expert

You possess exceptional understanding of animal behaviour. You can work confidently with dangerous, highly trained, or difficult animals and teach them sophisticated behaviours. You can establish control and trust even under challenging circumstances.

5 — Master

You possess extraordinary mastery of animal behaviour and communication. Animals respond to you with an unusual degree of trust and understanding, allowing you to accomplish feats of training and control that would be beyond even an Expert handler.

Overcome

Animal Handling can be used to overcome obstacles involving animals or situations where understanding and controlling an animal is necessary.

Examples include:

• Calming a frightened or distressed animal.
• Controlling a frightened mount.
• Training an animal to perform a task.
• Getting an animal to cooperate with an unfamiliar command.
• Handling a dangerous or aggressive animal.
• Determining why an animal is behaving unusually.
• Caring for an animal under difficult circumstances.

Advantage

Animal Handling can be used to create an advantage by gaining the cooperation, trust, or assistance of an animal.

Examples include:

• Training an animal to assist with a task.
• Building trust with a mount or companion animal.
• Teaching an animal to recognise a particular person, object, or signal.
• Positioning an animal to assist with a task.
• Using knowledge of an animal's behaviour to anticipate what it will do.
• Encouraging an animal to distract or occupy another creature.

Offensive

Animal Handling is not normally an attack skill.

It can be used indirectly to direct a trained animal against another character, but the animal itself is responsible for the attack. Animal Handling determines the handler's ability to command or control the animal rather than directly causing harm.

Defensive

Animal Handling can have a defensive application when an animal can be used to protect or assist the character.

Examples include:

• Commanding a trained animal to defend you.
• Calming a mount that might otherwise panic in a dangerous situation.
• Preventing an animal from becoming frightened and placing you in danger.
• Using an animal's behaviour to detect an approaching threat.
• Maintaining control of a mount while under attack or in hazardous conditions.