Can your character talk to animals?

Can your character talk to animals?

How useless of a power is it?

>Can your character talk to animals?
No
>How useless of a power is it?
Depends on what animal you talk to

Humans mostly speak common, so yeah. I wouldnt call it a 'power' though, any elf can learn common.

Whenever one of my characters talks to animals I make the animals fully stereotypical

>player asks a cat whether they saw the murderer
*stretching* Maaaaaaaaaybe

>player asks raven to let them know if guards approach
What's in it for me bub? Tell ya what, I'll do it for a shiny bauble

>Party asks dog to find the bad guy
YES BAD GUY! I KNOW BAD GUY! VERY BAD! FOLLOW ME! *takes them to the local vet and growls*

I have a hard time imagining animals have much of value to say. If "talking to animals" includes controlling them it's good, but otherwise it seems more like a party trick than a super power.

Catfag detected.

>Can your character talk to animals?
Yes
>How useless of a power is it?
Very good at getting you killed

I'm actually a dog person, the cat wouldn't be helpful either but at least the dog genuinely wants to help and sincerely believes the vet is evil

If the PCs had asked him to follow a scent he would have done it right away

It's always a highlight of the game when talking to animals comes up. Our usual GM usually gives them completely unhinged personalities, which form a stark contrast to the generally realistic tone of the games.

The usefulness depends entirely on the type of campaign that you're running. Clearly not very useful in a massacre type of campaign.

>What's in it for me bub? Tell ya what, I'll do it for a shiny bauble
That's the true cat response if you replace bauble with a piece of meat.

He can yes, actually. It's a pretty niche ability, but it definitely has come in handy and had its uses.

The cat doesn't ask

The cat waits to be offered the treat

If the treat is not offered the cat leaves
If the treat is not to his liking the cat leaves
If the cat gets the treat before holding up his part of the deal the cat leaves
If the cat doesn't like your face the cat leaves
If the cat takes the treat and a party member seems warm and/or cozy you will never get rid of the cat

Now I'm curious, what if someone was to talk to an owl?

[Angry owl noises]

>The owl pretends it can't understand you

It gives you a long-winded explanation of how your class works, where you should go next, and then asks if you need it to repeat itself

Do you have to make a DC 15 reflex save the first time it asks to avoid hearing the whole spiel again?

Of course

Nice

>The cat doesn't ask
I have to question at this point whether or not you've ever seen a cat.

Yes, its great because I can use its actions to feed me potions beer hat style while I spend my actions doing useful shit.

Yeah, it's really cool but totally secret.

Yeah, he can speak bird, and it was a terrible mistake.
It turns out the DM has read Hitchhiker's Guide, which means I now need to make concentration checks for most actions anywhere birds might conceivably be in order to tune out their constant idiotic babbling.

>Can your character talk to animals?
Yes.
>How useless of a power is it?
Very. The animals don't know how to talk back to him.

They can talk to spiders. But only if the spider is intelligent enough to know spider language.

Yes, fairly useful for telling if something we are hunting has been in the area (They may not know what it is, but they sure as hell know its bad)