Mass Animal Empathy Bug #1

[KageKeeper]

When approaching an animal, it will change from red to blue; however, it does not stay blue. It will go back to being red, although it does not attack.

Summons also do not attack while red but will attack the animal if commanded to attack nearest.

[Dorganath]

I'd like to hear blonde's comments on this, but according to how this new ability is supposed to work:
 

-When an animal perceives a Ranger/Druid/Cleric with animal domain, the player makes an animal empathy skill check against a DC of 12 + HD of the animal. If succesful, the animal is calmed for a duration of 1 second / animal empathy skill.   -The player must be empty-handed for this to work, so if he is carrying a weapon the animal will not be calmed. This is also to allow people to hunt animals. I dont know how nice it would be to calm the animal down, and then walk up to it and kill it... (so basically an on/off switch)   -Once the duration runs out, the reputation is cleared, and the OnPerception script is fired again.   -Should anyone attack a calmed animal, it will instantly go hostile towards him, as would all other calmed animals that can see the attack.
  Those with AE skill use that, those with animal domain use (cleric lvls + CHA modifier - 6). The used number is also the duration in rounds.   To calm the animal, you will have to approach it empty handed, and you must be do so before any other party member approaches. If the animal or yourself is fighting at the time, you cant calm anything.   If a calmed animal is attacked, all of its friends should also turn unfriendly. If one animal of a group is not calmed, but the rest are, the calmed ones should turn hostile when the uncalmed animal attacks.

 Remember, this is not intended to be like Animal Empathy, where the affected animal becomes your buddy. Rather it's intended to keep the animals from attacking you, which it seems to do.

[KageKeeper]

All right.

I was not sure, so I thought I would report it just in case.

It's a great feature though...

[blonde]

When calmed, the animal should turn blue/friendly to you and your party, including animal companions and summons. When the duration has run out (1 round / AE skill point), the animal will turn back to red/hostile. Immediatly after this, a new perception will be run by the animal where it finds the nearest enemy it can see. If this is a druid/ranger/animal-cleric a new skill check will be performed. Should that fail it will attack, should it succeed it will turn blue/friendly again.

It is important for the calming druid to be the nearest party member of the animals each time the check is run.

Kagekeeper, if you dont mind trying it, i would like you to go alone up to an animal, calm it, and stay there till the next AE check. Just to make sure it DOES turn friendly again at the second check. (Which it does in my test module, but it's hard to figure in lag there).

[KageKeeper]

Both Kut and I tred this.

It would turn red and stay that way. Sometimes another check would show in the window, but not everytime...

And even though it was red, it was not attacking...so I *think* it was calmed, just didn;t look calm.

And I do not think it stayed blue for the entire length of my AE...not sure what it is off the top of my head..but it's greater then 10 and the badger we were testing on never stayed blue for longer then 10 seconds.

[blonde]

I just tried this out on the server myself, and you are right KageKeeper, it does turn back to red very fast, though it doesnt attack. It might attack another from the party though, if he goes near it while it's calmed but red. If anyone has tried this, i would like to hear from them.

[Pankoki]

Tried it last night with a bunch of birds and another non-nature person in the party. The birds went blue for a moment, then red, they did not attack me, but went straight for the other person in the party, to much of the bird's ire. We wielded no weapons.

[Marswipp]

The animals should, depending on the actual crature's predisposition to fight or flight...

[EventHorizon]

I have got a cleric of Shindaleria, with the Animal domain.
Changelog sais implemented an auto anamial empathy for clerics with above domain.
Now I find it abit odd, since it isn't even possible to take skillpoints in animal empathy for clerics, even with the said domain.
Is there some way to activate the skill or?

[Dorganath]

You don't "activate" this ability as such; it's automatic. However, you must not have anything equiped in your hands when you approach an animal. If you do have something equiped, the check will fail. In a way, that is sort of like an on/off switch.
  Clerics use their (cleric levels + CHA bonus - 6) to make the check; druids and rangers roll against their Animal Empathy score.
  To contrast this with regular Animal Empathy, this ability calms multiple animals at a time, but does not make them commandable/dominatedas regular Animal Empathy would. This ability is automatic rather than a conscious effort.

[EventHorizon]

So, if my cleric walk into a bunch of bdgers and successfully pacify them, would an entry of for example an armed fighter make them all go berserk?

[Dorganath]

Probably yes.

[EventHorizon]

Well, this is how it worked on a falcon.

- Approaching unarmed slowly walking, I think I rolled three times, and failed the last... thus the falcon attacked.

So, each round there is likely a new roll to see if the animal(s) decide to freak out or not.
I don't see how this helps a cleric wanting to spare the lives of animals when travelling in a group though. Still it is a neat feature, I guess it will save some animals' lives later on when the rolls improve

[Dorganath]

Correct. Your rolls will improve as time goes on. For your 4th level cleric, your roll is basically your CHA bonus - 2 (level + CHA mod - 6), and that also is the duration of the effect in seconds. So at your level, that's not much, and there will be a lot of re-rolling and short durations....and really it's going to be pretty useless. But it should improve with level.

[blonde]

Just to avoid confusion, the duration is in rounds, not seconds. But yeah, what Dorg said is spot on besides that, a lvl 4 cleric wont be able to do much with this, but it will get better much better with levels.

This system is getting an upgrade when orth launches a small update in the nearest future. I hope all is solved with that, but a system like this is hard to really test outside of the live servers, so bear over with us while we work out the kinks.

[KageKeeper]

No worries Blonde.

I am just extremely thankful we have this system now. All kinks will get worked out in time.

Thanks!

[orth]

Hoping this is fixed in next update.  Tests on blonde and my server seem good.