Downtime Options

Animal Training

If you are proficient in the Animal Handling skill, you can train an animal during your down-time. Training an animal for a task requires at least 10 days, though the DM may ask for longer for particularly complex tasks. The DM may also call for a Wisdom (Animal Handling) check in certain circumstances, such as for training unusual creatures or willful creatures. You can train any beast with an Intelligence of 3 or less for some particular purpose. Examples include:

  • Domestication: You can domesticate a wild animal, making them amenable to being around civilization and humanoids. Once domesticated, the creature knows its name, knows how to come when called, and knows how to stay in a designated spot until commanded to move. A domesticated creature can learn further tasks as well.
  • Guard: You teach the beast to defend a particular location from creatures that the beast does not know. It will make noise and move to attack any unknown creature that enters the designated location, unless a creature it knows orders it to stop. The beast can also be ordered to stop a particular unfamiliar creature from performing any action, attacking if that unfamiliar creature moves.
  • War: You teach the beast to fight in combat alongside others. It acts independently in combat. On its turn, it will move to attack a target designated by a creature it knows until ordered to stop.
  • Mount: You teach the beast to bear a rider. It can now serve as a mount for any creature one size category smaller than it.
  • Labor: You teach the beast to perform some work, pushing or pulling a heavy load designated by a creature it knows along whatever path the commander guides it on, until commanded to stop.
  • Hunt: You teach the beast to seek and track prey. When commanded, the beast will track some designated prey creature by any means it can. If it finds the prey, it will attack it, flushing it from its hiding place, and, if it manages to kill the prey, the beast will return with it to their master.
  • Perform: You teach the beast to perform some trick or set of tricks on command. When commanded, it may do some trick such as rearing up, fetching an item, finding a hidden item, making a noise, rolling over, and so on.
  • Rescue: You teach the beast to help a designated creature, if that creature becomes incapacitated, or any creature designated by someone it knows. The beast will try to free the incapacitated creature from any bondage or obstruction (such as by chewing through ropes, or lifting a load off someone crushed) if it can, and if it can't, or if the designated creature it is trying to rescue still does not move, the beast will seek out the nearest creature it knows and try to bring that creature to the incapacitated one.