[RPG] What do I have to roll to make a horse squeeze through a tight space

animalspathfinder-1e

I ran into an issue in my last session – my party headed into an area that is only accessible via tight tunnels. My horse is physically capable of passing through them, but it would have to "squeeze" by the rules.

My character got off the horse and pulled the reins to guide the mount in.

The GM ruled that it's "pushing" an animal, and that requires a handle animal check with a DC of 25. I couldn't do this, as nobody in the party had the handle animal skill.

I looked around for any 'official' rule on making a mount squeeze, but didn't find any, nor does "pushing" in the handle animal entry lists squeezing as a trick.

I was wondering if there's an actual rule on this we couldn't find? Because a DC 25 handle animal seems awfully high to get a horse to follow me into a tight space.

Best Answer

It Should Be A DC 10 Handle Animal

Here's the rules from Handle Animal:

This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.

So, does "squeeze into a cave" count as its own trick, or can you use an existing trick to do that? Ultimately that's the DMs call, but my interpretation is that it should be a DC 10 Handle, using the Heel trick:

The animal follows you closely, even to places where it normally wouldn’t go.

Squeezing into a cave certainly is a place that a Horse normally wouldn't go, but:

  1. The Horse isn't being threatened by anything in the cave, as it's you doing the handling and it knows you.
  2. It's capable of moving to the location you want it to without taking damage. It sounds like it may not even need to make a check to squeeze, based on your description. (Checks aren't required if it has half the necessary space, so a one square wide tunnel in this case.)
  3. It also has taken no damage that you've mentioned

Based on those things, no special conditions apply here. Given that, I would rule this as a DC 10 using the Heel trick. (The Come trick has similar wording and would also work if you don't know Heel.)

If you don't have either of those tricks, then it gets a bit trickier. There's no rule on simply leading an animal where it doesn't want to go specifically, and in the absence of training there is a stronger case to require the DC 25 Push check.

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