Veterinary
Veterinary
Veterinary is the pet-bandage skill — Healing's mirror for tamed creatures. Every tamer carries Vet because the alternative (NPC stable resurrection at up to 30,000 gp per attempt) is both expensive and slow. Pairs with Animal Lore, not Anatomy: Vet+Lore is to pets what Heal+Anatomy is to people.
How a vet bandage works
Apply a stack of bandages on a wounded pet within range. Vet uses 2-second application cycles regardless of the healer's Dexterity — the change from Dex-scaled to fixed-2-seconds was a deliberate balance pass. A high-Dex tamer cycles bandages no faster than a low-Dex tamer; only Vet/Lore skill controls the heal output.
The amount healed roll uses Veterinary and Animal Lore in formulas analogous to the Healing/Anatomy pair. Min and max scale with both skills; GM/GM is the practical target for any serious tamer.
Threshold abilities
| Threshold | Ability |
|---|---|
| 60 Veterinary + 60 Animal Lore | Bandage cures poison on the pet. The healer must be within 2 tiles. |
| 80 Veterinary + 80 Animal Lore | Bandage resurrects a bonded pet. The healer must be directly adjacent (1 tile). |
Non-bonded pets cannot be resurrected by Vet — only by an NPC stablemaster at the gold cost. Bonding requires a week of in-game ownership and stays-with-character status; tamers who buy a fresh pet wait out the bond timer before relying on Vet rez.
NPC stable resurrection
A pet can also be brought back by an NPC veterinarian at any stable. Approach the stablemaster as a ghost (the dead pet next to you), confirm the resurrection gump.
| Cost | Up to 30,000 gp depending on the pet's training level | | Skill loss | 0.2 skill points per stat (vs 0.1 for player resurrection) | | Cooldown | "That creature's spirit lacks cohesion, try again in a few minutes" — roughly 10 minutes after the pet's death before the NPC will attempt the rez. |
The cooldown is intentional: it gives the tamer time to find another player or self-rez via Vet. The 0.2-skill-loss penalty (vs 0.1 for player rez) further discourages reliance on the NPC option.
Stable slot contribution
Vet contributes to a tamer's total stable slot count. The stable system caps how many tamed pets can be parked at NPC stablemasters at once; baseline is 5 slots, with bonus slots earned through skill thresholds:
| Combined skill (Taming + Lore + Vet) | Stable slots |
|---|---|
| Below 200 | 5 (base) |
| 200 – 399 | 6 |
| 400 – 599 | 7 |
| 600 – 799 | 8 |
| 800+ | 9 (cap) |
A tamer with GM Taming + GM Lore + GM Vet has 8 slots; pushing all three to 120 unlocks the 9th. Slot cap means a serious tamer keeps a stable of pets ready for different content (Mare for travel, Cu Sidhe for tank, Greater Dragon for boss damage, etc.) without needing to drop pets to take new tames.
Training
| Skill range | Method |
|---|---|
| 0 – 30 | Train from any NPC Stablemaster in the cities. |
| 30 – 60 | Heal pet creatures actively. The classic technique: get two weak NPCs (deer + cow, or two cows), have them attack each other, vet-bandage them between hits. They damage each other lightly and the gain ticks roll on every cycle. Trammel rule: must be in a guild for guildmate-aggro tagging, or do this in your own house. |
| 60 – 80 | Cure poisoned creatures. Requires 60 Animal Lore. Hire a poisoner pet or stand near a poison field with the pet inside. |
| 80 – 120 | Resurrect dead bonded pets. Requires 80 Animal Lore. The training trick: do not press OK on the resurrection gump — the gain rolls on the attempt, not the confirm. Note that the gump only appears if the pet is owned by another player, so this trick requires a tamer partner. |
If a tamer has zero Animal Lore, training caps at 100 — the cure-poison and resurrect tracks both require Lore at 60 and 80 respectively. The "heal between fights" technique works to GM but gain rate slows considerably without the cure/rez supplemental gain paths.
Build context
- Mage Tamer. 120 Taming + 120 Lore + 120 Vet + 120 Magery + GM Resist + 100 Med + 100 Eval Int. Standard PvM tamer; pet handles main damage, mage handles utility, vet keeps the pet topped up.
- Dexer Tamer. 120 Taming + 120 Lore + 120 Vet + 120 Archery/Fencing + Tactics + Anatomy + Healing. Hybrid that can both heal pet and do damage.
- Pure Vet (rare). 100 Vet + 100 Animal Lore on a non-tamer who supports a tamer partner — useful for new tamers waiting out bond timers, but very niche.
- Bard Tamer. Tamer skills + Provocation/Discordance for crowd control. Vet keeps the pet alive while the bard pacifies the rest of the room.
Strategy notes
- Bond before you risk. A non-bonded pet death is a stable-NPC res at potentially 30,000 gp. Bond the pet (bring it to where you live, keep it your active pet across multiple session-spanning game weeks until the bond gump fires) before any dangerous content.
- Adjacent for rez. Vet rez requires 1-tile adjacency. Plan to position next to the dead pet immediately when it falls — running back from across a Champion Spawn arena means the pet may be looted before rez.
- 2-second cycle is fixed. Don't dump points into Dex hoping for faster vet bandages. Stat budget should go to Strength (HP) and Intelligence (mana for Magery utility) on a tamer.
- Combined skill stacks for stable slots. A tamer at 120/120/120 (Taming/Lore/Vet) hits 9 stable slots. The 9th slot is what lets a serious tamer keep a Cu Sidhe + Greater Dragon + Mare + Hiryu + Bake Kitsune + utility pets all parked simultaneously.
- Animal Lore is the silent gate. Vet without Lore is half a skill — no cure, no rez, slow gain past 100. Tamers always max Lore alongside Vet, never one without the other.
See also
Animal Lore, Animal Taming, Healing, Anatomy, Bandage, Resurrection, Stable, Pet Bonding, Pet Training, Cure, Poison, Pets, Pet Guide, Greater Dragon, Cu Sidhe, Bake Kitsune, Hiryu, Mare, Tamer.