Animal Friendship - is it really useless?

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I've noticed over the years on the board that most people here seem to say that Animal Friendship is useless. I myself would say that it is more like the sleep spell. Useful in the beginning, but trails off dramatically over time.

It's useful in the Palisade Battle, most of the Shangarn, and a good deal of the inside of the Ice Temple, and outside the Wandering Village but loses effectiveness shortly afterward as the things you can use it on start saving too easily or are too weak to make much difference.

So, what's the opinion on everyone else? Is it really useless or more like sleep? Really useful in the beginning but becomes nearly useless later on?

 

Basically, it amounts to pouring a lot of skill points to get access to "Charm Animal". Technically nice but redundant in so many ways, unless playing solo or something like that.

 

IMO it's useless because it takes more time to charm them than to kill them.

No seriously, you've got to wonder what is the point in investing into that skill when you can do it better and without so much hassle with a spellcaster.

Still, if you really want to RP a Ranger and don't know what to do with your skillpoints then why not. The important thing is to enjoy the game.

 

You can use this skill charming summoned animals in later chapters (like the black panters summoned from the Rhakshasa in chapter 5) and the other skills aren't more useful. In a normal party game you'll have more opportunities to charm an animal than concentration checks to make for example.

 

It may be the case but I'd rather put points into Wilderness Lore so that I don't have to cheat my way through the Fell Wood.

 

You don't even need to cheat, just use good old-fashioned mapping skills (and drop arrows and such so you can tell look-alike screens apart).

-Max

 

I found most skills useless actually. Diplomacy was ok once or twice, wilderness lore in the fell woods. Alchemy came in handy at a couple of points in the game too. thats pretty much it, really. Every party member had 3 int score, when i finished the game. Except my Wizard of course. I ignored traps completely. You get so much HP in 3ed anyway, that traps don`t kill you. To open locks I had my barbarian enter rage, and break them open. The game was fun enough anyway though.

 

I agree completely, there are some points when having a good "talker" is helpful but the rewards really are not that stellar. Thievery skills are also pretty pointless as you can just use a high strength hero to beat on chests and besides a very special amulet, there isnt too much good stuff to pickpocket as far as i know.

 

Early on it's a life saver -sometimes the animal was controllable, sometimes berserk and attacked innocents and other times friendly but would not obey commands.

The problem with skills is you only get half the points you should, so an average int thief only gets 4 instead of 8. So I edited the skillpts 2da to give the proper 3.5E points, which is the same as 3E except Bards and Rangers get 6 points per level, as they should.

 

It's useless from a powergaming point of view, but pretty cool from a roleplaying point of view if you want to play a character who loves charming animals.