This might be the only adventure oriented trait, would be nice if it could also provide some bonus to the summons. Currently the incarnate is somewhat weak and can be improved if pet pal also give bonus to the summons.

As far as I could tell from Act 1, Pet Pal only gives you some hints which aren't particularly useful or helps you avoid some fights with sentient enemies like the fire worms.

As it is I don't think it's worth taking given how few talent points we have.

On the other hand, if you don't have the trait, you lose some XP and a lot of content. The latter makes Pet Pal a mandatory talent for some players which is not good. I wish there was a separation of battle talents and social talents as abilities are designed now, but it is the only social talent . As an option, it could be an origin taking all the origin slots.

Yeah that's why I always take Ifan as a follower with persuasion. He convinces ppl and talks to animals.

I could not see any content nor XP related to pet pal.

Dialogues are content.

I remember 1 or 2 quests connected with dogs.

In the full game there certainly will be more content and xp for Pet Pal, even if there isn't much in the Alpha.

Perhaps Pet Pal could be a reward for some sort of quest? Like, in Fort Joy you find a... mystical... rat, or something, and you have to do a thing for it, like, free it from a cage, or bring it some cheese. I don't know. Some sort of quest where you help an animal, and boom, the first person to do that gets a permanent Pet Pal talent that doesn't take away from available talent points.

It prevents you from having to waste a talent on a character with the bonus effect of adding a bit more competition to multiplayer. Multiplayer needs more non-xp rewards that are up for grabs if they truly want it to be competitive anyway.

I agree in the sense where the dev added separate points for social skills, and I really like that you no longer have to sacrifice Combat effectiveness for social skills or crafting.
So I don't really get why there are still trait for social interactions. However I find it cool that not everyone can talk to animal and making it unique and rare, I just wished I wasn't force to sacrifice fighting power for it.

You think Loremaster and Telekinesis should also grant exp?

No but persuasion does
And there is a difference between a social skill point investment and a trait (which is more rare...)

I agree on persuasion.

I think a fine solution would be to make Pet Pal a social ability which allows you to interact with animals with more efficiency or with a wider range of creatures. For example, you have 2 points of Pet Pal and you can speak to 80% animals in act 1 and get + 4 persuasion bonus vs animals. This would also help to settle the problem of insufficient social abilities.

There is exp related to pet pal. Like, 60% of a level before you leave the fort. Small spoilers (or not, if you've beat act 1).

For example: the dog outside the seeker cave - talk about his missing mate, then talk to his missing mate in the fortress (several thousand point exp hit IIRC). I think you also get a hit for convincing the source hound in a cage to leave and..... something else before leaving the fort.

That's not quite the same, but yeah.

Maybe add some combat oriented bonus to it and re-name it? I can totally identify with the mandatory feel to it, it's a sizable bonus in exp act 1.... I always put it on casters because I feel they can live with it, whereas martial oriented characters are so talent starved.

Something like % bonus against beasts (think source hounds, the void wurm, etc.) would be the easiest (though not most creative) way to adjust it.

As of now, pet pal only gives you additional 1000 exp from freeing a dog on a persuasion check that might fail. Which is to say, pretty crap as a talent.

Most of the cryptic stuff the animals say are pretty useless, might as well google the quest.

So I just loaded a save and checked out what the exp ratios are. The characters are level 2.

Talking to the dog, Emma, gave me 2500 exp per character.
Convincing Birdie (the dog in the cage) gave me 1400 exp.
Total 3900 exp.

FYI it takes 6000 exp to go from level 2 to level 3. So that's almost 65% of that level from pet pal. It's around 32% of the exp needed to go from 3-4 (you need 12,000).

Also, you get the key and a unique crossbow, though if you're wits or thievery is high enough, you could get past the door without Pet Pal. With wits you'd need to know before hand where the key is, however, as it's sort of in an out of the way spot.

Alternatively, you could kill the dogs (not sure on total exp, but at level 2, in an earlier build, I remember them two shotting my level 2 team members)... or do the pet pal quest, and kill the dogs, and get exp from it all. They're not mutually exclusive.

I don't know if you get any exp from getting past them with the rubber ball.

Edit: Maths.

I like Pet Pal. It's a role-play heavy talent. It lets me talk to dogs and kitties and Septa the Ineffable and learnt he last moments of struggle in corrupted turtles and convince a bear cub who's lost its mother to SEEK REVENGE

you do. And is 2500exp as well

lol

Well, in that case, buff away (or change it, somehow, or whatever).

I think pet pal should also have the benefit of making summoners pets permanent (aka they dont unsummon until killed obviously this doesnt affect innanimate summons like the totems) since your so friendly with "pets" after all.. giving it some combat use... it is the starting (default) pick for the conjurer class spec so it would make sense.

Look at it another way. Most talents increase your combat effectiveness, which is pointless since you could win combat anyway. Pet Pal adds actual story!