Okay, my third level druid now has Animal Defiance and Animal Control. What I now realize is that it's a little bit odd, from a roleplaying perspective, to treat some animals as beloved friends while taking full mental posession of other animals, as though they were devoid of spirit. The way I have tried to rationalize it is to only use animal control on the baser types of animals, like snakes and rats, while granting more dignity to the more intelligent and charismatic creatures like bears and foxes. There's no rule saying druids have to have equal respect and fondness for all types of animals, right?
The only problem with this approach is that it significantly limits my options. Fortunately, there are a range of snakes of various HD, which could be quite deadly.
By the way, I only recently noticed that several cleric domains grant the ability to command creatures of various types, including plants, fire creatures, earth creatures, etc. That could be a lot of fun!
