Can we respec located companions ?.

[Grimaldus]

Lets say you want to build a priest a certain way, but when you find a companion
which is a priest, they already has skills, attributes and spells locked in, which will totally ruin your plans for a perfect party.. are we allowed to respec our companions ?.

I'm planning on a Paly / 2xCiphers, Barb, Priest and Wizard. My personal char will ofc be the 2nd Cipher , but the problem here that i'm afraid might toss a wrench in the machinery is that all these companions that i will have to pick up and add to my party, will already be locked in their progression .

Isn't there any way to change this so i can decide their build from level 1 ?.

[Gilmoy]

Briefly, no.
Respec in an inn lets you redo a companion's L02 - L16 skill/talent choices only.
Its L01 choices, including race, background, class, stats, and L01 talent, are locked in stone.

All free companions have hard-coded stats and background.
They also have hard-coded voice acting, barks on map entry, talks with you, and side quests.

If you don't like the free companions' stats, hire your own in any inn.
Then you also lose their side quests and silly dialogues (esp. with each other ).
Choose which one you'd rather have.

You can freely respec their skill choices from L02 upward, at any time.
The only talent point you're stuck with is whatever they took at L01.

[Frostfeather]

You can use console commands to change things about the companions that you normally couldn't.

Or some kind of editor, though that might not work now with the recent update.

[Grimaldus]

Having attributes locked in stone in companions is pretty stupid since they're
more often than not, ullerly trash allocation of stats. I can understand race and gender since they have to coincide with with the portrait and voice.

But at the very least we should be able to respec stats, spells and skills.

[Yoinkyz]

its only like a few % at the end of the day. the game was clearly made around not needing to meta game to complete it.

if you dont mind disableing achievements and being seen as unpurist scum by some you can use the console here is a quick howto:

1:open the console (check controls options to see what key)
2: type in "Iroll20s" (this enables cheat-mode, a requirement to change stats)
3: open console again and type in "FindCharacter Aloth" (or whatever companion you want to edit)
4: look at the chatbox to see what the "in-game-name" of your companion is. for me this was "Companion_Aloth(Clone)_1"
5: the console command for changing a stat is: "AttributeScore <playername> <attributename> <amount>".
In my case "AttributeScore Companion_Aloth(Clone)_1 Might 15" and then "AttributeScore Companion_Aloth(Clone)_1 Dexterity 11"

note: to give aloth 12 dexterity i type in "Dexterity 11" because elves get +1 dexterity and the stat changed is the base before that bonus.

[Grimaldus]

Look at Durance for example, the companion priest . His stats, altho balanced, are far from actually been good, his resolve is way too high, his intellect is missing 3 points, his strength which is the most important for healers is missing 5 points..
Our companions has points allocated in stats which aren't really needed in a group, points which would be much better put into stats which actually makes the character perform better at their respective purposes.
Since Strength increases healing, you really want to max out strength on a priest,
but the game has locked it at 14... reducing the healing by a lot .

Look at Grieving mother , our companion Cipher.. her str is 11... ELEVEN,
which means the players has NO options to turn her into a dps, she will remain
a sub-par cipher for the whole game because her stats are horrible.
Ciphers has the worst health-gain, and putting points into CON would just be a waste of attributes, yet the game has wasted 3 points there that would be better spent in str for damage.
Ciphers are considered the highest dmg in the game, yet the game won't max of the very stat which increases their dmg - it's like the game just wanted to be balanced.

[Frostfeather]

Most important stats for Priests are Dex and Int. They want to get their buffs/debuffs out asap in a wide area. Healing isn't great in Pillars 1 because of limited Health, so you're better off preventing the damage in the first place... through buffs/debuffs/control.

So if there's a reason why Durance is "suboptimal", it's his Dex. Though he can still easily be used on PotD without any problems because you don't have to min/max this game.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

The game doesn't require min-maxing of attributes and doesn't encourage players to min-max either.

Durance is a Priest like any Priest. You can give him enchanted equipment with some attribute bonuses, if you insist. And you would be well-advised to replace his default quarterstaff with a sword anyway, since as a Priest of Magran he favors Sword & Arquebus because of the talent that grants a stacking +10 Accuracy for those.

As such, the companions are really okay for the roles they are supposed to fill. Some companions are more versatile, others a bit more specialized also because of their class anyway.

[JIK]

nexus has mods that allow stat and skill change.