Can I make companion based character with physical mutations only?

[Cossty]

This is my first time playing. I am Esper right now, but I hit glimmer 20 or something and the game told me that some bounty hunters will go after me from now on and even bigger threats later. I am in no mood for this, I chose roleplay for reason.

I have three companions right now. First one is the starting pet, then beguiled pet and proselytized pet.

So I wouldn't have the beguiled pet.
Which is a shame because I feel like this skill is better than Proselytize. Because all the health increase.

Is there some easy way to increase the health of your companions? How can I get more companions? Can they be taken from me? For example, some other creature uses the same skill on them or something?

Do companions level up slower?
Even though they are around the same level as me, I almost never see them level up.
I would want companions to stay with me to the end of the story/run. Yes, when they die, I will save scum.

[Pixel Peeper]

Not my area of expertise since I never use followers, but...

Reputation is the main way you could get a whole bunch of followers. Do the water ritual with someone and ask them to join you.

The Persuasion tree has a skill that increases your followers' max HP based on your Ego.

[Cossty]

I didn't realize getting companions was that easy.
It looks like Inspiring Presence might not work on companions from water ritual. Will need to test it out later, I am not at home right now.
https://wiki.cavesofqud.com/wiki/Emboldened

[Pixel Peeper]

I would have taken it to mean that any improvements to your Ego modifier aren't taken into account for the followers that you already have (for the ones gotten via water ritual, they would only get the bonus that you gave them when you acquired them)... but again, virtually no experience with followers, so I cannot confirm.

[jasta85]

Regarding leveling companions, they gain exp/levels but usually don't allocate any of their stat/skill points. The easy way around this is to just use a mod that lets you do so, but if you want to stick to base game only you'd need to use dominate to take over their body, and then manually allocate points.

But regarding glimmer, mental mutations are very powerful so glimmer is the way of balancing that out, although if you only stick with just 1-2 mental mutation it's very managable, either that or having a bunch of them but keeping them low level.

If you want fun disposable followers look at temporal fugue, where you make copies of yourself. Just be careful as they will use everything you have, including grenades, missiles and nukes.

[BoogieMan]

If you used the in game cheat system "Wishes" (check the wiki) you may be able to use Dominate to take over their body and use the system to grant the follower the Chimera mutation, so that going forward they only get physical mutations.

[glass zebra]

Embolden was already named as a health increase and equipment can has toughness on it for health increase (and AV/MA and resistances are basically like better health increase for most combat). Follower equip items automatically and will usually choose "the better", though without dominate they might think that is something different than you do.

Water ritual has already been named as a way to get more companions, but if you want to not get any point of Glimmer, you can still use beguiling with food (though all beguile creatures turn aggressive when it runs out), use a specific somewhat late game cybernetic on True Kin that grants +1 and +1 additional for each 100 computation power, True Kin can also get an additional robot follower through rebuke and everyone can get +1/+2 with a certain item from a stat late game side quest (with somewhat randomised rewards though).

They can be taken from you with death, space time vortices (inducing normality like with an ontological anchor can helps fight this) or if they are very smart and fall down a hole or similar. If they don't die from that, you can try to follow them to get them back though. Other creatures do not use proselytize, beguiling or dominate themselves automatically.

Companions get any XP you get and if you recruited one around your level, they should be very close to your level if you had them with you at all times. XP is not split, but simply shared.

----

I can understand why Glimmer can sound frightening, but if you have a little experience with certain mental skills yourself, fighting Glimmer enemies can not only be doable, but also pretty rewarding, with possibly all of this being spoilers: If you do get the kill (not your followers. you), there is a 10% chance for a neat reward. The first threats can also be negated if you boost your reputation with Seekers of the sightless way (though that is not too easy for a new player).

The "bigger threats" later on can both make good companions and often come with mind slaves that when freed and turning neutral again (I have not tried how that works since the big behaviour patch), they act like their default selves again mostly and e.g. Dromad merchants are pretty common followers later on, giving you possibly quite a few high tier extra traders. In theory it is also possible to get some special items from those threats, but unless you do some tricky stuff it is super unlikely.

Lastly if you don't get Glimmer super early and rather high, what you can can feel like just another enemy spawning and unless they see you instantly, they will usually also fight with the other creatures on that screen. That can be pretty bad in settlements, but also helpful in other areas. They can also only spawn when you first enter a screen and not later. If you have already been to important settlements, they can not spawn there and if you e.g. have Precognition, you can also try to enter new settlements with that first, since the chance is just a basic roll.


I've played multiple companion builds (well at least 2 to end of story) in the past and they were pretty fun to be honest. There are a few buffs for companions only (though rather late game) and they have added some new stuff that I have mostly not seen, so there might be more. Sadly companions also got some targeting/behaviour issues added with some patches, but chances are you will not run into that much and there is a new hotkey to easier command companions to stop them doing wonky stuff.

If you specifically want to go for physical mutations, you can also pick a few that can boost companions nicely. Freezing ray is probably one of the best, since it can both protect them quite well, while also making targets have -10DV instead of whatever they had before, while double-muscled/paralysing stinger can stun creatures repeatedly (if you are okay with melee) and put DV to 0. Flaming ray can also add CC (even stronger, since "smart" creatures will stop any action but fighting fire) but no -DV, phasing can make you tank extremely well (subject to change with creature behaviour fixes), confusing venom can lower enemy defensive stats to super ridiculously low values, since it is a pretty well scaling effect (-x MA can be very strong with mental attacking followers) and can be used safer than confusion grenades (but not on robots) and two-headed can give you a lot of extra Ego, increase your tanking/withstanding abilities and generally offer extra slots for utility stuff (multiple arms/legs too to some degree).

Missing Domination is certainly the worst part of going physical-only mutant and wanting to do a follower build, since it is such a strong ability specifically for those builds. Precognition can also add a lot (e.g. with warm static on followers) and there are multiple other good utility mental mutations. If you frankly only take Beguiling and Domination, you'd only start seeing Glimmer creatures if both of them at are 10+


If you would like something that the game does not support, you can always use mods. There are a couple for followers (Clever Girl being the one that gives pretty much everything Domination offers for free and to everyone, but even more power than that by also enabling feeding meals and also applying to creatures like Oozes). There are also mods to disable or change Glimmer. For small and rare changes you can also use wishing. Making your own mod is also not too hard, if you don't want to do some new mechanical stuff.

[Sir Fancybritches Fizzlebottom]

I think companions will level slower in comparison if you're the one killing the mobs. Not sure if they share in quest XP.

Beguiling's level directly affects bonus HP for your slave. +5 HP per level.

There's a perk in the Persuasion tree that adds some health to all companions, I believe.

If you want to cheat to make a companion ONLY get physical mutations, you could dominate them and then use "mutation:Chimera" as a wish.

[Cossty]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Oh ♥♥♥♥. Thx for such a detailed answer.
I was under the impression that I can only have mental or physical mutation. Esper or chimera. Not both.

What is the max level of a mutation? If I can mix mutations, I could just pick Beguiling from mental mutations and nothing else. That additional health on this skill is really good compared to normal companions. I would just not level that skill above level 19.

But having both pools for mutations could bite me in the ass when I am buying new mutations and all the choices are going to be mental. When I reloaded the save, the options for mutations were still the same, so I can't even save scum that.

So, some of my companions already fell through a hole, but I didn't have to go after them. When I went up or down stairs or went to another tile, they just teleported to me.

I have been using Clever Girl for like 2 days. I have no problem using that. It's just QoL in my opinion. Removing glimmer feels a bit like cheating though so I will stay away from that for now. In the future, I will definitely play some glimmer run. But for now, I just want to have some relaxing game.

[glass zebra]

Esper and Chimera are both limitators (with Chimera also providing that limb bonus) that also cost an extra point. If you select none of these, you have no limitation on mutations (except for some stuff like: Quills + Carapace is not possible) and can basically get everything if you have enough points. No creature in the game that I know of have these morphotypes, though the game generates some as if they do (e.g. seekers will only roll for mental mutations on creation, cultists only physical mutations on creation. If they level up, both can get any though).

Skilled max level of mutations is 10, max level with bonus (e.g. from rapid advancement, Ego mod or items) is basically infinite and only capped by your own level (level/2 +1). Not sure if the same cap applies to food proc mutations. Beguiling max HP is indeed nice, but max HP on creatures ramps up quite a bit and those boni are super super strong early on and "nice" later on. Mutation buy is based on seed and not rolled freely every time, but some rare things change that seed (e.g. nectar). If you have like 4 physical mutations already, you could just keep boosting those with your mutation points. Apothecaries also sell "humble pie" if you find your ego bonus too high Brain brine also lowers Ego, while usually providing a bonus to you in return.

Clever Girl is definitely a pure power boost and not just QoL, making it easier for companions to be stronger than your own character (especially the feeding is pretty strong) and enabling things that you can not do in vanilla at all (like skilling Oozes). Just choose the mods that make the game the most interesting for you. Balance is not that important as long as it does not make things irrelevant and boring for you (e.g. Domination has little use left if you have that mod). Glimmer definitely does not only have downsides, but it is very understandable if you want to stay away from it as a new player. Fighting mental mutations is quite a bit different than other combat and having used those yourself a bit makes it easier to anticipate the dangers.


Space-time vortices are holes your companions will not teleport out of again if you don't jump after to get them before they close.