Companion Stats for IE Mod Rewrite

IE Mod Rewrite (IEMR) is a tweaking mod, rewritten for the latest game patch, since the original IE Mod is not compatible with it.

IEMR[www.nexusmods.com] allows to do all kinds of things, including rewriting the companion stats, which are suboptimal in the vanilla game.

For that you need to create a custom companionStats.json file. This guide describes a template for that file.

How to Use This?

1. Install Unity Mod Manager: https://www.nexusmods.com/site/mods/21
   
2. Install IE Mod Rewrite: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity/mods/347
   
3. Create a new file in Notepad++ or what have you for text file editing. Copy the code from this guide into your file. Save the file as companionStats.json in your IEMod folder: Steam\steamapps\common\Pillars of Eternity\Mods\IEMod.
   
4. Enable companion stat modifications in Unity Mod Manager (upon launching the game).
   
5. The modified stats might not apply right away. You might need to restart the game after your companion joins your party for the first time.

Why These Numbers?

I believe these are the most balanced stats possible that allow every companion to be well-rounded.

These are the kind of numbers that you could get in the character creator, if you could create the companions from scratch.

These numbers allow to reach 15 for all base stats, except constitution, when racial and cultural bonuses are applied. The only exceptions are the amaua and the Glanfathans. It's not possible to go below 3 in the character creator, so Kana, Mahaua and Hiravias will have 4 points in constitution, and one point less for other things. Also, note that orlans lose -1 from might and dwarves lose -1 from dexterity. I sacrificed resolve, as it's the second least important stat. Resolve is not as important for companions as for the main character, because resolve is used in dialogue checks and the main character is the one who's persuading NPCs.
In total, you can have 75 points for base stats, 65 for animal companions — so Itumaak gets slightly lower stats.

15 is "high" for any skill. and with food, potions, resting bonuses, equipment bonuses and blessings, you can push them up to 20 or so, which is "very high" in this game. That's enough to satisfy any skill check, withstand any attack and deal a decent amount of damage.

Constitution is a dump stat, because it's the least important for combat and in general. Your companions are going to be a bit squishy in the early game, but you can easily compensate that with potions, armour, resting and food, as well as by picking the right fights at the right time. In the later game, you won't even feel the low health/endurance bar. The only real downside of low constitution is that you are not going to pass skill checks in a few minor scripted interactions. This mostly applies to the player character anyway.

Arguably, you can min-max the stats even more, but that is not really necessary to beat the game. You definitely shouldn't put perception under 15, because it affects accuracy, which is the most important secondary stat in this game. Accuracy determines hits and misses, crits and grazes.

The Code for Attributes

{
  "companionStats": [
	{
      "Name": "Calisca",
      "Might": 14,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 13
    },
    {
      "Name": "Heodan",
      "Might": 14,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 13
    },
    {
      "Name": "Aloth",
      "Might": 15,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 14,
      "Perception": 14,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 14
    },
    {
      "Name": "Edér",
      "Might": 14,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 13	
    },
    {
      "Name": "Durance",
      "Might": 14,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 13	
    },
    {
      "Name": "Kana",
      "Might": 13,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 14	
    },
    {
      "Name": "Sagani",
      "Might": 13,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 16,
      "Perception": 14,
      "Intellect": 14,
      "Resolve": 15	
    },
    {
      "Name": "Itumaak",
      "Might": 10,
      "Constitution": 5,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 5,
      "Resolve": 15	
    },
    {
      "Name": "Hiravias",
      "Might": 15,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 13,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 14	
    },
    {
      "Name": "Grieving Mother",
      "Might": 14,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 13	
    },
    {
      "Name": "Pallegina",
      "Might": 15,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 14,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 13,
      "Resolve": 15
    },
    {
      "Name": "Zahua",
      "Might": 14,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 13
    },
    {
      "Name": "Maneha",
      "Might": 13,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 14
    },
    {
      "Name": "Devil of Caroc",
      "Might": 14,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 13	
    }
  ]
}

Skills

Should you wish, you can also edit the skills in a similar way.

It would look something like this:

 {
      "Name": "Aloth",
      "Might": 15,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 14,
      "Perception": 14,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 14,
      "Stealth": 9,
      "Athletics": 3,
      "Lore": 10,
      "Mechanics": 10,
      "Survival": 3
    },

But that would be proper cheating, since it allows you to go beyond the allowed skill point range.
And it's not really neccessary, because you can cover all your needs, if you specialize your party members.

• You need 15 points in mechanics to disarm the most complicated trap in the game, but, most of the time, 10+ is enough to at least detect most of them.
  
  
• You need 12 points in lore to use all possible scrolls, but there is only one level 6 scroll in the game, and it's not that useful anyway. 10 points in lore is enough for all the other scrolls.
  
  
• 4 points in stealth is required to get at least somewhat close to enemies. 7-9 would allow you to sneak by almost all of them.
  
  
• 1 in athletics is enough to utilise the Second Wind ability. 5 is required to pass all related skill checks in the game. Keep in mind that you can boost the skills with resting, equipment, food and rites, as well. The penalty for failing athletics checks are minor afflictions that can be removed with resting.
  
  
• 1 in survival is enough to get one basic camping bonus (+1 DR). 18 is required for the last level 3 camping bonus, but it's very hard to obtain, especially if you are not a boosted ranger or druid with a colonist backgound. 4 is required for one relatively important dialogue check in Defiance Bay, but you can boost it in other ways (e.g., +3 with Rite of the Untamed Wild).

Alternative Approach

If you don't want to dump constitution, another somewhat balanced approach would be to

• Keep all stats at 10 at least (this means no penalties);
  
• Put 15 points into perception;
  
• Spread the remaining points according to the companion's class.
  
• For example, put 15 in might for fighters/shooters
  and 15 in intellect for casters;
  
• I prefer fast attacks, so I keep dexterity at 15, but this is might be sacrificed for tanky 2H builds in favour of resolve or extra might.
  
• Leave resolve at 10.

These numbers are suggested with racial and cultural bonuses in mind.

How to Edit the Main Character

Add the stats at the beginning of the json file and name the character "Main Character". It should look something like this:

    {
      "Name": "Main Character",
      "Might": 14,
      "Constitution": 3,
      "Dexterity": 15,
      "Perception": 15,
      "Intellect": 15,
      "Resolve": 13
    },

Put this block above Calisca's block. But you don't really need to do that, unless you plan to cheat.

It should work for your animal companion and hired adventurers, too. Just name them accordingly. Note that animal companions have only 65 attribute points by default instead of 75 for kith (humanoid) characters.

Adjusting the Template

If it's not obvious already, you can change these numbers as you like. You can add and remove the characters/stats as you like. Any companion that you omit from the code, will use the default stats.

And remember that you need to restart the game after adding the companion to the party for the first time.

[Dimitri Cosmos]

@Bazooka Joe, no, I didn't tinker with the abilities. But the explanation and examples are provided in the abilityModInstructions.txt. (it's in the mod folder)

[Bazooka Joe]

@Dimitri Cosmos. Yeah, I have a feeling that would be the case. Thank you for confirming. Also, do you happen to tinker with the abilityMods.json part of the mod? I'm having issues understanding the instructions on the mod page for abilities that have 2 or more effects.

It mentions that "Sometimes, an ability has multiple status effects. To target a specific status effect, you will have to add empty status effect mods before the status effect you want to target."

Do you have an idea of what the mod author meant by that? If so, could you provide an example of the string on how to do this on my end? That would help me a lot.

[Dimitri Cosmos]

@Bazooka Joe, I strongly doubt it, because they are not permanent members of the party. From what I understand, the companion stats json file is somehow linked with the save file. You can't save during combat, and the summons don't exist outside combat. What you are asking for would be possible, if the summons were permanent named members of the party like the animal companions are. I doubt that's the case. I strongly suspect that the game creates a new instance of the creature each time it's summoned.

But, perhaps, I'm wrong. If you figure out the correct name of the summon, you can insert his modified stats into the json file in the same manner as described in this guide. It won't break yhe file, even if the code fragment is useless.

[Bazooka Joe]

Thank you for this! Just a quick question: Is it possible to edit the attribute of the chanter summons?