Feature Request: Choose Subclasses for Companions

[Crucis]

I'm pretty sure the subclasses for companions and sidekicks were chosen with their Lore in mind. If you take that away from them, you take away their personality. I mean imagine if you could change Pallegina's or Xoti's subclass, that would be horrible from the story PoV.

 

I agree.  I think that it would be bad to change Pallegina's or Xoti's subclasses, and frankly story breaking.  

 

What might be a better, more story controllable option might be to assign each companion or sidekick subclasses.  I'll even go so far as to suggest that for a character like Eder, I could see the following.  If you chose a pure fighter, you might  get one subclass of fighter, but if you chose swashbuckler, you might end up with the fighter subclass being different than for the pure fighter.  Pure fighter Eder might be an Unbroken subclass, while a Swashbuckler Eder might be a Black Jacket fighter (plus the rogue subclass).

 

 

As a side note, let me say that I believe that they should do away with the generic "no subclass" option, and do what they did with druids where the devs created a specific subclass to full the "generic druid" role.  I think that that's what they should have done for all classes that don't have this.  For example, a subclass to fill the "generic fighter" role might be called something like an Armsman. An Armsman might have nothing different from the current no-subclass Fighter, or maybe give the Armsman some benefits and downsides that are relative, well, generic yet useful enough.

[Crucis]

ur forgetting one of the biggests outliers, palleginas racial bonus, (resistance to PER/INT afflictions and defence against disengagement) which is worth like 2.5-3 passives.

 

I dont think the companions should be mechanically incentivised too much. Theres already a compelling reason to take them (content/flavour) giving them too many unique strengths would further punish those who like to craft their own parties.

 

It wouldn't be "punishing those who like to craft their own parties".  It would be incentivizing people to play the Companions and Sidekicks.

[Boeroer]

Serafen has the best companion bonus of all: dual mortars!

[Nssheepster]

Serafen has the best companion bonus of all: dual mortars!

And that is literally the only reason I ever take him, and even when I do, I ONLY take him on the needed missions, nothing else. He's a fun character, but not fun enough to put up with a terrible subclass.

[asnjas]

If the lore doesnt allow all subclasses for every character then they shouldnt allow it at all. Something has to give. The way it is now makes sense for the lore of each companion. Changing it to allow eder to be an illusionist and aloth to be a bloodmage makes goofy options.

[Nssheepster]

Goofy... OPTIONS. That's kinda the keyword. Nobody's forcing you, and if you feel it breaks immersion to do it, don't. Having the option appear on an already immersion breaking class selection screen can't really be claimed to be breaking immersion more.

[bell88]

If the lore doesnt allow all subclasses for every character then they shouldnt allow it at all. Something has to give. The way it is now makes sense for the lore of each companion. Changing it to allow eder to be an illusionist and aloth to be a bloodmage makes goofy options.

I don't think anybody disagrees that you shouldn't be allowed to make Eder an illusionist (nothing wrong with Aloth being a bloodmage however). As discussed at length above in this thread, there are lore friendly ways to implement this feature.

 

Goofy... OPTIONS. That's kinda the keyword. Nobody's forcing you, and if you feel it breaks immersion to do it, don't. Having the option appear on an already immersion breaking class selection screen can't really be claimed to be breaking immersion more.

Strongly agree. More options is the name of the game here. Some subclasses radically alter gameplay and as it stands, you lose a lot by using many of the story companions.

Edited February 9, 2019 by bell88

[bell88]

In terms of modding options, as I've said before - I don't think this should be regarded as a reason not to implement this feature both since it won't be an option on consoles, but also because I've found e.g. the unity console to have various instabilities (e.g. removing empower, removing starting abilities etc)

 

This thread however might be a good place to post a short tutorial on how to alter companion subclasses if anyone would be willing to do so?

[Crucis]

Goofy... OPTIONS. That's kinda the keyword. Nobody's forcing you, and if you feel it breaks immersion to do it, don't. Having the option appear on an already immersion breaking class selection screen can't really be claimed to be breaking immersion more.

 

I guess that I have to disagree.  The devs are telling a story.  The companions and the class or classes that match them are a part of that story.  If you want to mod in this level of story breaking class choices, knock yourself out.  But I think that it's a good thing to limit the class choices to those that fit the nature of the character as imagined for the story.

 

 

If the lore doesnt allow all subclasses for every character then they shouldnt allow it at all. Something has to give. The way it is now makes sense for the lore of each companion. Changing it to allow eder to be an illusionist and aloth to be a bloodmage makes goofy options.

 

I agree, I think.  As I said above, each companion/sidekick has a character concept within the overall story.  And IMO each of those companions/sidekicks really should have an official class or, in the case of Deadfire, 3 options that are fairly close.  Personally, I don't even agree with all of the options the devs selected for the companions and sidekicks, though I do understand that they probably made those choices in a way to create some level of even distribution.

 

For example, I don't see Merke as a Monk in any way.  Monks seem to me to require a great degree of discipline that is the exact opposite of how one would think of Merke, the perpetually drunken pirate.  She seems more like a Rogue to me, with rogue/fighter or possibly rogue/monk being options.

 

I also don't particularly like Konstantin as a character either, but part of that is that I'd rather have a dwarven male who was a more stereotypical dwarf.  A somewhat deep voice with a gruff attitude.  And probably some combination of Fighter, Fighter/Cleric, or Cleric, or maybe Fighter/Barbarian.

 

Fassina does nothing for me.  I think that it would have much more interesting to have a second wizard who was had a more interesting background than some bored apprentice who ran a magic shop for an archmage.    A wizard who was a Fire godlike who had the options of Wiz/rogue or maybe Wiz/fighter or Wiz/Paladin might have been interesting.  Possibly having her 3 options all be multiclassed without any pure wizard option.  Or possibly a wizard/priest of Magran combo (a fire priest or priestess).

 

Heck, Xoti doesn't really do that much for me either.  I suppose it was nice to have a "nice" priest for the party after having the nasty Durance from PoE1.  But after a while, the sweet farm girl thing wears on me.  It might have been nice if the priestess of Gaun had a little more edge to her.  

 

Ah well.  It's still a nice game.  

[arkteryx]

In terms of modding options, as I've said before - I don't think this should be regarded as a reason not to implement this feature both since it won't be an option on consoles, but also because I've found e.g. the unity console to have various instabilities (e.g. removing empower, removing starting abilities etc)

 

This thread however might be a good place to post a short tutorial on how to alter companion subclasses if anyone would be willing to do so?

 

Changing classes is extremely easy with the unity mod, no a high priority to change the base game. Download the mod and drag your deadfire.exe file onto the unity IPA file to mod it. Now in game open up the character screen on whomever you want to mod and press ctrl-f8 to bring up the console if it isn't up already. Then just use the change class scroll bars in the console window. It will revert your character to level 1 so you have to level them up again. The only weird thing is that since it starts you at level 1 (probably a game engine restriction) you don't get to pick a level 1 talent like normal so you can just use the 'add ability' feature to fix that (remember to pick one for each class if multiclass). This also lets you change subclasses though sometimes passives or special abilities will get left over, like if you change from a berserker to a base barbarian you might still have the berserker frenzy skill instead of the regular one. Again just use the 'add ability' and 'remove ability' features to fix this.

 

Most of my companions are modified this way, played with some of their stats too. I like to have choices but still want the lore/banter from real companions instead of hired ones. But hey, if people want to stick to canon choices, that's cool too.

Edited February 10, 2019 by arkteryx

[Jogre]

imagine if the companions multi class /subclass options were changeable by in game quests 

some examples;

 Xoti you can alter her faith through quests or dialogue choccies which influence her faith. potentially priest/monk subclass.

Helping/encouraging Serafen to be more focused and centered you can remove/alter the wild element of his cypher abilities 

perhaps you can complete a quest that leads to Tekehu realising he can also sing unlocking the chanter multiclass.

 

an alternative to unlocking them over time might be to have the watcher see a vision from the companions past. and making a choice at a key point could influence the choice. 

example:

when meeting Eder your watcher abilities kick in and you see a choice Eder makes during the 5 year gap that leads him to multiclassing as a rogue or staying a pure fighter.

 

 

[Boeroer]

Nice idea. That would have been fun.

[evilcat]

Probably to late now, but idea is good.

It it could also be good if number of class combination would be as wide as possible for character to still fit background.

For example Xoti with Chanter Beckoner, that would have some great flavour. Or Eder choosing path of Kind Wayfever.

I think Divinity Second Sin had some mechanic of altering character class with dialogue.

Edited November 17, 2020 by evilcat