So one thing I've discovered is that if your hired adventurers who are not part of your current party die whilst defending the ship from a boarding attack, they are permanently killed. Had a battle against 18 people on the enemy ship, and whilst they all went down easily, not before they swamped my non-party companions on the edge of the battle. Guess it's a good idea to keep them all levelled up and well geared at all times even if they are not part of the main party. Not sure if that also applies to the companions (Aloth nearly died in the fight whilst not part of the party, had to heal him up quickly otherwise he would have dropped). 

I have had this happen, but only very rarely. I assumed this was a bug, because usually they are not permanently killed when knocked out in ship battles. I even had a sailor permanently killed once.

They can die from Disintegration or any other ability that kills without leaving a corpse.

I wish there was a mod or something to be able to level up your party members from the boat without having to actually put them into your party and enter a zone.

One of the reasons I find that annoying is it means you have to go out of your way to be in a safe spot if you're using an NPC for the first time. I'll give you a great example of this that I have encountered a bunch of times. When you leave Port Maje for the first time and pick up Serafen, he's obviously not leveled up yet. If you then decide to go to the Xaurip Island (which is typically my first stop for some quick xp etc) then you will encounter a few spots where you could potentially get immediately put into combat. Once you're put into combat, you can't level Serafen up, so he's level one until you beat that encounter.

You could run into the same issue if your ship got boarded before you leveled him.

My solution to this issue is usually to put him into my party and then re-enter port Maje to level him up before I leave, but I find that slightly annoying.

All this to say, I wish you could level up party members from the overland map lol. Anyone else find that a little annoying, or is it just me? I know how to get around it after so many playthroughs now, but it's still annoying.

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All this to say, I wish you could level up party members from the overland map lol.

yeah, same same.

 

but did you know you could just swap characters in/out at an inn? you don't have to be on the overland map. it means you can't do it whenever, but it's "safe."

You don't even need to be in an inn. You can do this at any safe locations (city or town) by accessing the map, and pressing the tiny little button on the map. This brings up the generic shop for the port as well options allowing you to swap party members in or out or re-level them up.

1 hour ago, thelee said:

yeah, same same.

 

but did you know you could just swap characters in/out at an inn? you don't have to be on the overland map. it means you can't do it whenever, but it's "safe."

 

44 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

You don't even need to be in an inn. You can do this at any safe locations (city or town) by accessing the map, and pressing the tiny little button on the map. This brings up the generic shop for the port as well options allowing you to swap party members in or out or re-level them up.

Yeah, I did know that you can do that. I just find it annoying when I pick up characters I haven't used yet and then get into a combat situation with them in the party. If I haven't accessed a safe area ahead of time, they aren't leveled.

 

Glad I'm not the only one though. I was hoping I wasn't missing something lol