[suggestion] Give Companions and Sidekicks more class options

[evilcat]

Suggestion: Give Companions and Sidekick more class option, and class combinations. More than 3.

 

Reason: It is more fun to party with companions with personality and something to say. It increases replaybility if you could alter companions a bit more.

 

Explanation: Some companions need to have 1 class always, since it is part of who they are. Like Aloth always wizard, and Maia always ranger. But they could multiclass more freely without breaking the immersion.

 

Examples:

Maia: Ranger (always). Rogue. Wizzard, Fighter BleakWalker, Chanter.

Eder Any: Fighter, Rogue, Kind Wayferer, Eoathas Priest in doubt,

Aloth Wizard (always) Fighter Rogue Soulblade Barbarian (isemyr)

Pallagina Paladin (always) FIghter, Chanter, Rogue, Monk

Serafen: Any Barbarian, Rogue, Cipher, Ilussionist, Fighter, Skald

Xoit ANy: Priest, Monk, Chanter, Rogue, Fighter

Tekehu: any: Druid, Chanter, priest, Transmutter, Monk, Barbarian

Ydwin any: Rogue Cipher Fighter Enchantress Beckoner

 

There need to be some fancy pick window either as drop list or pick 2 list, but it is possible.

Some companions could sport specialization for lore factor, like Ydwin Enchantress or Xoti Beckoner.

With pick 2 list aproach there could be even option to choose subclass or not. (one class appears twice as pure or specialized)

Some combos make more sense, other a bit less, the good part is that nobody is forced to pick "bad" combo.

Could be meshed with POE1 endings, like Eder could keep the faith and have Priest of Eothas avaiable. Or Pallegina could abandon duty.

Other idea: Each companions has 2 favorite classes, but could MC more freely. So Xoti is generally Priest or Monk, but could mc with paladins, chanter, fighters, rogues if players want to.

 

It is not a priority, but someday could happen.

 

Sideidea: when retraining companion move them all the way to picking class. Since making "mistake" is very easy, and otherwise is hard to fix.

Edited May 17, 2018 by evilcat

[Owlbear]

Some of those actually make sense. Good idea.

[JerekKruger]

Eder Any: Fighter, Rogue, Kind Wayferer

 

Priest of Eothas. Bonus points if he can only choose this option if he joined the Night Market.

[Melusina]

Did you have these options in BG2? No? Good.

[Crucis]

My problem is that there are not enough class options.  That is, there's only a single priest.  And only a single monk.  Oh, and BTW, they're the same companion!!!  (Oh, wait, Rekke can be a multiclassed fighter/monk.)  At the same time, there are four different characters who can be either single class or multiclass rogues.  Ditto for barbarians.  Jeez.

 

 

Did you have these options in BG2? No? Good.

 

I don't mind a limit of 3 options to each Companion or Sidekick.  I just wish that there was a more even distribution of the classes amongst the various 11 NPCs with their 3 options.

[evilcat]

Creating full companion (with relation interaction) is kinda hard.

Creating sidekick OE still need to find golden balance (put 10min text and maybe some personal quest) .

 

Creating extra box in pick class combo for companion menu is moderate easy.

Reusing assets is essencial skill.

 

Eder could materialize as Rogue, FIghter, Kind Wayferer, Priest of Eothas in doubt... or any combinations of these. And it will make sense.

And if for you does not, then... just pick combination which feels right for you.

Edited May 12, 2018 by evilcat

[Crucis]

Creating full companion (with relation interaction) is kinda hard.

Creating sidekick OE still need to find golden balance (put 10min text and maybe some personal quest) .

 

Creating extra box in pick class combo for companion menu is moderate easy.

Reusing assets is essencial skill.

 

Eder could materialize as Rogue, FIghter, Kind Wayferer, Priest of Eothas in doubt... or any combinations of these. And it will make sense.

And if for you does not, then... just pick combination which feels right for you.

 

I don't know.  It seems to me that at some point, some class options start to go against the basic nature of the character's personality.  Eder just doesn't seem like the sort of person who would be a priest or a paladin to me.  OTOH, I suspect that there are other characters whose personalities are more open or perhaps less well defined, and thus we can more easily see them as different classes.

 

Furthermore, I think that when one is constructing a companion NPC's personality and dialogues, you have to keep in mind the NPC's classes when writing that dialogue.  And if you have too many class options that seem to go beyond their basic character, it could make it difficult to impossible to see them saying certain things as one class option that they might with another, if too many class options were allowed.  For example, with Eder, he takes a rather relaxed view on religion and faith, and seems rather distrusting of people who are overly zealous about their religion and faith.  And I don't see how a character with that PoV could ever be a paladin or priest.  It would seem completely out of sync with Eder's basic personality.  I could see him as being more likely to be a fighter/ranger than a priest or paladin, or even a monk.  Or possibly a Fighter/Barbarian.

[Sotnik]

I can't see why companions cannot have sub-classes - except for Xoti.

Neither why the 1st level proficiencies, skills, attributes and abilities are locked. I understand that some characters cannot have, say, 10< Int, but making the companions completely boring from the character building point of view is a mistake.

[Crucis]

I can't see why companions cannot have sub-classes - except for Xoti.

Neither why the 1st level proficiencies, skills, attributes and abilities are locked. I understand that some characters cannot have, say, 10< Int, but making the companions completely boring from the character building point of view is a mistake.

 

Maybe the devs decided that players have enough to learn regarding subclassed characters without having them have to deal with subclassed companions as well.  To be honest, I'm not all that impressed with a LOT of the subclasses.  Seriously.

 

Just look at the Sharpshooter ranger subclass.  It sounds good in theory, but when you realize that you are still saddled with a pet that requires a lot of abilities to be half  decent so that you can avoid having the pet get nuked and the ranger getting stuck with Bonded Grief constantly, it becomes pretty damned clear that the Sharpshooter subclass is pretty damned lame.  Arguably, the Ghost Heart subclass can produce a better sharpshooter because it's not burdened with a pet that requires you to spend a bunch of ability points that really should be going towards creating a superior sniper.

 

Rangers should have never been automatically saddled with animal companions.  Animal companions should have been a selectable passive right at the start that you could choose to take or not take.  And in the choice of not taking the A/C, you'd be freed up to build a pet-less ranger who wouldn't be burdened with the cost of pet related abilities.  And if you did choose to take the A/C, well, that was your choice and your responsibility to build up said A/C.

 

I would have liked to see a monk subclass that was more weapon focused at the expense of unarmed damage (particularly fists) in some way. 

 

I could go on and on, but I think that I've said enough for now.