Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Customize companion ability scores at level 1

Just a minor change I think would work very well is the ability to tweak the starting ability scores of your companions when you meet them.
Specifically, the stats they start with aren't at all optimal. The "Blade of Frontiers" can barely swing his own sword. It also takes some options away from you, like making Lae'Zel an Eldritch Knight which I at least think is the most fitting subclass for her.

-1 i can understand the desire to change companions ability scores, and normally id be pro more player choice, but i dont think its a good idea from a gameplay decision standpoint - if you can just adjust ability scores of companions/origin characters (ive got the impression reading through the forums that the 'mercs' mentioned as recruitable will likely be customizable so to fill in gaps in your 4-6 person party if there arent companions the players likes/wants to use during their playthroughs) upon recruitment (or for origin characters upon pc origin character creation) as the player wants i would argue works against the whole concept of origin characters or varied companions, bc you could just adjust stats to whats 'best' for your party and effectively 'waste' resources larian has devoted to creating these unique characters with their own plotline/narrative in addition to the shared tadpole plot (custom pcs still get no love in this regard, atleast from what ive seen in the ea so far). i wouldnt make a big deal of it if larian implements such functionality (others on the forums have even requested the ability to change classes, domains, skill/weapon proficiencies, etc) although i likely wont use such tools during my playthroughs as i would want to learn each companion i come across, their strengths/weaknesses and how their class/stats/abilities would fit within the greater context of an adventuring party, but i just think that at this stage of ea that there are other priorities that larian should first consider before going back to their origin/companion characters and modifying the current game mechanics to allow for companion respecs - i would also argue that being able to arbitrarily respec companions could also have some general game balance issues as now you are rolling in with what i would assume are more min/maxed inclined characters. post lvl 1 tho - have at it regarding multiclassing or lvling choices - i just think the level one stats for companions should be set. (altho i too wouldnt mind in particular if larian themselves gave SH a dex buff - a 9 dex is tough for many character concepts)

I don't know if they need to be adjustable but can they please make more sense.

Shadowheart a great example, why would a Trickery Domain Cleric have a Dexterity of 9. She seems to be missing a point so adjust that to 10 and I would be happier with her. Just do a second pass on them and tweak the numbers.

+1 I think both sides of this debate can have their cake and eat it too.

I think that when a companion joins your party for the first time, you should be able to pick 1 of 2 options:

A. The character's stats go unchanged, or how they were originally designed.

B. You can customize the characters attributes.

This way, player's that want to play with the true characters are free to do so. You can play the characters with all their quirks and flaws as designed.

It also let's players that want to get more experimental with their builds, enjoy the storylines of the companions.

It doesn't have to be only one way or the other.

Probably better to let you pick them. Its not like picking character attributes is not part of d&d, no matter how attributes are generated they are distributed by the player in an optimal way. For the example of shadowheart, dex is a secondary stat for a medium armor cleric, on par with constitution. Thus it makes no sense for her to have 9 dex, and no player would pick this on tabletop or otherwise. So even if the devs intention is to simulate rolled stats (which is itself odd given they are all point buy stats just distrubted badly) they fail to do this even then since a player would have put her strenght or cha roll into that dex instead.

Of course it seems all the companions simply have the default suggested stats for their class under their racial modifiers. Shadowhearts wisdom would probably be 15 right now if the default half elf +1s did not include one being into wis by default. This leads me to believe they have simply not set what the companion stats are really meant to be yet, have always intended to let players pick but did not implement it yet, or intend on adding a respec option at some point.

Still important to nag larian about this though since shadowheart is not the only companion that could do with some tweaking.