Sorry for all the questions, I think my attempted stat-changing is almost accomplished... I found the stat spreadsheet in data/public/main/stats; should I just edit that directly to change companion attributes? Or is there a different mod directory where I can make changes without altering the original game file?
When I created a stats folder in data/mods/main and edited things there, I got a message about the mod being invalid when I loaded the actual game- and none of the changes were reflected, anyways.
You should edit Data\Public\Main\Stats\Generated\Data\Characters.txt, or use the macros in Characters.xlsm to re-generate Characters.txt.