Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods Guide: Editing companion starting properties

Using .xlsm files

Xlsm files are only used to generate .txt files. The engine only reads information from these files, not from xlsm. The advantage of xlsm files is that they give a better overview about the data you can use to define stats, they facilitate comparing things and they write the .txt lines for you, so you only have to fill in information in Excel cells (so it might be easier for you). The disadvantage is some kind of unhandiness: the lines are quite long and you can’t profit from the functions of wordpad which highlights identical units on double-click for example (which might be helpful sometimes); furthermore you have to generate ALL .txt files every time you make changes (just one click and waiting for a couple of seconds but it can be obstructive, especially when you want to experiment).

The developers have stored all xlsm files in our game folders (Steam\SteamApps\common\ or the appropriate GOG directory):
Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Editor\Templates\Stats\Main\ and …\Stats\Shared\

First create two folders on a location of your choice where you want to work on the files: create Main and Shared.
Now copy all files from …\Stats\Main\ – except the Generated folder – to your Main folder. And all files from …\Stats\Shared\ - except the Generated folder – to your Shared folder.

We will edit three files:

Character.xlsm from Shared
SkillSet.xlsm from Shared
Equipment.xlsm from Main

Stats

Open the Character.xlsm file of your Shared folder and search for this entry in the Name column:

Henchman_Madoc_Paladin

The other companions are right below.

Let’s go through the relevant columns:

Using column:
It’s not necessary for our purposes but it might be interesting to know:
The xlsm file contains entries for certain characters or character types and they contain parent entries (they have the form _[Parentname]). They define basic stats which may be used for certain character types (filled in the Using column). If a character ‘child’ entry (Henchman_Madoc_Paladin for example) contains the same information type as the parent entry (for example: Intelligence) the parent data gets ignored: the stats don’t sum up. We will define all stats in the specific companion lines.

Act part column:
Defines the level of characters. Madora starts at level three.
The developers use this act-system to easily create enemies with higher stats without the need to write a new character stats entry. That means: some stats will increase (e. g. attributes and max health), depending on the act part (shown as level ingame). Therefore the attribute values of Madora you see in game the first time you meet her differ from the attribute values you see here. Act part 3 adds 1 point to every attribute, Level 5 adds 2, Level 7 adds 3 and so on. So Madora has in fact 8 strength (instead of 7), 5 dexterity (instead of 4), 5 intelligence (instead of 4), 7 constitution (instead of 6), 6 speed (instead of 5) and 5 perception (instead of 4). To make things easier we change the act part for our companions from “3” to “1”, so the nominal attribute values in the .xlsm and .txt files for Madora are equal to her factual values:

-->Change the value in the act part column to: 1

Madora will level up to your level as soon as you recruit her. Note: leveling up in game is not the same as ‘leveling’ characters up by defining the act part.

Now we can change her attributes. We are fair, right? Madora has spent 6 attribute points (assuming 5 as base value). But since we’ve made her level 1 she will gain 1 attribute point at level 2. Therefore we have 5 points for her to spend at the start.

Now change the value of every attribute as you like it.

I recommend replacing all attribute values with value 5 first and then distributing 5 attribute points similar to the character creation.

For the other companions we have the following amount of attribute points to spend:
Jahan: 6 (obviously one more)
Wolgraff: 6 (one more)
Bairdotr: 5

Abilities

Now let’s change abilities. Go to the ability columns. They start with RogueLore (= Scoundrel), red color (other categories of abilities have different colors). There are a few more abilities than you have ingame (probably relicts from an earlier state/idea of the game); ignore them.

As we see Madora has invested 7 ability points: 1 point in BodyBuilding, 3 points in TwoHanded (1 point for value 1 + 2 points for value 2; note: every level of an ability increases the amount of points we have to invest by 1) and 3 points in WarriorLore (= Man-at-Arms). But since we’ve made her level 1 we have to subtract 2 points for two levelups she will have. So, 5 points to spend.

The ability names often differ from their ingame names. I give you a list for all abilities (ingame names in brackets):



Remove the numbers from all ability cells of the character and spend 5 fresh points.

Do the same with all other companions. Their ability points to spend are:
Jahan: 5
Wolgraff: 7
Bairdotr: 6

Note: There are reasons why Bairdotr and Wolgraff have more ability points. Bairdotr’s sixth point is the Tenebrium ability. Keep Tenebrium and spend 5 points. Wolgraff probably got more points as compensation for his story related (non-combat) thief abilities and/or for reasons of plausibility. Editing companions is not story-conform in all aspects. You may keep the thief abilities and spend 5 points or spend 5 points for Wolgraff and spend 7 points for Madora, Jahan or Bairdotr in case you make one of them a scoundrel; or always 5 points.

Talents

Last task in this file: adding talents. There is just one column, called Talents.

As you see talents are separated by a semicolon. Remove all talents from the character and add your talents. There are 2 we may choose. The third talent will come from the talent point at level 3. Be aware of talent requirements. And be fair. You can find the requirements in: Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Editor\Templates\Stats\Shared\Requirements.xlsm (thanks to SniperHF for reminding me). Or ingame, of course.

The names often differ from their ingame names. Here’s a list (ingame names in brackets):



Madora has the ResistDead (Combeback Kid) talent. If you don’t assign it here you won’t be able to choose it unless you fulfill the conditions.

At last: save the file.

Skills

Now open the SkillSet.xlsm file.

Search for the Henchman entries in the SkillSet column. They start with Henchman_Jahan. As you see every skill gets an own cell in a new line. We can delete lines with skills we don’t like or just replace the skill with a new one.
IMPORTANT: Do not remove Projectile_StaffOfJahan from Jahan and Projectile_StaffOfMagus from the other companions. Otherwise you won’t be able to shoot magic projectiles from staffs.

Let’s look at Jahan:

Jahan has 6 skills when you hire him. So you may choose up to 6 skills for him. But be aware of requirements for skills (ability and character level). So probably you will take less than six.

You can find the low level skills at the top of the SkillSet.xlsm file. The Character_Creation entry contains all skills we know from character creation. It starts with Cone_DivineLight.

To identify each skill you can have a look into the skillsets for the preset classes, they follow the Character_Creation skillset. The first one is Class_Fighter. As you see: the knockdown fist must be called Target_StunStart.

If you are interested in more skills names you can have a look into:
Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Editor\Templates\Stats\Shared\SkillData.xlsm or (which is less confusing) in the corresponding .txt file: Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Editor\Templates\Stats\Shared\Generated\Data\SkillData.txt.
Note: enemies and summons have their own versions of skills. You see that from the skill names.

The other companions have the following amount of skills:
Madora: 5
Bairdotr: 3
Wolgraff: 4

You may orientate more on the combat ‘class’ (mage, ranger, rogue, warrior) than the number of skills they originally have.

So, delete and add your skills for all companions and save the file.

Equipment

To give companions armor and weapons (they will equip them if they can) open the Equipment.xlsm file (remember: we need the Equipment file from MAIN, not from SHARED!):

The first entry is for Madora. You can find the other companions right below. Be aware of Bairdotr having two equipment entries: Henchman_Bairdotr_Ranger and Henchman_Bairdotr_Ranger_SAC. We have to edit the first one. The second one is for her double.

As you see every item gets an own cell in the same line as the Equipment name entry. The item names are the item stat names (not their ingame names).

Items have their own stats; they are defined in other xlsm/txt files. We have to open them to find out the names. To keep things simple we choose items that we know from character creation. Their stats are stored in:

Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Editor\Templates\Stats\Shared\Generated\Equipment.txt (we can’t open two xlsm files with identical names at the same time, so we choose the .txt file).

As you see we have two Equipment files: one in the subfolders of Shared and one of Main. Don’t be confused. Just open the file:

The first two equipment entries in Equipment.txt from Shared are called MaleHero and FemaleHero. We’re interested in the following entries. They define the starting equipment for the preset classes you choose in character creation. The first one is:

new equipment "Class_Fighter"
add equipmentgroup
add equipment entry "WPN_Sword_A_Training_Sword"
add equipmentgroup
add equipment entry "WPN_SourceHunter_Shield"
add equipmentgroup
add equipment entry "GRN_Grenade_Molotov_A"
add equipmentgroup
add equipment entry "POTION_Minor_Healing_Potion"
add equipmentgroup
add equipment entry "SCROLL_Resurrect_1"
add equipmentgroup
add equipment entry "CONT_Backpack_A_SourceHunter"

If you are interested in one of the items just copy the name of the item (after add equipment entry) into a new cell of your character in Equipment.xlsm or replace the name in one of the cells. If we want to give the one handed Training Sword to Madora we copy this name: WPN_Sword_A_Training_Sword without the quotation marks.

Delete and add what you want. If you want to add other items: you can find the names of most of them in the following files:

Armor.xlsm
Object.xlsm
Potion.xlsm (food, drinks, potions etc.)
Shield.xlsm
Weapon.xlsm

They are stored in
Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Editor\Templates\Stats\Shared\ . Or look into the corresponding .txt files in: Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Editor\Templates\Stats\Shared\Generated\Data\

Save the file and that’s it.

Generating .txt files and location for the files

The last thing we have to do is generate the .txt files and copy them to the right locations. The engine prefers our files (i. e. the information) towards the .pak files.

First go to your Main folder and open the All.xlsm file. Then click on Generate all. It might take a while. Don’t be scared when you see files opening and closing.

Then close the file and have a look into your Main folder: now you see a folder called Generated there. It contains all .txt files with information from the xlsm files. We will only need the Equipment.txt file from here.
Note: If you change things in the xlsm files and generate all again you will overwrite all .txt files you have in the Generated folder.

Now go to your Shared folder, open the All.xlsm file and generate all. We will only need the SkillSet.txt file in Generated and the Character.txt file in Generated\Data\.

Now we copy:
Equipment.txt from Main to: Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Public\Main\Stats\Generated\

SkillSet.txt from Shared to: Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Public\Shared\Stats\Generated\

Character.txt from Shared to: Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data\Public\Shared\Stats\Generated\Data\

If some of the folders don’t exist create them.

As far as I know it does not matter if we store the files in the subfolders of Main or Shared as long as the folder structure is correct. But we keep the order.

And that’s it!

If you have questions or success leave your comments here.