What's the point of our companions perks?

[Gandamula]

There are several points that I still don't fully understand regarding the advantages that companions have, especially if they are in our group, for example, if there is a member with a high level in rogueri, does the whole party benefit from their perks? It's that, apart from being a sout, surgeon, quartmester or engeniers, I don't see if it are in use.
And in a caravan? The advantage of having good attributes and perks like scout are nullified if he is quartmester? Should I set them as quartmesters or scouts?

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Yes roguery is for party leader, so it only works for them if they lead a party, no idea if it does anything for incidental caravan fights, would guess they get loot and covert it into gold, but who knows?
For the Caravan, the party leader is all roles so they will use scouting and any other things from other roles.
For people in your party, sadly they can be only 1 role, so aside from the main character, INT high character get screwed out of being super useful. But if they become a party leader they can fill all roles, sadly it will take while to get going, other then steward.

Additional uses for companions are as a captain, if they gave high bow or xbow, put them in a group with those troops and they will give them their perks. It's not very needed in campaign because of so many family members, but in sandbox they are needed. That said I don't recommend sandbox until they add family options as having more clan members is an important part of the game and omitting it is a pure downgrade.

 

[ldgarrett]

I can confirm parts of that.

Heroes leading a caravan, family or companion, gain all the Party Leader skill gains -except Steward- and all the individual gains related to actions and fights. So they get Riding or Athletics and Scouting enroute, Trade for their market activities, Roguery for selling off prisoners, Tactics Leadership Medicine for fights, and whichever of their combat skills they are equipped for and is called in the auto-resolution of the fight.

One of the more amusing test observations I have made was last summer in a no-faction Aserai-origin run where I put "Lord" Attributes and Skills on top of a Spicevendor companion and sent her out in full battle gear with a caravan of the best quality. Started out with about 60 Scouting, Tactics, and Leadership (roughly. I simply mirrored what many of the existing Lords of clans get.) She already had moderately good Crossbow, OneHanded, Athletics and of course Trading. **SHE WAS ABSOLUTE MURDER ON DESERT BANDITS.** Intentionally based in the southernmost Aserai town, which has an absurd number of hideouts/spawns on all three routes in and out, her caravan took contact at least twice every run in or out of homebase. She gained 10 more ranks in Tactics, about 50 in Roguery, and a fair bit of Medicine, from all the fights. Amazingly lasted game-years, although limped in with less than a handful of survivors a few times.

I was so impressed that I'd actually suggest that in dynastic play, your might tailor the education of the clan's second generation daughters to be Killer Caravan Commanders... but of course, only if you have a scheme to keep caravans out of wars (like a no-faction run).

 

[Tryvenyal]

I wonder, if I don't have all roles assigned in my party, for example engeener, the partyleader gets Engeneering XP during siege. But I wonder, do I get the bonus from perks labeled as "Engeneer"? I do actually doubt it!

 

[ldgarrett]

Can't say, re: Engineer as I've not investigated it in any detail. But a Party Leader in a party with no assigned Scout does apply all their Scouting perks.

 

[ObaDoo]

I wonder, if I don't have all roles assigned in my party, for example engeener, the partyleader gets Engeneering XP during siege. But I wonder, do I get the bonus from perks labeled as "Engeneer"? I do actually doubt it!

if you don't assign roles then the party leader assumes all of the roles

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I wonder, if I don't have all roles assigned in my party, for example engeener, the partyleader gets Engeneering XP during siege. But I wonder, do I get the bonus from perks labeled as "Engeneer"? I do actually doubt it!

You will get any engineer perks active unless you set another party member as engineer, unless of course there is a bug, which is always possible and easy to miss. There is some bug or misunderstood function where you would get engineer exp even if you had an engineer, as to other party leader besieging with you, can't remember if it was ever clarified.

 

[Tryvenyal]

You will get any engineer perks active unless you set another party member as engineer, unless of course there is a bug, which is always possible and easy to miss. There is some bug or misunderstood function where you would get engineer exp even if you had an engineer, as to other party leader besieging with you, can't remember if it was ever clarified.

if you don't assign roles then the party leader assumes all of the roles

Great!

 

[Gandamula]

But about caravans, the logical perk is quartmester, it's related to trade values, but if we assign the scout or the cirugian to the trader, will he/her develop these skills faster, without losing trader skills, or without disabling trader perks?

 

[Earth Dragon]

Forgive me if I didn’t see this said, but to deploy companions on missions, they have stat prerequisite to be sent out. So if you are helping track down marauders or something and choose to have a companion do it, they usually need some combination of leadership, tactics, Roguery, and scouting to be the group lead to knock the assignment out.

It’s been a spell since I’ve done this, and I can’t recall if they also improve those stats upon return (if not, they need to), but it does make finding certain companions with particular skills a bonus, even if you plan on staying “lead engineer” to have them knock out extra missions and get renown rolling in faster if desired

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

But about caravans, the logical perk is quartmester, it's related to trade values, but if we assign the scout or the cirugian to the trader, will he/her develop these skills faster, without losing trader skills, or without disabling trader perks?

Not really, roguery increases loot and thus money (NPC parties transform every non trade good item or horse instantly into money, and all parties net you 10% of their money if above 10k), and tactics help survivavility, if only slightly. And about assigning roles to caravan (or any party leader for that matter) wont have any impact on learning rates, positive nor negative; roles only exist to indicate the game which character gets used to calculate skills effects, so unless you have multiple NPCs in a single party the leader will carry with them all.

 

[Ironking]

I would like to add a question to this:

What is the point in assigning roles to your character if he/she automatically takes unassigned roles anyway?
Is there a hidden bonus I am missing?

 

[ObaDoo]

I would like to add a question to this:

What is the point in assigning roles to your character if he/she automatically takes unassigned roles anyway?
Is there a hidden bonus I am missing?

they gain skills faster in said roll

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I would like to add a question to this:

What is the point in assigning roles to your character if he/she automatically takes unassigned roles anyway?
Is there a hidden bonus I am missing?

I don't believe there is any benefit or point to it. In fact in 1.6.5 beta it shows on the clan party screen that the leader is the roles by default now, which is a nice change. I actually only looked juts now to check because of this thread, it looks good!

But about caravans, the logical perk is quartmester, it's related to trade values, but if we assign the scout or the cirugian to the trader, will he/her develop these skills faster, without losing trader skills, or without disabling trader perks?

I think you're confusing trade with quartermaster/steward, just like some old in game tool tips do. Trade skill will improve thier profits.
But for the caravan, AFAIK you can't put any other NPCs in the party with them, so they will assume all roles and gain all skill they can, depending on FP/growth rates allowing. People have said the caravan leader won't gain steward skill though, which is portably an oversight as the troops do consume food daily, which is the proc for steward skill gain. As for if the caravan master can use the steward perks.... I don't know. I haven't made a caravan in awhile.

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

I would like to add a question to this:

What is the point in assigning roles to your character if he/she automatically takes unassigned roles anyway?
Is there a hidden bonus I am missing?

So you take the role instead of the higher one I think.

 

[Earth Dragon]

Edit: I realize the question was what’s the point of assigning the role to your character, not another character. I’m which case there is none, and never was, other then to de-select someone else because perhaps you were able to afford so points in the parent or the skill itself.

The assigned member is who’s bonus you are getting in that category. If you have a scout companion with 100 scouting with lots of bonuses, and your cunning and scouting have no points invested in them, you are better off pushing that assignment off to the companion.

Same goes for Surgeon or Engineer. If you have someone whose got plenty of skill levels already invested there and you you have little to none, it can be of a better benefit to just let them do it. There are only so many skill points you can spread around personally. Being a great engineer, surgeon and scout is difficult when you are also trying to max out trade, Blacksmithing, crossbow, pole arm, etc.

Early on, levels are flying and you are able to throw points around easily, but once you hit the teens, it can really slow down

 

[DB Coper]

Stop being a sourpuss, the perks are fun, even if they have no correlation to gameplay, it's still fun to pretend they do.

 

[Antaeus]

I think you're confusing trade with quartermaster/steward, just like some old in game tool tips do. Trade skill will improve thier profits.
But for the caravan, AFAIK you can't put any other NPCs in the party with them, so they will assume all roles and gain all skill they can, depending on FP/growth rates allowing. People have said the caravan leader won't gain steward skill though, which is portably an oversight as the troops do consume food daily, which is the proc for steward skill gain. As for if the caravan master can use the steward perks.... I don't know. I haven't made a caravan in awhile.

Yep, other parties gain/utilise all appropriate perks. Caravan leaders used to gain steward, so I think this is a glitch in recent patches - in fact, I think steward is struggling for war party leaders too.

So I tend to keep specialist companions in my party - those with one high skill in one area like scouting or medicine. The more companions with high specialist areas I have in my party, the better I can focus on the perks that matter to me, like leadership, tactics, and fighting skills. I kind of ignore most captain perks, because I put my companions in their own group.

Companions who have a broad set of skills, I see as future governors. So I put them in trade caravans early game so they get a good broad base of perks that might benefit a town. By mid game most caravan masters will end up at 100-150 trade and hopefully some good side interests like medicine, scouting and some basic combat skills.

 

[Gandamula]

What I wanted understand is if worth having a companion with good rougery stats, if there are advantages to the amount of loot when we attacking a village or caravan, or whether it helps convert prisoners and get higher ransoms. I thought that the attributes of the companions in our party who are not assigned to any of the four roles could complement the attributes of the leader.

Basically, a mechanism could be implemented to add all the individual attributes of each Party member, even those without a role or who have a role that apparently does not use those attributes. If the scout is a night traveler,and the leader is also a traveler, but a day one , the party should have both advantages.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

They really need to find a way of explaining and displaying information about stuff like this in-game.