What's your ideal companion party?

[Valyus]

Which companions are your favorite to have in your party? It can be for combat or story purposes.

For me I always need Shadowheart and Lae'zel in the party because I love the bickering between the two. I love Gale but the third slot can be swapped between Gale, Astarion, or Wyll. I find it difficult to justify Karlach only because it goes overboard with tankiness with essentially three tanks and an archers so I typically don't have her with.

[FunkyMonkey]

Karlach and Shadowheart. I do think Laezel has probably the best story of the companions but I just like Karlach's personality more. I like playing Paladins so usually I take Gale as my fourth member. Wyll, Jaheira or Halsin I pretty much never play with.

Originally posted by Oonayah:

Does anyone else here rearrange the party so they are always alphabetized?

I always place them in order of:
Frontline meatshield
Frontline damage dealer
Backline rogue
Backline mage

Classes can be pretty much whatever but those are the roles I like to fill.

[hamilcar602]

I have an (admittedly) irrational hangup about swapping party members in and out. I prefer to pick a lineup and just stick with it.

So... Lae'zel and Shadowheart are in almost every group I run, they are so fundamental to the plot. Plus, they will stay with you whether you play good or evil, and have the best reactivity of all of the characters to those choices.

Wyll is the character I have played the least. Third spot goes to Gale, Astarion, or Karlach, depending on my main character.

I really need to make a point of running Wyll and Karlach all the way through though, just to see their interactions.

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Originally posted by Valyus:

I truly wish this game would've implemented a swap out ability for conversations. Sometimes certain character with pathfinding accidentally trigger events because they were you in the trigger event zone and you can't swap them out. Really can't understand the reasoning behind not implementing such a feature. I feel that would've made the game more interesting and honestly increase the roleplaying potential.

Yeah, it was a bad mistake when they changed it so the player character gets most of the conversations.

The real solution would have been what you said ... let anyone in the party handle any conversation. Instead, they reacted to players being annoyed when their Tav was shut out of the conversation by just having Tav take over. It weakened the game rather than improving it.

I am personally hoping a modder finds a way to revert it back at some point.

[guard65]

Karlach for sure. With the +1 sword of burning (creates burning surfaces) completes her theme and has a great game combat effect.

[Mander]

Disclaimer: I play tactician as “standard” difficulty, so I tend to use the strongest party I can, with less attention to the whimsical side of the adventure. That said:

Shadowheart for the greatest majority of ACT 1/2 is a fixed feature in any party I roll. Once reached level 10, her utility diminishes in favor of as much crowd control as possible.
Lae’Zel is probably the companion I use the most overall, especially once I’ve obtained the githyianki “set” throughout ACT2/3.
Wyll is another strong contender for top party: the mix of “Pact of the Blade”, AoE and area denial spell, plus eldritch blast, makes him a very strong character.
Karlach joins in for Lae’Zel/Wyll when needed/narrative purposes.
Gale is my stay at camp wizard: tactician makes it so that every enemy focus on melee on Gale, so I keep him on the sideline.
Astarion becomes fertilizer as early as the blighted village, so… not much use for him.

[Annie Other]

Karlach, Shadowheart and Wyll until I reached Act 3.
Karlach, Jaheira and Wyll since then, but I swap from time to time.
For reasons of story, roleplaying, dialogs and such.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Valyus:

What's your ideal companion party?
Which companions are your favorite to have in your party? It can be for combat or story purposes.

For me I always need Shadowheart and Lae'zel in the party because I love the bickering between the two. I love Gale but the third slot can be swapped between Gale, Astarion, or Wyll. I find it difficult to justify Karlach only because it goes overboard with tankiness with essentially three tanks and an archers so I typically don't have her with.

Karlach
Because she is the heart of the party, even without a heart

Lazael
If you get past her surface you can discover a surprisingly gentle character who stands by her principles and morals

Astarion
For similar reasons like with any other once you get him to know better - but mostly because it is like him being the devil on the shoulder where Karlach is the angel

Minthara
Mysterious at first you get to see a surprising weak character with a stoic and simple personality - you can change her for the better, probably

Minsc
Mainly for Boo

[Mander]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Minthara
Mysterious at first you get to see a surprising weak character with a stoic and simple personality - you can change her for the better, probably

Or she can make the both of you much much worse. XD
My Durge (redemption path) loves her for that.

[Cyseal]

Top tier: Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Boo

Decent: Jaheira, Minthara, Minsc

Meh: Gale, Halsin, Karlach,

Horrible, terrible, annoying: Astarion, Wyll

Sadly, most of the Origin characters are not good for me. No halflings, no dwarves, no gnomes, no half-orcs. It's just humans and elves and their breed. Horribly boring.

[Jaeleth]

Originally posted by DragynDance:

I open up the game four times and use a multiplayer lan connection to make a fully customized party.

Now, that's... Interesting.

I never played multiplayer so I don't know the way the game runs. Do you have to enter each one of those 4 instances of the game to make your turn? How you actually move the 4 party members? And how does the PC copes with 4 instances of the game running on the same machine? Or do you have 4 PC's running them?

[Jaeleth]

Originally posted by Valyus:

Which companions are your favorite to have in your party? It can be for combat or story purposes.

For me I always need Shadowheart and Lae'zel in the party because I love the bickering between the two. I love Gale but the third slot can be swapped between Gale, Astarion, or Wyll. I find it difficult to justify Karlach only because it goes overboard with tankiness with essentially three tanks and an archers so I typically don't have her with.

Depends on the type of action, but I tend to keep Astarion all the time because thief... Except on the most brutish encounters. My end game party is Astarion, Lae'zel and Gale, with me a Paladin. Usually I switch Gale and Shadowheart and, sometimes, Jaheira or Wyll, according to type of enemies (or quests / dialogues) during the rest of the game, and Lae'zel with Karlach. I never use Halsin unless for fodder to Orin's hostage (lol). I'd like to have a reason to use Minsc but, by the time I get him in the party, there's not really much left to do...

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Jaeleth:

Originally posted by DragynDance:

I open up the game four times and use a multiplayer lan connection to make a fully customized party.

Now, that's... Interesting.

I never played multiplayer so I don't know the way the game runs. Do you have to enter each one of those 4 instances of the game to make your turn? How you actually move the 4 party members? And how does the PC copes with 4 instances of the game running on the same machine? Or do you have 4 PC's running them?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015842445

Summary: you create additional companions / stories by launching the game in multiple instances. Once the game runs and you have the companions and stories you want, you just close the additional instances and play entirely normal, like you would do with singleplayer.

Any additional multiplayer character -aka avatar- can be stored away, provided they are not essential to the story. Essential to the story are origin characters including Dark Urge.

That means if you make the game run that way with two origin characters you get to see separated cutscenes unique to the origin stories as well. You get the benefits of playing the origin character, just that the origin character can exist next to another in a singleplayer playthrough.

Originally posted by Valyus:

What's your ideal companion party?
Which companions are your favorite to have in your party? It can be for combat or story purposes.

For me I always need Shadowheart and Lae'zel in the party because I love the bickering between the two. I love Gale but the third slot can be swapped between Gale, Astarion, or Wyll. I find it difficult to justify Karlach only because it goes overboard with tankiness with essentially three tanks and an archers so I typically don't have her with.

This thread fits the topic
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/7004881118891613495/

[Popsicles]

A party of 6. Never liked the 4 man party.

[CelestiaLMaxia☘]

tbh all of them

[seeker1]

A party of six lets me take a nice combo of origin chars, "post origin" chars like Halsin/Minthara/Jaheira/Minsc, Alfira, (thanks mod), and some support hirelings. As especially by Act 3 picking your roster for each quest starts to require more choices.

The other cooler thing about a larger party is you'll experience more of the inter companion banters since you're bringing more along.