SoD NPCs list

[KiLLi4N]

I can't find anywhere a complete list of potential party members in SoD and I hate to play the game without planning my party setup. I met Minsc, Dynaheir, Viconia, Safana, Corwin and Glint. Is there anyone else available (besides M'Khiin and Vogiln) ?

[KiLLi4N]

OK, found a good list in the end here: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/50175/available-companions

"At the beginning you can recruit: Safana, Minsc, Dynaheir and Viconia

Edwin, Baeloth, Neera, Rasaad, Dorn, Jaheira and Khalid become available as the game progresses. The new npc's are also obviously available."

[Trickle]

I've put my estimation on how far through SOD you are before you can pick up each NPC. It is not 100% complete as I do not remember encountering the Shaman. At all.
*Safana: 0% Aparantly if there is no other thief bar Imoen in the Sarevok battle you get her right away in the prologue dungeon as a 6th slot. Otherwise you get her 6% in (about 20K x5 exp in the prologue).
*Corwin: Female archer. 6%
*Minsc+ Dyna: 6%
*Viconia. You get 5 steps into chapter 8 [right next to a 6/7000gp bag of holding purchase option. I say this because I genuinely didn't know how I was going to carry stuff until this point].
*Glint (cleric/theif): 6%
*Edwin and Baeloth: 6%

Guessing on % from here:
*Jaheira and the Skald: 25%
*Dorn: Can sidetrack to pick up (I would assume). 25%
*Neera: From the conversation it looked as if she was available at about 40% mark.
*Khalid: Not sure if you can pick him up right away as soon as you get to him same time as *Neera.

As you can see there are some major problems in planning a party.
In addition exp can be a problem. I was (and Viconia, the only other character to go every step of the way since Nakshel) 280exp below cap at the end.

I thought I'd done a good job of completing all quests bar NPC quests [eg went underneath the castle in an earlier chapter etc] (couldn't find one of Neera's items etc) until I looked at the Beamdog forums and found out how much I'd missed. E.g No spectacles.

So don't count on the NPCs you pick up hitting cap.

edit: looks like the spoiler tags destroyed my formatting. Removing /list

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Replacing Imoen with Safana is the biggest annoyance of all. The game does not check whether Imoen was a wizard or even the only wizard in the party. As I didn't have other final saves to jump into SOD quickly, getting Safana instead of Imoen hit me like a fallen tree. Makes you think whether anyone at Beamdog even knew how popular it is to dual-class Imoen to mage in BGEE and not have Dynaheir in the party?

Should not have been too difficult to offer you a Flaming Fist wizard companion for the prologue, perhaps one with a few thief levels like Imoen to be similarly useful. So much hassle instead of taking away Imoen a bit later when other companions are available.

But hey, why worry about a missing arcane caster? There's the new shiny "Story Mode" button for a dumbed down playthrough. No need to worry about character and party building. Simply press the button and go killing dragons.