Companions vs custom characters

[Lostedge]

What will I miss if I create custom characters and dont use the premade companions?

The premade characters just suck, and the classes are so weak. The custom characters enable to play on the hardest difficulty but dont have any dialogue, custom quests or personality.

[Bozz 💀]

They are quests you have to do with companions, you can still do their own quests.
You only miss some comments they make during important discussions and the camp chatting. not that much honestly, and yeah most of them suck, only 3 can get decent in high difficulty

[Duder]

You'll miss a lot. Companions have multiple quests, not to mention all of the dialogue when doing quests. You could still do the companion quests, but the game will be much more dull, and you'll miss out on story.
And they don't suck. Every class has it's advantages. If this is your first time playing this game, you wont want to play on the hardest difficulty.
I've been playing these RtwP games a long time, and even I play on just the Hard setting.
Have you played RtwP games similar to this? Pillars of Eternity series, Baldurs, Dragon Age etc.?

[Zzyl_tsw]

+1 to duder.
a) You will not want to start at the hardest difficulty (where you need a lot of meta knowledge to stand a chance)
b) The companions, even with no respec, are clearly good enough for medium-high difficulty

[Duder]

Originally posted by Zzyl_tsw:

+1 to duder.
a) You will not want to start at the hardest difficulty (where you need a lot of meta knowledge to stand a chance)
b) The companions, even with no respec, are clearly good enough for medium-high difficulty

I'm on Hard and they're great.
I just don't like the sisters. Two new companions, same class basically. And an overpowered one at that.

[Immortal Reaver]

I finished Unfair with story companions. Even had them singleclassed (only Octavia is Wiz/Rouge/AT) and with no respecing. I relied on buffs and CC more, and had to reloaded few more times than when I had Valerie as TSS/Bard/DD/EK, so it is possible.

[Frostfeather]

I've played through countless times with all hired characters. You can still cycle companions in to do their quests, so you don't really miss anything.

And yes, most of the companions are exceptionally poor at first. They mostly also have potential, but that doesn't help in the early game.

[razvedchiki]

you can recruit mercs and park the npcs at your capital assigning them councilor roles, only using them if you want to do their quests.

[Radiac]

I play favorites and only use certain canned companions. My MC is a Rogue Knife Master, so in the early going, Val and Amiri are plenty good enough to be his "tank and flank" helpers. That said, I eventually stopped playing Amiri. this happened right when she went AWOL to deal with the Numerians during Twice-Born Warlord, and I switched to a custom I made, a human Monk. I made like 5 custom mercs at level 1, one of whom is the teams main healer, a custom human cleric of Erastil I made. The Animal and Community domains are basically both OP, regardless of what spells you get. Animal companions are "da bomb" and the Protect the Hearth ability is AMAZING in boss fights. So I stopped using Linzi fairly early on. I've been keeping Val on the starting 6 for the most part, though sometimes I have to make a decision to drop somebody in favor of a companion that HAS to be there for their quest, so sometimes Val get's benched.

I have no idea how the Kineticist class even works, and don't want to go online to figure it out (thanks for making that class SUPER well-described in the game itself, devs, especially on a character that has some weird presto-change-o twin sister BS added in), so I basically never use Kanerah and Kalikke, though I do keep them around and do their quests. The Sweet Teeth alone are worth it for comic relief, and one of their quests is actually somewhat helpful in doing other quests. One of the "give the Sweet Teeth some busy work" subquests is to send them out to weed the Narlmarches. When they do that one, they meet "this nice old lady" who is the Swamp Witch, and they give you a ton of the herbs etc that she wants to complete her quest, so thanks, kids! .

When I got to the place where you can rescue Harrim and Jaethal, I took Harrim and told Jaethal to get lost. I don't like Jaethal, I don't trust Jaethal, and I don't want to figure out how Inquisitors work either, so I'll pass. I'm not terribly fond of Harrim's defeatist nihilism either, but he's basically harmless and makes a decent High Priest, though you have to remember that the advice he gives you is basically the opposite of what you want if you're a sane person interested in building a safe and prosperous kingdom.

I rescued Octavia and Reg and give them both a home, but never really used them, except for their own quests, and as kingdom advisors when necessary. Octavia, built as an Arcane Trickster, is probably about 95% as good as my custom wizard, looking back, I just dislike that she's a Transmutation specialist and would prefer a Universalist. Reg, the Magus, is another class that has mechanics I don't want to try to figure out how to properly use in combat (you get to cast a touch spell and attack with a sword, how does that work? And why am I not just casting the Shocking Grasp normally and attacking the Touch AC, which is lower, in the first place?).

I recruited Ekundayo and Jubilost. I use Ekun in the travel team, and would use Jubilost if he weren't an Alchemist, which is another class I'm only vaguely able to really understand. I'm pretty sure you just hurl bombs as much as possible and avoid the wasted rounds where you mutagen yourself. Is that how it's supposed to work? I DID start him one time when we fought the Spawn of Rovagug, just for the Holy Bombs, which worked like a charm. That and Ekun using the sweet Holy longbow I got from Kimo Tavon. Ekun is honestly my team's heavy hitter, especially with that bow you find in Trobold. Of all the prefab companions, Ekundayo is closest to perfect in terms of his combat abilities, and he makes a good Warden or Minister. If you decide not to use ANY of the prefab companions, I would recommend making one custom archery ranger like Ekundayo. Maybe give him the Smilodon as a pet instead of the dog, but they're both really good.

So I usually roll with my main character plus like 2 of the prefab companions and three of my customs, the two prefabs being Ekundayo and Valerie, usually. I made 5 customs at level 1, a cleric, a wizard, a paladin, a sorcerer, and a monk. I have never actually promoted the paladin or the sorcerer to the travel team, but I am using the sorcerer as my Curator, since I didn't pick up Jaethal. I should probably point out that I am using a mod that removes the -4 that customs get to advisor rolls.