Companions thoughts...again

Simna

I have read a few discussions about the best companions for your party, but... why can't I/shouldn't I just swap members and take note of (was that good English?) several companions quests?

Twani

Lots of people do that. Make CHARNAME, take four members you like, and then use your sixth slot as a rotation to do everyone's quests (and then usually take on a certain TOB party member come the expansion).

The reason you won't want to do that with all five characters, though, is experience. Companions don't gain XP when they're not in your party, and even if you don't talk to them till you recruit them, they may not have enough XP to keep up with your CHARNAME. You don't want CHARNAME to be level 20 while your companions are level 13- they'll keep dying horribly to the 'level 20' mobs.

Stasis_Sword

It's good to try the different party members out for yourself.

3 things to consider:
1). As mentioned you want to recruit most of your main party early so they get the most xp.
2). Some party members will come to blows. You can avoid most of these by either doing a good run (good/neutral NPCs) or an evil run (evil/neutral NPCs).
3). Most of the real fleshing out of the characters requires keeping them for a while. You can "try" a character quickly, but to get the full experience takes a playthrough.

jacobtan

For XP, considering shared XP only,

1-person party, character gets 100% of the XP

2-person party, each character gets 50% of XP

3-person party, each character gets 33.3% of XP

4-person party, each character gets 25% of XP

5-person party, each character gets 20% of XP

6-person party, each character gets 16.7% of XP

Therefore,

A 5-person party advances about 20% faster than a 6-person party (20/16.7=1.2)

A 4-person party advances about 50% faster than a 6-person party (25/16.7=1.5)

A 3-person party advances about twice as fast as a 6-person party (33.3/16.7=2)

A 2-person party advances about thrice as fast as a 6-person party (50/16.7=3)

A 1-person party advances about six times as fast as a 6-person party (100/16.7=6)

IMO, the minimum party size for effective play is about 3. Assuming all dual/multiclass (2 classes) characters, you can have a total of 6 classes, 2 fighter, 2 mage, 1 cleric/druid and 1 rogue. The rest will be extras.

You can work out 6 classes using the NPCs, then once you have the 6 classes, all other NPCs can be rotated