Companion management crisis!!!!

like00111

I grow so fond of my party and the people that I have made it to be, now whenever someone wants to join my party I find it very hard removing someone.

It's especially hard when someone wants to join due to a quest. Does anyone else have this problem?! I grow too attached!!!

kcwise

I sympathize with your plight! One thing that can help is to collect them all and drop them at an Inn somewhere. That way, you at least aren't abandoning them to the terrors of the wild.

Jarrakul

I feel you, but I tend to settle into a party I like and ignore everyone new who comes along. It's hard sometimes, though.

Heindrich

In BG1 I tend to ignore everyone except those I intend to recruit. Better to pretend that they aren't there are rejecting somebody perfectly suitable for the party.

In BG2 I tend to rotate party members because the quests are much more linked to specific characters (though apart from the EE characters, you don't actually need quest characters to do the quests.) I make up excuses for why somebody goes off and does their own thing for a while, or sits out an expedition. It kinda makes sense really, the world doesn't revolve around Charname, your companions got other things to do as well.

Tresset

Heindrich said:

It kinda makes sense really, the world doesn't revolve around Charname, your companions got other things to do as well.

Pff... The NPCs make that abundantly clear to me in the "headless chicken" stage of SoA. You know... that time when you have formed your party and then they all suddenly start to whine that you are not doing their quests so you run around frantically trying to placate them.

Buttercheese

I usually plan out my party beforehand to avoid this.
But other than that, I found having four fixed party members and the fifth one to be exchangeable for what ever quest needs to be done helpful.

st_live418

I had one play through that I made it a point to use as many of the NPCs as I could. While it did mean some of them weren't in the party very long (Cloakwood to be specific) it did let me at least interact with them all. For me at least, it made it easier to turn them down in future playthroughs.

More on topic, I too tend to get attached to a specific group. Some members more than others, but I share your pain!

Fiendish_Warrior

I tend to solo as much as possible or have minimally sized parties. I only recently started experimenting more with companionship, inspired by @procco actually, and have instead been dropping my bodies off inside the FAI. Looks like one helluva party actually.

deltago

If this is your first or second time playing, just remember about the cool NPCs you left out when making your next party and play through

Or

Keep the sixth spot open for rotation. So if you have an NPC you want around to do their quest, you can add them and then promptly drop them once the quest is complete or a new NPC comes around.

Having a set party, or a confirmed meta party for your playthrough helps though.

For example. I am doing an evil playthrough right now. My party is Vic, Monty, Xzar, and Dorn. I picked up edwin to do the gnoll stronghold and then dropped him once his quest completed. I will pick up Eldoth in cloakwood, drop Dorn before entering the city and pick up Skie having my 6 set till the end of the game.

Knowing this is what I am going to do, I can avoid and ignore other NPCs that might fit into my party such as Shar-teel and Kagain.

VahnXIII

This is a good problem to have in any game imo. I'd rather do multiple play throughs with different characters. Too many RPG's these days have so few interesting characters. Be happy that this is the problem you're facing haha.

JuliusBorisov

Another option can be imposing a perma-death rule: if an NPC dies, you should take a new one.

procco

Like @bengoshi said, not resurrecting dead NPC's or reloading when they die makes for some interesting parties. I'm doing this in my current play through and have wound up playing almost entirely with characters I've never used before (for better or worse...I've managed to get every single fighter class character aside from Coran killed at this point). It's made for a really fun and different way to experience the game.

Skatan

Buttercheese said:

I usually plan out my party beforehand to avoid this.
But other than that, I found having four fixed party members and the fifth one to be exchangeable for what ever quest needs to be done helpful.

I do this as well. Create a charname that can fit two roles, F/M, T/M, F/T, C/M or whatever, and then add in three NPC's to complement that; a tank, a mage, a cleric and/or a thief. Then you can elaborate and swithc char's in the last one or two slots according to quests. Sometimes I bring two new NPC's along if I can solve their quests in the same area etc, though mainly in BG2, like adding Korgan and Hexxat in grave district (even when I'm "good") then dropping them once quests are complete at my new house (Pimlico's) in the temple districs.

Heindrich

@procco Yikes that's a bit hardcore. If I did that I'd have never got through Durlag's Tower, lol. I do play min-reload with perma-death (chunking) accepted, so I have lost characters, but if I did it for every death, the game becomes insanely difficult.