Companions: who and do you switch?

Mod life. All companions. Leave no npc behind

I use this party limit removal mod, so I usually bring anywhere from 4 to 8 companions. When limiting myself to 3, though, I bring Karlach, Wyll and Shadowheart.
When I want to do things that are in a moral grey area if not downright evil, I swap out Karlach and Wyll for Astarion and Lae'zel 😁
- I play on ps5 so no mods :(
  
  Damn, I'm sorry! I know from playing Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim on both ps4 and pc how much the lack of mods can suck..

I usually swap out companions as they use up their spell slots and health gets low. My (paladin) starting team is usually Astarion, Shadowheart, Laezel/Karlach.
- God damn it I never even thought about switching instead of resting. Holy shit that is so simple yet so effective
  
  Eh. I usually have like 15 sacks of camp supplies, so it's not like resting is something you need to worry about
  
  Can also respec them and steal the money back. Zero rest run is possible.
- Same, I was averaging 510 fights per long rest by the end of the game because I was trying to efficiently swap people out depending on who was low on health or spells, or use whoever I thought would have the most relevant dialogue for the quest(s).
  My default roster was usually either Shadowheart, Gale and Laezel or Karlach, Wyll and Astarion. I was playing an archer sniper ranger so I basically always had two melee, one caster blaster and me as DPS and CC through arrows. I actually really liked the arrow system to give bow users more utility and if I ever run a campaign I'd like to adopt that. I'd make them cheaper though.
  I never got to actually use Halsin. I tried to swap him in several times and it just never worked, then he was killed via plot events in act 3 via a mechanism where I could not save him. I used Jaheira a bit in late act 3, just for the Harper & Minsc stuff, not much after that. Never used Minsc, too much overlap with me, Laezel and Karlach.
  I found both Wyll and Gale pretty frustrating, but that's likely because I was trying to be so conservative on rests.
  Don't know how people have already run through 3+ times, I spent like 150 hours on my first run and saw probably 85% of the game... also the ending was pretty disappointing. I'm not itching to dive back in but I'd be interested in DUrge as well as interacting with Minthara more.

my main team is me (thiefling bard, https://i.imgur.com/3AewyHO.png (ended up leaving the moustache out, though)), Astarion, Gale and Karlach. I switch any of them momentarily if I need something specific the others can do and immediately back when it's done.
I guess I could swap out Gale for Wyll, but.. I dunno.
Karlach and Astarion are my favorites so far. "Mama K" just radiates good vibes, and "Mr. Nibbles" brings out the sass.. and I just realized I'm traveling with a dog and a cat.

Doing a durge run with a sorcerer. Wyll and Karlak left in act one because I wanted to recruit Minthara, so Helsin is out too. Jaheria died in the battle of last light. And I haven't got/can't get Minsc. Minthara met an untimely demise early in our relationship...
That leaves me with Shadowheart, La'zel, and Astarion....wait I'm forgetting someone....
digs around my pack and runs across Gale's severed hand Nevermind, found him!!
So I'm running myself Dark Urge Sorcerer, Shadowheart, La'zel, and Astarion... because thats all i got. All default classes.
Act 3 should be fairly short with the lack of companion quests....
- You did something funny in regards to the friendship game 😂🙈😅
- Wait, is Karlak gonna leave over Minthara? I've been planning to do an evil playthrough, since my first playthrough was goodie two shoes, so naturally killed Minthara. But Karlak is the best!
  Also, I kinda want as many companions as possible so I can see the different path I can get them to take.
  
  She was in my party when I talked to her, so maybe it was due to that?

- Is luminous armour really that impactful? I was using it till late act 2 or so but eventually swapped it out. It was one of those things I couldn't tell how much of a difference it made.
  Shadowheart feels offensively really weak and has by far the worst accuracy. While my warlock player character gets consistently 95+% hit chance for her cantrips (and with eldritch blast, theres 2-3 hits), Shadowheart's cantrips are frequently <50% accurate and she only gets a single hit. I mostly use her as support only as a result.
  When I want to do damage with Shadowheart, I usually use spirit guardians (mostly for when there's many weaker enemies), that retaliating summon (placing it well means doing I think 60 unmissable damage), or some other kind of summon.
  I admittedly never respeced her and didn't look at what alternative cleric builds existed.

I drove a stake through Astarion's heart.
Shadowheart, Karlach and Lae'zel. I'm a Bard.

I'm playing a lore bard with thief skills. I started with Shadowheart, Gale, and Lae'zel, but Karlach made me smile so much that I swapped her in as our tank.
We've been a pretty effective party through the first two acts on the balanced difficulty setting. Locks, traps, and persuasion checks are a breeze. Three fights between long rests is typical, and we barely touch consumables.
I might spend more time optimizing builds on my second play-through, which I expect will be in tactician mode.

If I'm doing a quest that involves them, I'd bring them along and swap out karlach - mainly because my tav plays the same role and I feel karlach's quests are fewer than the rest
But my main gang is currently me (throw barb), shadowheart (life cleric / tank) laezel (rogue/hunter) and karlach (giant eagle-diving barb cutiepie)
I love karlach and I also love shadowheart & laezel's interactions
- I wish I had not screwed up getting laezel early on
  
  There's enough other stuff to do to justify a second play ;)

Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach. My custom character is an Oath of the Ancients Paladin. I'm currently about halfway through through Act 2.
I don't bother swapping, even for lockpicking and disarming. I instead respecced Gale to have 16 Dexterity and Sleight of Hand proficiency. I haven't yet encountered any check that he couldn't pass, especially with Guidance.
I'm kind of bummed about not taking Lae'zel to the creche, but I can always do that in another playthrough.

I am in Act 3 currently with Wyll, Halsin and Jaheira. I swapped out Shadowheart and Gale for the druids, and probably will swap out Jaheira after recruiting Minsc.

My main is a druid.
I played with Wyll (who I multiclassed into Sorcerer at level 3 because that's just objectively better), Karlach and Astarion up until almost the end of Act2. Switched Astarion with Shadowheart at a certain key story point. Not switching back.
It's a pretty balanced group. Wyll does insane damage, Karlach is there to get hit in the face. My main does area control (Spike Growth <3), and Shadowheart is basic support.
- +1 for Spike Growth :)
- Very similar here. I'm also a druid and was partying with Karlach (barb/fighter), Astarion (rogue/ranger), and Gale (evocation). But i switched out Gale for Shadowheart (light cleric) at the same point as you and haven't looked back. Having Wyll would've been better as I had noone with decent Charisma.
  I really should respec out of Moon druid to land or something because its been incredibly disappointing and without Shadowheart I was just playing support and CC, but I just want to wild shape dammit!

My Tav:
Paladin/Bard
Karlach:
Barbarian/Monk
Lae'zel:
Straight Fighter
Shadowheart:
Life Domain Cleric
My Tav has Gloves of Dexterity so any locks/traps he can handle along with the sneakiness. Karlach tenderizes all the things before Lae'zel chops them into peices, and Shadowheart keeps everyone healed.
- What is a tav?
  
  The character you created from scratch

Game 1:
Druid (forgot which spec but I hated it), Lae'zel, Wyll, shadow
Game 2 (dark urge): Paladin (veng, wanted to do oathbreaker but never broke my oath), Karlach, Astarion, Gale
Game 3 (tactician): Druid (spore, loved this one), shadow, Wyll, Gale (necromancer)
Game 3 was the most fun comp because I had like 40 summons. I planned to respec Wyll to druid for MORE summons but I just like warlock so much...
So far rogue and barbarian have been my least favorite classes but I only used the character's default specs. Warlock is by far my favorite and I really like late-game Cleric, too.
- Did managing so many summons in combat ever get tedious? My party size never exceeded like seven.
  
  Yes. Absolutely. The worst is when you can't do anything with a summon except move it...or when you have to shuffle them around to allow your character to move.
  When I wasn't prepping for a boss I usually had 4-5 summons total but I went all out for big fights. You're pretty unstoppable when you control the action economy like that. On the ketheric fight for example, I forced phase 2 before his turn started. Summons on the adds and my party on ketheric.
  I don't think I'd do it again because the novelty wore off by the end but it's kinda fun!
- Barbarians when inefficiently built are fun imo. Wildheart barb / sword bard was fun as hell in my durge playthrough, and zerker barb / champion fighter w GW master was great for karlach, probably less overall damage than battlemaster but crits give me dopamine.
- ...is there no limit to summons? I realize I was actually assuming I couldn't use a summoning spell multiple times for the same character, but maybe that's wrong. I usually try to keep a single, most powerful summon for each character that has one (and for difficult battles, I've used summoning scrolls for other characters).
  I considered a few times trying to see what would happen if I summoned more, but figured it'd make the game too easy, anyway. A lot of the summons are quite strong and they have a lot of health.

My tav is fighter, companions are:
Astarion: best for lockpicks/stealthy stuff, he's a killing machine with the dual xbow rogue/ranger build from cRPG Bro
Shadowhear: full cleric, quite resilient, she has some amazing abilities like spirit guardians (she can just dash around and one-shot groups of low health mobs lol), spirit weapon (useful to keep some enemies occupied because they attack the weapon and not the party) and a big heal for oh-shit moments - for builds I'm currently using the tempest one by NizarGG but I'm thinking of making my own to enhance the abilities of her I want to use
4th spot I use for the companion that makes the more sense to me to bring depending on areas/quests, so I'm basically switching almost all the time
I'm pretty satisfied with this setup tho I'm probably missing stuff on the 4th slot so next playthrough I'll use the no party limit mod to see how good or bad my "instinct" is XD

My first run through I was Tav with Shadowheart, Lae'zel, and Wyll. Current run I'm DU (resisting) with Karlach, Astarion, and Gale.

The first run as a sorcerer was with Shart, Astarion and Karlach, second as a moon druid with evil Shart, Minthara and Gale.
I try to have a balanced team with aoe and single target focussed characters, enough frontliners to tank the damage, healing and support, and utility such as lockpicking, sneak and talk to animals and the dead. And I definitely don't respec companions to something else entirely, because I like to think of them as existing characters that can't just change who they have been up until now.
I do switch characters for quests from time to time, but in hindsight I wish I didn't. The 2nd run with Gale for example would have been much better if I wouldn't have known most of his quest interactions already! I'll definitely change that for my next RPG, not being too greedy on the first playthrough.

As a warlock, I try to use everyone a little.
Except Gale. I just have no use for another mage. I figured I'd save him for another playthrough.
I respec'd Wyl into a paladin cause I wanted to try that class out (and have a proper tank) and knew I'd never have a use for two warlocks. It took a while before I truly made use of him, but turns out paladins are incredibly powerful, so he's now a constant member of my party.
The other two typical members are shadowheart (romancing her and it feels natural to always have a cleric) and Astarion (he's just hands down the best at lockpicking and I do that a ton).
I've experimented with having Jahera (as a ranger) replace Astarion, but it makes lockpicking harder. Is there really no way to get companions more proficient with skills?? I actually hate Astarion as a person and don't enjoy rogues (too often I simply cannot get a sneak attack in).
I've regularly swapped the melee attacker for any of the others (I love Karlak's personality, but found barbarian just isn't as good -- Laezel as a fighter is a bit better). Halsin was the best tank for the mid game, cause Owlbear is far stronger than anything else. Probably still is. Just feels kinda boring.
Every now and then I've swapped Shadowheart out for someone. It feels weird to not have a cleric with me at all times, but I don't actually need her and she's so bad at combat. I'm probably making a blunder in using her so much, especially since I have a Paladin and so many healing potions.
I tried respecing >!Minsc!< to be a monk to give that a try (I've had so much monk equipment and it's one of the few classes I've yet to use), but... I must be doing something wrong? The unarmed damage is utterly pitiful compared to any other melee character, even with the best equipment I've got. I decided to just bench him rather than figure it out.
I only very, very briefly used a hireling, before Halsin joined my party proper cause I wanted to try wildshape (why does he take so long? I genuinely thought he would never join cause he spent dozens of hours waiting in my camp as an unplayable character).

I've just started act 3 on this run and I've been using Shadowheart, Halsin, and Astarion. I say I'm gonna switch things up but I don't.

I like to switch them all out as some mixed and matched interactions are really fun and interesting.
There are mods out there that can help with the XP issues that could potentially pop up.

I just unlocked Halsin and I use Warlock guy, shadowheart, demon lady with the fire heart, and gale
The playable character is a bard with high dex so i don't really use astarion, my bard has a good perception

I'm on my first game. Playing a rogue, with Shadowheart, Wyll, and Gale. Gonna try my next run with Lae'zel, Karlach, and Astarion. Or maybe I'll try an all-druid run with Tav, Minsc (dualed as a barbearean), Halsin, and Jahiera.

I'm a warlock in act 3 and used the same as you for most of the game. Unless I needed a specific companion for a quest, which seems to be happening a lot in act 3. Recently I've been swapping out Lae'zel for others to try them out. Need shadow for healing and astarion for lock picking so they always stay.

I tend to use Karlach, Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion most often. I do switch decently regularly, especially for background quests. Karlach and Laezel cover the same role mostly, and Wyll and Gale can also be decently interchangeable. Shadowheart is there most of the time for radiant damage and some healing, and Asterion sometimes pops in if I need to be sneaky. I did some respeccing for some companions, such as making Asterion a ranger/rogue and Laezel a Paladin.

Nearing the end of the game it's me as a barbarian, Astarion, Gale, and Wyll. I've got Wyll up to 24 Charisma so he is an Eldritch Blast machine and Counterspell backup to Gale, who is the utility spellcaster. Astarion gets swapped out when someone else is needed for plot.
I use a lot of healing potions and tank a ton with my raging bear totem barbarian.