I agree that the first NPC members you meet are the most important, because you want your character and theirs to grow together. Meeting a new joinable NPC at level 5 or 6 is pretty late in the game ... no thanks, Eldoth. But still, there are story elements that might require such things, and this is why I keep bringing up Narlen Darkwalk as an example. I love it when there are NPC's who don't become party members, but yet who will go on adventures with the PC. And sometimes they may go away for while and then come back, sort of like Saemon Haverian except that instead of just giving information, I would like to see some actual adventuring and some combat with an independent NPC at my side. If you roll up Narlen Darkwalk, Gorpel Hind, and Simon Haeverian into one NPC you would have a great story mechanism to work with.
At one point I decided I had to mod all the companions in Baldur's Gate city so that they have a "level 7" version. If I meet them late enough, they can be at level 7, instead of 6.
Despite how old BG is, it managed to create some very interesting NPC's, including Narlen Darkwalk, Gorpel Hind, Husam, Brielbara, Firebead Elvenhair, Aldeth Sashenstar. Even Tranzig and Mulahey are memorable antagonists.
But I hope they also allow you the option to create your entire party if you want, in some way, as it's an important option for some.
That option would be nice, to play the game with a custom party. Hopefully they include this feature, seeing as they already included it in DOS2.
