So with regard to companions, unless you've heard something I haven't, I think a reasonable estimate would be that we'll have 7, maybe 8 companions in total, so as someone who is advocating fo a 5 character party specifically (I actually do feel like 6 would be too big somehow, not that I'm outright against it) there's still the reasonable possibility you could play twice with different companions. As for them not having to rebalance encounters, they're going to do that anyway, it's inevitable. Part of the point of early access is figuring out how to properly rebalance the dificulty by seeing where and why players are having trouble.
