I noticed that Withers says in his dialogue, "A matter of coin." Then it is only in dialogue words, not spoken words, that (200) appears as the price.
My guess is, upon final completion of the game, they are intending on adjusting this coin amount depending on the difficulty setting you use.
I think Withers is fine, for Act 1. He is a safety net for beginner players who aren't familiar with the game.
Honestly, I think what Larian is doing is a lot of testing for difficulty setting purposes. Make everything dumbed down and weak, give people lots of potions and revive scrolls and see how much they actually use and need. Then adjust the amounts you can actually receive once they implement difficulty settings.
Well, that is, that's my hope as to what they're doing.
Anyway, Withers should probably be removed at least for Act 2 and 3. Having a safety net like him would ruin the overall excitement of the game. You need to know you can die and receive a game over. Otherwise, if you know you always have a Withers to fall back on, especially as you gain more and more gold that you don't need to spend, it kind of takes the danger out of the game and turns it into a casual, relaxing joyride. There's no "seat of your pants" thrill because you always know you can trust good ol' Withers to save your dead companions.
And they REALLY need to implement appropriate time during combat. If I know I have 10 rounds to use a Revivify Scroll on a companion who has just died, and if I don't do it in 10 rounds they're dead permanently? Oh yeah! I'm gonna get my cleric butt over to them and rez them as fast as I can. Also, I'm going to ensure my cleric is more protected if he/she is the only one who can use a rez scroll. Oh yeah! Clerics becomes SO much more important to the team if it is done properly.
