I guess one important thing that should be mentioned for those that never played the game but got interested now is how companions (and the party in general) are handled:
You can create up to 5 characters with the maximum party size of 6. When the party is created, you pick its global alignment which defines what choices of alignments you have for your characters (the one you pick + vertical and horizontal neighbours of it on the grid). This choice gives you a different introductory quest that sometimes stretches for most of the game.
There are many companions to pick up and some of them join at a way higher level than your party probably is at the time, so they can help a lot in combat, but they have two BIG caveats associated with them:
1. There's at least one instance of them coming in a pair and joining only if you have 4 pre-made characters (especially relevant for a LE group);
2. They freaking steal a percentage of the loot you find and you have no control over what they pick up. Except to see their invetories flooded with a lot of random crap they found shiny and just stashed away, and carry with them until you get to a merchant. The coin that they mark as "theirs" is also inaccessible to you unless you kick them out and kill them. It's a very annoying mechanic to deal with and the very reason to not bother having them around and try to deal with everything yourself. There are probably mods that fix their inappropriate behaviour, though.
The Mods fix some of that.
-With the mods the basic party size is 6 and you can pick up two more.
-certain companions will take a share of the treasure, meaning Platinum/Gold/Silver/Copper but they tell you what they will take before you hire them (a share of the treasure would be 1/7th or 1/8th of whatever money drops). I don't think they usually take items anymore unless story related.
I guess one important thing that should be mentioned for those that never played the game but got interested now is how companions (and the party in general) are handled:
Okay, but ... romance?
Yes but not in the sense of Dragon Age - "My daughter needs a husband" for example and she then follows you around and takes treasure and nags you and sucks at combat until she dies because she is a peasant and can't fight.
