I misread the original post at first and thought the custom party members had gotten nerfed. That would have upset me greatly. The single player NPC characters being nerfed doesn't bother me because I kill them all on sight anyway (just because of their ridiculously immersion breaking background stories). I just hope that, IF I ever get the game working again, there will be a way of safely doing this to Gale (avoiding triggering his intro is annoying).
