More down to earth characters. It feels like this distinction of companion vs origin would have been the perfect place to introduce those sorts of characters into the party. Instead of Halsin, give us Nettie or Alfira. Instead of Minthara, give us Sazza. And the level of good in the party really doesn't feel like what their initial promise implied. I'm all for gray characters, but I'd have wanted more that were definitely a lighter shade of gray. So while I'm personally not unhappy with the party we'll ultimately get, I'm still disappointed in the lost potential of the roster.
Although it seems like we're going to already have two potential Fighters on our hands (Lae'zel obviously, and potentially Jaheira depending on what they do with her), I would nominate Aradin for this. No creche or hissing at me, and no long and storied history with the previous games, just a temperamental set of muscles for my party with a great head of curls.
It's a long way of saying I agree with this point. I'm very happy to see companions added alongside Origins as this helps us expand our roster and help maneuver through the pairs of characters that simply cannot and will not co-exist - which I think is a great thing - but I would like to see it expanded just a bit more. Maybe it will with time, who knows. I'm still in the honeymoon phase of this info dump so I could be overly positive at the moment.
Speaking of the info dump, there's a lot of stuff here that really has me jazzed. They threw in some non-PHB subclasses that I really like and was not expecting. Dragonborn look fantastic, and I'm a fan of Half-Orcs so that has me in a great mood. I'm interested to see what they did with Monk. Karlach looks incredible. While I was personally holding out hope for level 14 cap, a cap of level 12 is still perfectly fine. No Aasimars does bum me out just a tad. No party lock is huge and for some reason gives me hope that they may have budged on letting us choose a larger party size as an option but, again, the hype is making me overly positive.
Great update! July 7th can't come soon enough with its added information.
