I love the infinite respec for a regular playthrough, but would wholeheartedly endorse a much stricter version for tactician mode.
Would make no difference, all that players would do os change the difficulty before respeccing.
That's perfect. I think taking Withers out of the game would work just fine on Tactician. Only those players who wanted to respec would break immersion and switch to story mode. I mean, you could put George Washington in the game to answer questions about the American Revolutionary War, but if George only showed up in Cheat/Joke/Story Mode, I'd be fine with that. Withers isn't as bad as George Washington, but he is clearly an anthropomorphic cheat code. Put cheat codes behind Story mode and let those who want to play without them never see them at all, I say. I'd give Withers even more cheat codes and just not use them unless I really needed to dip in for just a sec (like your example with Astarion), but I'd be happy knowing that other players had more options, assuming Larian has the time to properly add them. I personally feel like the only reason I need Withers is because I can't have a custom party; if I get that, I wouldn't need to cheat and wouldn't want to see Withers (or George Washington) at all.
