I've tried to make use of the Hireling Zombies, mostly by attempting to recreate NPCs that are already in the game, since I still think that would have been a better idea, but it's a frustrating system.
The single most important choice that we're actually making when selecting one of these random zombie cultist over some other zombie cultists is the Voice work, but we can't preview that from the "Choose" screen. We should be choosing a barkset here, since that character is going to interject with the same sorts of lines that a tadpoled adventurer would use for the corresponding voice-set, but we don't have a ready way to parse that from the UI presentation.
Next would be Race/Subrace/Racial Body Phenotype and Background, since those things also cannot be changed at the Mirror or by Respec.
There are 12 backgrounds on offer, but they're all gated by a visual and a sound. To me this doesn't make sense at all, if we have 16 standard voice options and 11 Races we should be able to use any of those. The idea that the vessels are somehow cultists of the Absolute is silly. Like why do they have to be anyone/anything in particular?
If they didn't have to be a pre-set character with a locked voice and all the rest, then they could be anyone. We could recreate our Kivans the from previous BG games and headcanon whatever explanation for that. Or we could revive NPCs that got killed along the way in this campaign, and slot them into a new role on the team.
The dead inside voices are meh, we only ever get that stuff when adding or dismissing a hireling from the active party, in all other cases their banters and interjections are the tadpoled adventurer lines, so why not just give those voice sets some standard recruitment barks and dismissal dialogues? If they're disembodied souls entering the vessels, ok fine, but then they should open that up to cast the widest net possible. Hirelings should be the place where players can experiment with character concepts and builds.
It should be possible to recruit a Tav from a previous campaign. That would have been cool. Like where we get 12 characters for our Wither's Tomb, and our Tavs just overwrite whatever random default zombies. Also like if they're going to feel so random anyway, why not randomize their appearance each time and use that as a showcase, so they feel more custom. Maybe they have unique stat blocks or randomized standard equipment, so that if one wanted to roll the roulette wheel on it there'd be a bunch more standard templets for this, instead of just a dozen, that all feel like somebody else's idea. You know, as opposed to something we can get invested in, cause we just made them, like we do with the Dream Guardian say.
For a practical implementation, when Withers says "Choose" it should pull up the same menu, except with a 13th zombie called "Custom."
That way we could keep whatever Origin Zombies currently exist in-game, but without putting so many limits on our creativity to do the mix and match. The sorts of things that I'm sure BG players would want to do, like creating a party with 4 Drow, or 4 Halflings, or 4 Githyanki, that stuff should be possible. The empty vessel thing is weird and strains credulity, like if you buy into the idea that they're just Withers or some reflection of yourself, but then they interject with the same lines you'd deliver if you happened to trigger a banter. They can't use tadpoles, but they still get all the tadpoled adventurer riffs on whatever just woke up down there. Their boots see all the same everythings that the tadpoled adventurers see. Why can't they just be tadpoled adventures? Also I feel like Withers should drop some time travel angle on it, like a zombie eternal return, to help smooth over the rough edges. It's an alright jumping off point, but it should be open enough the hirelings system is also like a mirror on the MP system, where that's the way new adventurers get introduced.
A second recruitment option via Volo would also be good. It could use a different narrative conceit. So instead of revived Cultists, we put Volo on recruitment and he gives us the Custom option? Just seems like it could be more expansive. I've remade Roah and Sarth Baretha a bunch of times cause there are Zombies that work well for that. You can turn Kree into a few fan favs from Grymforge but it's all locked by whether the voices or subraces or whether that background matches the character concept.
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hirelings
