Nadrac

With no talents not wand/specter/rod, they suck by themselves, anything better, pistol/arquebus is ok because it trades crit you wouldn't do anyway for dr bypass, but their slowness might mess with casting, you can always just use a bow, or run in do some melee in some cases, pretty much use any good gear your teammates don't care for. Above all you need accuracy because you not only start with only 20 but also very likely don't take any talents to boost it. With 1 talent investment wand/specter/rod is great, blast talent is strong. Spells to consider Kalakoth's Minor Blights Citzal's Spirit Lance

You can have bit of fun with it but yeah, they are pretty simple slightly boosting certain styles, and this would have bothered me if i was only controlling one character but with 6 and more i had my hands full anyway especially with the casters. Weapon focuses are nice, getting access a variety of weapons does offer more deeper and versatile builds. What we could do, and what i am planning for 3rd time around on potd is to have randomized guys, you may find it boring that your 18/18 base primary stat wizard looks just like the previous one, but if he had 10/8 primary stats instead and took ghost hunter after he took snakes reflexes, along his randomly selected spell of minor grimoire imprint and flame shield, you may be forced to solve your problems differently. There is only so many best ways to do things, i love to overcome not optimal circumstances, that is kind of how you feel with companions, but of course you have control over them. You can play the game telling everyone what to learn and make them perfect or just let them make their own stupid choices and its up to you to choose whether you want them along or not.

Stepping on a trap or two could easily mean you whole team needs to rest, especially on potd with maim turned off, trap has a real chance of killing your party members, and camping supplies are more limited. Of course with saving and reloading its a joke, but that's up to you. As far using traps yourself, gaze of adragan trap is definitely good if you are willing to cheese, but for most part i find their cost prohibitive. I dislike using traps when i know the encounter, and usually too lazy if i don't. The trapping style could be fun if they were more accessible and frankly better. Nerf to petrify would help, other than that i would prefer if traps would strongly scale off mechanics too, and have a utility talent which allows you to hold onto traps after use, repair broken traps for 1/10 of their cost or automatically repair while resting.

Trying to only rely on companions leads to issues even first time around, optimal parties have 2 tanks and companions only have one and also none of the companions is that great in mechanic, you can get up aloth or durance later, but you will longing for a real expert. Even if they were good at it, they are not meant for the front row, so their spotting is delayed and possibly tanks will still run into a trap. I love making the best of what i get, currently i am enjoying a potd with companions but they took identical roles, eder is a must, i am really tempted to hire a mechanic, finding pallegina early gives you a tank but later she is a melee dps, kana is not the best tank around, but i guess he is the least bad option, unless the main character is one. Tweaks i would make to them Aloth +1 bonus mech, -1 bonus to lore Durance +2 bonus mech, -1 bonus to lore and athletic Mother + 3 int -2 per Pallegina lvl 6 talent superior deflection to keep her more open ended, little deflection never wrong

The value of one handed goes up with the difficulty. It became my go to choice right away in potd, trying to kill 60 deflect mobs with your 26-36 acc guys goes a lot easier with +12. Later it still makes sense if you need to overcome deflection and especially if you convert hits to crits, like heart orlan rogue for example converting 30% of his with passives, but reach weapon equipped melee dps will have an easier time positioning and not dying. One of the strongest yet seemingly most ignored benefit of it is that you get +12 to landing skills, that is insanely high, if you are mostly landing skills, like a control monk might be, the dps doesn't matter remotely as much as the accuracy. The talent in itself is not bad considering most grazes would do minimum damage.