icendoan

The game system is built precisely to be lenient in what works strategically. I'm confident that any reasonably resourceful and determined player can beat the game with any array of companions. Your following of a carefully designed build (as opposed to the usual first play of "oh this looks good") will afford you quite a lot of tactical leniency. None of the companions are built with absolute optimality in mind, but they're decidedly not terrible. You would have to try quite hard to produce an actually unworkable party, if one exists, even if you make silly decisions at every level. A full-strength party can come with any selection of classes, it doesn't (as in, say, BG2) have to contain certain classes, like Mages. Essentially, I am saying that the system is designed to allow you to prioritise your roleplaying desires above any concerns of optimality, especially if you're building your main character with a view towards being optimal anyway. Pick the companions you like the most.

Whilst the trope can be annoying, Galvino is exactly the sort of person to leave more traps around whenever he's hosting a dinner party involving small children.

It's quite hard to replicate a Wild Mage in Pillars, though, so Neera would have to just be a straight up Wizard. Minsc is clearly a Barbarian, not a Ranger (in line with the now abandoned trope of casting savage Fighters as Rangers in AD&D), so making him a Barbarian, with proper Frenzy, seems more fitting. There's Tiax, a Priest of Skaen (which also fits with his real class, Cleric/Thief), who is (nominally) in both games. Garrick, a flimsy Chanter with low Intellect would be quite fun, as well. As for the PC, Sarevok does sound like a fun idea. Either the BW Paladin could be good, with very high Might and Resolve, and decent Intellect, or just a straight up Fighter. That is what he is in BG1/2 anyway, and it fits his role of being an offensive damage dealer.

I feel (apparently controversially) that PoE's ending clarified the story immensely, and provided quite a bit of closure for the protagonist. With that in mind, I would like PoE2 (as and when it happens) to not be a continuation of the PoE1 Watcher's story, but instead a new one. The world of Eora is new and fresh, with lots of interesting diversions (and, implicitly, inspirations from) history, which would be exciting and interesting to explore. PoE is essentially a dialogue about the place of one particular subject and societal structure within high fantasy (OP said no spoilers). This is, essentially, what I have enjoyed most about PoE; it is presenting a question about the way that high fantasy works, and then allowing the player to explore it. PoE2, wherever in Eora it is set (there are many interesting locations - Rautai sounds incredibly exciting: an incredible reinvention of what would have conventionally been 'Orcs'), it needs to find and explore another of these deep and perceptive questions; either straight up philosophical ones, or another perceptive question about the nature and construction of high fantasy settings. I completely agree with Gromnir about avoiding high level settings; I think that the player is already very strong by the end of PoE - events such as the Godhammer would be cheapened if they are available as a regular utility for the player.