JallaAllah

Since there will be subclasses, or maybe also multiclassing + prestige classes, I think classes are enough already. But races is a point to talk about. The announced races only fit to the usual humanoid races yet, and conclude with the improved godlike races. I really miss the funny races, like half-orcs/orcs, yuan-ti (good suggestion!) or any other non-familiar ones. Cultural differences and maybe also misunderstandings just spice up the game, or give reason for spicing up the game!

Uh... no. We had full control once we recruited them. We had to follow the game mechanics and rules, but I could dualclass Imoen into a mage for example if I wanted. Following BG2 Imoen was kind of a mage anyway. I think the major problem about this discussion might be, that we don't know the mechanics yet. That being said we can only assume, that the controll we'll be given should be as much, or not as much as BG/IWD/PST. In BG much of the controll (e.g. multiclassing) was predetermined by D&D rules and so people couldn't totally mess up the characters personality by their own choices. But since the mechanics aren't out yet, I really would prefer the "cautious" way of controll. Probably we will reach the 2,6 stretch goal anyway, that's just statistics ... So if one of the NPCs doesn't fit the way you want him to be, you can still make that single exchance in your party!

In terms of NPCs having an own personality, which might be inflicted by the storyline, I would prefer having controll over the "small" parts of leveling, like skills ... But class-decisions and other things which represent the NPCs personality should of course be plot-driven! In the end heavy influences on a NPCs personality are player-made, which is also some kind of controll, but still a player-driven story-driven controll. ;-)