Having just finished my second full campaign of Pillars of Eternity and my first with the White March installed (I know I'm late to the party but I've gotten completely hooked having played 220 hours in the couple weeks I've owned the game) I've decided to push myself by playing on PoTD with Expert Mode enabled, and given that Deadfire is on its way early next year I want to create a character to import.
However, I'm torn on how to build my party since I found Hard difficulty quite challenging by itself, and I built my party quite poorly to the point that I wasn't able to beat the Alpine Dragon or Llengrath, so I'd like some help building it this time so I don't run into the same problems.
I do have a few ideas though, and some I'd be reluctant to part with. My MC has to be an Aedyr Meadow Folk because I have a custom portrait I intend to use, and I'd like to prioritise relatively high Mental stats to maximise dialogue options, but background and class are quite flexible. I'd like to pick a class that could have potential multiclass synergies, and I'd like to play one of a Cipher, Druid, Monk, Chanter or Ranger (in descending order of how much I want to play them).
As far as the rest of the party goes, I'm planning on using Aloth, Edér and Pallegina throughout since they carry over to Deadfire, but the last 2 companions are quite flexible. I'd prefer not to use Sagani though, throughout my last campaign Itumaak was bugged and seemed to have a movement speed of 0.00001 in combat so I'd rather not have to deal with that again.
Any help is much appreciated.
(Side notes: Should I kill or bargain with Sefyra? It seems like I could run into her in Deadfire if I help her escape, but Scale Breaker seems like it would pretty useful. Same question applies for Llengrath. Also, I know it's a bit late to pledge for Deadfire, but I'd like to do so; however, is there any issue due to the fact that I'd be converting from GBP to USD?)