So just like the first Pillars of Eternity... you start this whole thing ... all alone... so at the tavern you can stop and pay to get some hired guns to give you a buffer until you recruit some "legitimate NPCs" into your party...

 

Now something that happened when I played POEII (I made several hired guns, named after my friends) - and when my party reached the max it could hold (active and "on the ship") - one by one my creations disappeared without warning when I added someone new recruited into the game. Which meant some equipment I put on them also vanished without warning. Not a big deal - but a dialogue box would be nice to warn you. I am not even sure what the max is for your "reserved" party.

 

Huh, I figured they'd stay on the ship. If that's the case, then yeah - some warning would be nice. Never fun to get Solas'd.

This is good to know.  I'm not at the max.  I think that I have room for one more in my reserve, but don't really see the need.  Normally, I've been kind of cheap when it comes to equipping my reserves.  For quite a while, when I'd move a character into my reserve, I'd strip him of the really good stuff, but make sure that he/she had on some lesser armor and weapons. 

 

But recently, I decided that I had so much stuff in my stash that I could afford to have my reserves all fairly properly equipped.  What triggered this is that I had stripped Rekke of all the stuff I'd given him for a while, but literally forgot to give him a weapon.  During a boarding action, I noticed that Rekke (a fighter) was wearing a cheap robe and fighting with his fists.  Oops, forgot to give him a dang weapon!  Not even a mere club!   My bad, Rekke!