its a new low for you draq.
It's neither, actually.
Some of the gear from the characters you recruited couldnt be removed, because it was theirs, it was annoying as hell, but well, it was part of their characters so whatever.
And it applied to how many characters and gear pieces? Edwin had his amulet - ok, anyone else?
if anything more than once i wished they would have given me more control. Also why wouldnt they give you their shit, they give you complete control over what they do, you can send them naked and alone against a dragon.
Exactly, why wouldn't, for example, a somewhat asshole dwarf interesting in killing shit for fun and profit (but mostly profit) give up all his stuff and go up to willingly become a dorf roast?
If anything Wiz 8 RPC (oh the irony) behaviour should be absolute minimum, with personal items that are unequippable but can't get moved out of character's inventory and stuff like turning on the party if they, for example, attack character's friends.
Ideally, you should have this, plus stuff like characters refusing to give up gear unless given better or equal gear of their favoured type unless in specific circumstances.
Point being, BGs execution didnt detract from the experience, as the control that was given to the player was needed to maneuver properly in combat, Yeah, you could game the game and get some shit loot or you could not and save yourself some time.
Yeah, well, no.
A game where you can make a paladin with established character (or better yet, a chaotic good type) skewer orphans for no reason then whine about party being assholes instead of flat out refusing or even attacking your murderous ass is a shit one.
You don't need to be able to strip independent characters naked or make them stab townsfolk either for vast majority of sensible strategies.
Meh, I hate it when games have followers that can't be controlled in combat because that makes the combat usually a boring affair, and too dependant on the AI. If the game is turn based or RtwP, combat is going to be a boring affair if you only have a single character to control, and there won't be any tactics at all. Such a thing might be okay in a game with Diablo-like action combat, and in those kinds of games I just don't take followers.
But yeah, something like a mechanic that makes them refuse certain orders would be a good thing.
Even modern day bethpizda can accomplish that (see Skyrim which has - kludgy and not very useful in the thick of things, but still - command menu and characters that refuse to perform actions conflicting with their morality and don't give up their personal gear even if they can replace it with better one if you give it to them).
Control is good because tactics is good, but characters should filter the commands through their own judgement. This could mean a moral character refusing killing innocents in cold blood or stealing shit, a cowardly character running from battle, a berserker ignoring your orders and just charging in or a psycho sometimes stabbing people for no reason. Also pretty much any character not just giving up vital gear.
This could mean some interesting tradeoffs too - for example would you like a disciplined, average fighter or a powerhouse that charges in ignoring your orders and brains townspeople for looking at him funny?
