LMFAO the fine print at the bottom is awesome

The "build a whole party" style games that I remember are old-style dungeon crawlers (like Wizardry, and the various clones the Japanese have been putting out) and top-view turn-based games like the Avernum series. They still make games like this, but they're generally all "indie" style, small developer, nostalgia projects. (There's a Wizardry style game on PSN, and a new update of Avernum just popped up on Steam a few weeks ago. And then there's Legend of Grimrock.)

the game isnt really designed for a party system, but theres a mod already mentioned that improves followers a lot.

though without mods the follower system is quite poor

I know it isn't designed for it, but for me it works surprisingly good. In fact this is first game where I really feel attached to my companions.

They work good for me even in dungeons. Maybe because my combat style looks like this:

My bodyguard is so incompetent, by the time i am attacked, have swung my claws (khajiit) 6 times and executed the target, my follower has just then started walking slowly towards me with sword drawn

I'm currently playing a paladin-style character and he wears the same gear vigilants of Stendarr wear. Can one of these mods allow me to dress my followers in the same way? That'd be great to roleplay a group of paladins trying to vanquish undead and other monsters.

If you can deal with everything by yourself then maybe your character is just too powerful and he doesn't need a bodyguard?

My Raksha is somewhat vulnerable and I like her that way. Today I was returning alone from captivity (!@#$% Dark Brotherhood). Damn, how vulnerable I felt (and lonely too) and I actually got my tail handed to me by sabre cat... I cant kill sabre cat alone without some sort of terrain features to get cover.

But later that day we were traveling together and I got ambushed by a bear. This bear almost killed Raksha, I had to run for my life. And Khario actually got him off my tail and engaged with sword and shield. Jzargo and Shavari just zapped hell out of it and when I put myself together I helped with couple of arrows. Heh, once again Raksha was saved, thanks to her three dear cats They don't need fancy AI to be useful to me.

fusroh:
EFF has some function which let you change outfits, but I've read somewhere that UFO has it done better. I don't know, because I just use CK and edit it there to my liking. That way I removed hood from Jzargo and changed Shavari's dress to something more appropriate.

Thanks Marcinw, will check them out later =)

Not only do I think it would work, I think it would be great!

It would be very easy to implement too. It would be like the "Wait" function. I.E. You could only switch characters when no enemies were around. While one character "waited" you could give them a simple task like:
- Stay Here
- Go Home
- Go Work At (location)
- Go Collect (ore / ingredients)
- etc...

If your two characters are in proximity to one another, the one you're not playing simply becomes a follower. As a follower, they'd behave similar to the way you play them. Friendly fire would have to be off I think. Wouldn't want my own mage accidentally killing me by spewing Wall of Flames like a damn fire-hose.

The secondary character shouldn't be Dragonborn, or have access to the MQ though. And once one character starts a Questline it is barred from the other character.

I personally don't like 'party' games, nor the inevitable micro management. I find the system of requiring roles or classes in order to justify the 'party' to be artificial.

I see balance issues in cases where you'd need to make an encounter difficult enough to make a party necessary, but then it would be too difficult for a player who didn't want to ever use a party.

Skyrim isnt designed for it,ifit was in the game everything would just get weird D:
Super easy,
Also would still be cool if you could have a friends character as a follower.

Aye, co-op with another player in place of your follower would be preferable. Real people come with pretty good AI - usually.

i know someone who is dumber than a brick

lol I have that attitude too. It's not so much about difficulty with me either, but rather the adventure and excitement of the battle. It's about getting things done as methodically and painfully for the creatures as I can. I just go in there with a gung-ho "**** you!" attitude and kill every villain that moves and add more notches to my weapon!

Temple of Elemental Evil had that, if i recall correctly.

If somebody plays with multiple followers and wants to have simple mean to keep them near regardless of navmesh bugs or stupid game preventing them to follow you then I recommend making yourself very simple script like this:

"cd92d".moveto player"a3e22".moveto player"1c1a3".moveto player

All it does is teleport Kharjo, Jzargo and Shavari to player position. I have it saved in file named 'c' in skyrim main directory. Now, when they can't go to me for whatever reason i only have to open console and write 'bat c'. It was very usefull today, as some quest wanted me to board ship. When you board then it teleports you far away, but without followers... As this quest was perfectly doable with them then I just teleported my followers to me with this script and we did it happily together