darinbob: I worry about creating a character then finding out that the class is already covered by an interesting companion NPC. Whereas if I create a character with a class that none of the companions have that things are more interesting. Ie, in Baldur's Gate I find that a basic fighter isn't as good as Minsc, but a Paladin is ok because the only Paladin companion shows up relatively late and is a bit boring, and magic users are good because the best magic users there are evil aligned.
So what I'm going to try and find out is what classes aren't covered well by the companions in PoE. I'm assuming most roles will be covered.
I like to do the exact same thing. For PoE, however, I definitely want to be a Death Godlike race, and that might go better with a certain setup moreso than another (considering cipher or some axe-wielding fighter type), and I don't generally like monks, druids, priests, rangers, or rogue type characters for my main characters anyway, so that narrows it down even more. On top of that, I will be waiting for 2 or 3 patches to actually play the game, so no matter what I might create today I won't be into the game wanting to change things that I wish I would have known and so I can change it later after some more information has been accumulated about the game, if I feel like I need it, most likely I will just go into the game blind, even in 2-3 patches.