This is the first time I've played Sacred. I bought the gold edition from here and am having fun, but I can't seem to see the point of giving the gamer a party member that can't equip armor. I have only tried giving him (wilbur) armor from my class, and I am a battle mage. Does character class have a bearing on that, or can you simply not equip the npc's w/ armor?

You can't equip armor on your companions. You can give them weapons and health potions.

But, Wilbur is immortal anyway. He might fall down, but he always gets back up.

yeah, I got that. I was just hoping there might be some secret to keeping them from falling down so frequently.

How do I give weapons? Right now my companion (dark elf, I'm playing elf) is fighting barehanded.

Take a weapon from your inventory and move it over to their portrait and click. They will either say something like "thank you" or "i can't use that." You can remove their weapons the same way. Also, your Dark Elf friend might already be using fist weapons.