If you aren't evil, you're probably going to want to play a melee class
Yes, early game - mainly tutorial, really, for Good non-fighters is unbalanced - you are somewhat forced to flank with Camelia, and ranged weapons will not compare to a proper melee setup with flanking and AOOs for a while. When some random chargers would rush through my melee party, they would just explode before I even realise they were supposed to be a threat. And Wenduag, while weak and dies to 1 charge, if gets initiative, can hurt your caster in tutorial boss fight too. After you get Woljif, things become easier.
An easy way to quickly go through tutorial is to give someone a pet on Level 2. That fixes your tank&flank issues. More or less any companion is viable for this: Seelah can get her bonus to saves later, Lann can serve as monk dip for WIS casters/petomancers, and Camelia 1 level gives Ghost touch weapon which is useful through the game.
could learn from deadfire(first time that string of words has been typed in human history) by being able to select their class from a few thematically-fitting ones when they join your party
Yeah it's one of the sawyercompromises that doesn't hurt. However, I am for hell sure I've seen it somewhere before Deadfire. In fact I am eerily sure Neverwinter Nights allowed you this somewhere, or maybe in some popular mods.
Do note tho, it is a problem which rises from extremely companion heavy focus of RPGs and how skewed quest content towards them is.
I am seeing as Camellia is characterized as "beast tank" on Owlcat forums, but she is not for me. What am I missing?
idk, Shaman doesn't get any polymorph spells before circle 8 (mass bear transformation); also, Camelia picked a domain that gives 3 enlarge spells (enlarge, righteous might and fright aspect) but herself is in a Dex build. It is the same domain I picked for my first run and you can seriously whack but you need proper build. So while you can transform her from some other sources, it's not her "build", unless you count last circle 9(shapechange ithink?) spell or maybe you pick another shaman domain, but for me picking another doman or witch hex seems broken. Also, they don't allow you to transform very early either. If they wanted to make her an unhittable buffer, a Wind domain would suit her more. From her character perspective, Bones or Nature would be a more lore friendly pick.
