How does the party system work? Do you have four people in your party? Can you use all the abilities of all four people at all times, or only for your main character (such as for animal speaking).
Is there a list of the pre-made characters somewhere that describes what abilities they start with?
Up to four, you start with just yourself (and I guess any co-op partners with you at char creation).
Abilities used out of combat are based on the character selected. Someone with Pet Pal can talk to animals, other characters just hear animal noises, for instance. I don't think there's any situations where other characters jump in and use their own stats, like for trading; if you want the best deal, your best barterer needs to be the one trading with a vendor.
For origin companions, you select their class when you recruit them. There's a selection of four classes and it's generally mage/melee/rogue/etc, all based on available pre-sets you can choose during character creation. I don't think there's a way to see an overview of their stats when you're deciding--though note that since progression is classless, you can turn them into whatever you want. They will match your level and you select everything after level 1.
This is all based on the Early Access builds, so hopefully it's accurate.
