Includes spoilers. I have five PCs this time through, leaving spots 6, 7, and 8 open for NPCs. After releasing the first female prisoner I recruited the two orcs into spots 6 and 7, and then tried to get to a mod through dialogue with the second female prisoner. This didn't work. After reloading I discovered that if you don't recruit the orcs, or if you recruit them, arm them, and then dismiss them before talking to the second female, she will take you with her. If I had the Orcs along as NPCs, she took off on her own. Maybe she doesn't like orcs? I think it moe likely though that sometimes there is a problem with slot 8 on the roster, because I noticed once when playing 4.0 that I couldn't recruit somone (Wonilon?, It was a while ago.) into the eighth slot with the orcs in 6 and 7, so I dismissed them, recruited the other NPC into slot 6, and re-recruited the ORCS into slots 7 and 8 instead of 6 and 7. I'm thinking that maybe this has something to do with the orcs coming along as a team, since I've never had any problem recruiting an eighth character if the 6th and 7th are both individual pick-ups.
No check for orcs in the dialogues as far as I can tell from a quick check. Are you sure the first time that your average party level was greater than 5? It could be that the orcs brought your average level down.
You are the man Zeb. 5 Pcs at 6th level each is fine, but (5 * 6) + (2 * 2) / 7 = 4 6/7. I needed one of the PCs to be seventh level. Dang, I was hoping the Verbobonc experience would both boost the orcs to a survivable level for the deeper dungeon levels, and bleed experience away from the PCs so they don't all become Otis and Thrommel on dungeon level two.
Speaking of the NPC orcs and dialog, I had them in my party briefly in my most recent playthrough (Co8 5.0.0). Pintark bought it in battle :dead:, but I had him reincarnated :clap:. Dialog revealed that Tuelk still thought Pintark was dead (something like "Pintark ... gone.") After I dismissed them, they went back to their cell and Tuelk's dialog still hadn't changed :blahblah: . (Tuelk, dude, he's right behind you! Maybe Pintark came back a badger and Tuelk just couldn't recognize him :sadblinky -- JK)
