[andrewas]

You can't access the henchmen inventory in the NWN OC henchmen. There is a hakpak to allow this, but its cludgy and has to work around some daftdesign decisions on the part of bioware. The same hak also improves their AI a fair amount, so its worth getting anyway. Search the vault for it.

Henchmen in the SOU and HotU OCs allow proper inventory control.

And yes, when you level, you talk to her and tell her to level up, she is removed from the game and a higher level version is spawned. This process is what complicates proper inventory control and is why NWN OC henchmen still don't have it, the other henchmen just level up simply and dont get respawned.

Finaly, its dependent on your level,not how much levels youve gained with that henchman. So as long as you get to level 5 (IIRC) in the first chapter, you will be able to get all the henchman quests.