Getting back NPCs and PCs

Lets say I make a team of 5 players, and I want 2 NPCs to join. If I drop one of my characters that I made from scratch, will I be able to get him back, and where? If I drop any NPC, will I be able to get he/her back, and if so, where? I am trying to figure out how many people to make. Right now I am thinking about 5, but it may change.

When I dropped a self-made character from my multiplayer game, he walked away 5 feet and vanished, so I would say export that character before you drop him and you should be able to import him back in if you want him back.Unless...you experience the fun bug where certain characters cause the game to crash when you try to import them.

I have seen this bug with 3 diffrent chars, and I saw a post on this board where others were having similiar crashes.

As far as NPC's go, all the ones I used in my game were always willing to rejoin the party later, they tell you where they will be if you need them or some of them will stay right where you dropped them if you wish.

So if i make a sorcerer, for example, and I drop him anywhere in the game, can I import him back into my party ANYTIME, or what? I export my characters to the character file everytime i make one, but will he still have all the experience, items, etc that he had when I dropped him?