The three Followers (Enchantress, Templar, Scoundrel).
Followers refer to non playable characters that journey through the game world with the hero and assist in quests and battles. Diablo III has three such characters: Kormac the Templar, Lyndon the Scoundrel and Eirena the Enchantress. Each follower has various skills and will achieve new levels as they fight alongside the hero. Unlike mercenaries in Diablo II, followers are only for use in solo play (if another player joins your game, your follower will return to town). They are, however, better integrated into the game as a whole and boast a number of key improvements. Followers are strongly integrated into the story and quest lines, to the extent that they have their own quests, back stories, and lines of dialogue. Followers are recruited through questss. All three Followers level automatically with the player, even if not being used in gameplay. If a Follower's health drops to zero, they're knocked to the ground for a brief period of time but they do not die.
The Templar's skill pane.
In addition to improving levels by engaging in battle, you can also equip Followers with items and assign them skills as they level up (see screenshot above). They each have a main and sub-weapon slot, amulet slot, two ring slots, and one class specific item slot, and 4 tiers of skills (unlocked at levels 5, 10, 15 and 20).
