Im refreshing myself on the rules, and one card made me have a question. In the case of Firyal, can i commit the character to a quest, look at the top card of the encounter deck, and then decide which other characters to commit to the quest? Or are characters considered to have been commited at the same time?

All a player's characters are committed at the same time. If there is more than one player, the first player commits all their characters first, then the second, and so on. So the player with Firyal cannot use the information to decide what other characters to commit, but they can help subsequent players decide what to do.

thank you

Even allowing for this, Firyal is one of the best allies in the game. In single player she dominates the encounter deck.

Technically, you can play Late Adventurer (or Grappling Hook, or, uh, Sword-thain + Battle-fury) to commit Firyal to the quest before any other characters commit to quest, and thus have the scrying info for everyone including yourself, even if you're not the first player.

For a mini-version, Firyal is a fine target for Defender of the West.