Party help! *spoilers*

[Lunaida]

This is my first time playing BGII and my party so far includes:

Sorcerer (True Neutral)
Minsc
Jaheira
Korgan
Viconia (Ro)
Yoshimo

Now I'm planning to drop Misnc and Jaheira in favour of Edwin and Haer'Dalis, and I wanted to know if the proposed party would be strong enough? When later on Yoshimo

Spoiler

is replaced by Imoen, won't the party become too magic oriented

? Can I rely on Viconia and Haer'Dalis as good melee tank/fighters?

RP wise, I think Edwin and Haer will be much more fun. And since I'm going to side with Bhodi, I don't think it'll make much sense for the essentially good Jaheira and Minsc whose class enemy are vampires to remain in my party. What do you think?

PS: I don't want to use any mods.

[Stworca]

The party you're making will be one of the strongest ones.

However keep in mind that every party IS "strong enough", and even a single character can beat the game

Viconia is a nice tank with 19 dex and 65 MR, but she needs to buff herself (i'll let you figure out the spells) and wear str belt (or Crom in offhand)

Party is quite mage heavy, but since you're a sorcerer it leaves only two mages to fight over scrolls.

[kmonster]

With no one who gets more than one attack per round in the party combat will be slow and require more micromanaging, but if you like this playing style your party will be very powerful.
Your sorcerer can be a great tank if you use protection spells like stoneskin and mirror image, especially if he has 18 dex and 16 con. Two strength spells in a row will grant 18/00 strength for a very long time.

[Stworca]

With no one who gets more than one attack per round in the party

Korgan
Haer'Dalis

What are you talking about?
Aside from Haer that has many attacks, and Korgan beign a melee monster, Melf Minute Meteors turn any mage into a 5-attacks-per-round beast. Add impr. haste and its 10 attacks per round. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ochVynxW_SE#t=3m55s"]As seen here (real time)[/url]
As for tanking in Vanilla - tank with Protection from Magical weapons. Secondary weapon damage (such as flaming weapon) and effects (dispel from Carsomyr) go through Mirror Images and Stoneskins, interrupting your casting.

Use stoneskin / mirror image (toss in blur and shield) only if :
- You dont have pfmw yet (lvl wise)
- You have cast all pfmw's
- Enemy changes target when he gets "weapon ineffective" message. Very rare in unmodded BG2
- You're absolutely sure that this foe has no means of bypassing MI + Stoneskin

Since you have Imoen AND Edwin A N D a Sorcerer PC, don't ever bother with any other spells than PFMW as Sorc. The mages are perfect buff monkeys. The only lvl 6 spells you can consider casting (taking) as Sorc are the self-affecting ones like Globe of Invulnerability, Mislead, Tenser Transformation and True Sight. Unless you plan on dropping both Edwin and Imoen and playing with one arcane spellcaster - [url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn-9/guide-to-tactical-mods-spoilers-116063-p3.html#post1078980"]More info 'ere![/url]

A note about stoneskin tho : It lasts hours, so you should ALWAYS have it active on you before combat

[Lunaida]

Thanks for the advice guys! I changed the characters and so far the Trademeet quests are going very smoothly, much easier than the main city quests, in fact. Or maybe I just did the harder quests first! Haha!