Is there a 'standard' party make up?

I have read things like "Jaheira is my tank" but how can people play with only one tank? In the past i have usually had 4 tanks, a thief and Eerie!
Are people using lots of missile weapons or many a wizard?
I am about to start a new game and would like to know if I should limit my number of potential tanks?
I need to know my party before i start!

Thanks.

IMHO, it depends on what you mean by "tank". When you read that xxx is someone's tank, that person probably means that they use a single figher-type (with the lowest AC possible) to attract all or as much as possible of the enemies' attacks, while the other party members use their ranged weapons or hit and run attacks to dispatch the bad guys. In this scenario, the tank isn't really used to attack but rather to distract.

For more on this, see SixofSpades' site: http://www.geocities.com/sixospades/bg/chap9.htm

And remember, you can summon tanks. Skeleton Warriors, elementals, and planetars do nicely. That is, assuming there isn't a nice enemy nearby you'd like to charm.

When you are first playing the game people tend to use a lot of tanks because they are slower with the spells and find it hard to use the spells in the right combination. Once you have mastered the spell/combination side you do not need as many tanks, just someone or thing to capture the attention of the bad guys while you start casting. There are the obvious tanks like keldorn, korgan and Minsk but with the right equipment the Jaheira and valgyrs of the world come into their own. This is the beauty of the BG2 game. It works well at so many levels and is so hard to master.

The first time I played I used two tanks and four casters and DANG it was hard. The second time I used three tanks, one dual tank caster and two ranged weapon spell casters and it was a bit easier. [img]smile.gif[/img]

My advice is go for the burly characters when first starting out. ;)

A standard party make up? well, the most common would probably be 2 tanks, a thief, a priest and 2 arcane casters(or 1 sorc :D ). Theres no particular reason as to why you should limit your tanks, hell, play an all tank party if you want to! Tanks can be/are very useful, but it tends to get a bit boring if you have no variation in your party...its just the matter of how you like to play the game.

Jim the Barbarian ;)
Lim the Kensai
Kim the Fighter
Tim the Wizard Slayer
Dim the Berserker
Zim the Monk

Together... they are the Him Brothers!

*snort* [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] I can picture Jim as a Barbarian alright ;)

Thanks for that. I now need to chose a pc and get going!

So creative, Dundee! You're my new role model.