Hey, I'm trying to go and get Coran ASAP, with as little experience as possible, so that I'll be able to mold his thief skills as much to my liking as possible.

I just want to make sure I'm doing all of the necessary steps:

I'm going through the mines, then I'll head through the bandit camp, then grab him in Cloakwood Forests.

If I do this, will I be able to go back and do the little subquests in Chapters 1 and 2? Little things like bringing back Joseph's greenstone ring, and that flame ring quest near the Friendly Arm Inn. How about going spider slaying?

TIA

Yep, should be able to. I've never noticed any time/chapter limitations on any of the side-quests with the exception of a few of the NPC quests.

HTH.

Of course you can. This is quite a commonly used tactic actually.

On one of my speed runs, I went to Nashkel, recruited Minsc, did the Mines, did the Bandit Camp, recruited Coran, completed Coran's quest, and then completed Minsc's quest. Minsc did complain that we were taking too long, but only once, and we were only 1 map away from his goal when we did it. Oh yeah, it's quite possible.

Wow, that's cool, 6! I kinda wish I did it that way now, since I heard Dynaheir will have Fireball if you recruit her late enough.

Oh well, I hope I find a scroll somewhere and she succeeds in scribing it!