[Cerek the Barbaric]

Personally, I would like to be able to keep Yoshimo. He levels-up faster than any other NPC and - as mentioned before - his special snares helped out in SEVERAL tough battles.

There are several challenging fights with other NPC parties in the game. If you use Yoshimo correctly, he can eliminate at least half of the other group before the fight even starts.

You could also play a fighter-type yourself and then dual-class to a thief around 15th level. This will give you good hit points, PLUS you will reach 16th level thief pretty quickly at this point in the game. Then YOU can detect and set traps and - eventually - USE ANY ITEM....like a certain +6 Holy Avenger!