[andrewas]

id grab aerie and yoshi for now, replace him with imoen later.

aerie cos shes an excellent all-round magic user, yoshi cos hes on of the few good theives available.

dump cernd. he just sucks.

if only imoen could level up as a thief she would be as awesome as before. it hurts that she lost three levels between BG1 and SoA.

in ToB you might want to switch to more fighters,less mages but i didnt.

also always have at least two chars capable of raising dead in some fasion. there are three spells that do this - raise dead and resurrection are standard. resurrection is the superior one as it also heals the dead char. harpers (read : jaheria) get harpers call which is vastly inferior, since it cost 10 hp to cast and is otherwise identical to raise dead, but a handy spell to keep incase you proper resurecter dies.

also there is the rod of resurrection, but i kinda burned it out. its a prime candidate for the shop recharge trick.

following these suggestions would kinda fix you with:

you - ranger
minsc - ranger with extra kick-ass qualities
jaheria - kick ass fighter, back up spellcaster
nalia - the only good,pure mage in the game (lvl 4 theif dont count)
aerie - all round spellcaster and useful person
imoen - theif and back up spells.

hey, thats my party. so it must be the best available. [img]smile.gif[/img]