Is Yoshi dead weight?

[Jadis]

I'm not one to backstab that often - and in more difficult battles it might be suicide to do so. Yoshi's a so-so Archer, and not a very good tank - he dosent seem to be pulling his weight, so to speak. What about playing a Thief/Cleric dual as your "main" and dumping Yoshi all together? If you run into harder locks/traps, drink a couple potions of master thievery, and you'll be good to go.

Comments?

[Dundee Slaytern]

Yoshimo Spoiler
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It's not as though you have a choice anyway. Yoshimo leaves your party permanently halfway through the game. Jan Jansen in my opinion, makes for a better permanent Thief. However, if you intend to replace Yoshimo with Imoen, then it can be worthwhile to have him around for his Special Snares. Pump points into his Set Traps ability.

[banzai]

I had Yoshimo in my party until I came to the *special point* mentioned above. Over all he´s a fine thief in my opinion and with his special traps worth keeping.
For me there were some encounters where his special traps were VERY valuable ...

Afterwards I replaced him with Imoen. In my opion there´s no need for a very *good* thief afterwards because all you characters have reached high enough levels then to handle problems in other ways. I just use Imoen to find traps and open locks - for this tasks she´s more than sufficient. But that is surely a matter of taste ...

[Faceman]

You don't need a good thief that badly in BG2 (SoA+ToB), but it is cool to have one. And the only possibility for this is to play a thief (fighter/thief) yourself. Yoshi, Imoen and Jan will be sufficient for most traps you encounter and locks can still be forced or "knocked" if they can't manage, but with a really good thief we're talking backstabbing and pickpocketing. Gaining enormous amounts of coin in the dirty business, and doing instant kills on nasty enemies such as Mind Flayers.

[Luther]

*Spoiler*

Seeing as Yoshimo leaves permanently at Spellhold no matter what you do he isn essentially a waste of investment (if you want to play as an RPG capitalist). As Dundee said, Jan is a wiser choice as you get a full return on the time and effort you pump into his skills. A thief is very handy in Throne of Bhaal (if you're going to take your game that far) as the spike trap ability is incredibly damaging and the 'use all items' ability comes in handy too. The Spike Traps were invaluable for me in fighting the final boss in Throne of Bhaal. So my advice would be to ditch Yoshimo and take Jan.

[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!

[samoza]

Another good thing about yoshi, when you get the special point in the game, the final little task hes sets you on gets you a nice 200000 xp. A minor point I know, sounds good though. You can easily pick jan up after this incident, thats what i did. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Inis]

Actually I killed Yoshi as soon as I met him in the Copper Coronet the second time through the game. I realize I was skipping out on a lot of storyline and potential experience but I REALLY hated the fight with him after Irenicus the first time I went through the game. I put it down to my "wizard's ways" detecting a rat when I killed him so I didn't feel too badly about it. [img]smile.gif[/img] At Spellhold he just makes a backstabbing bee-line for your main character who in my case has always been a mage or bard class character, so not too strong against brute physical damage when there is no time to prepare.

hehe

[JJ the GREAT]

I ditched Yoshi when my group got to The Copper Coronet & picked up Nalia. If I lost a character and needed a stand in till I found another I just go back to The Copper Coronet and get Yoshi. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[SixOfSpades]

Jan, Jan, he's our man, (gnome?) he can do what no one can!

The great thing about Jan (apart from his Uncles Scratchy and Gearhardt) is his items that boost his Thieving skills. They make it possible to reach 100% in EVERY skill really quickly--like Level 14 or 15. From then on, you can use his points to slowly wean him off those items. Not to mention that Jan gets Use Any Item and those cool ToB traps, just like Yoshimo would if it weren't for *cough, cough*. He's even a kickass Backstabber with a STR-booster! I'm all for Jan--except for that Calimshite Itch thing.