Post your fav party setups

~~Warning the following contains a few small spoilers~~

Ok probably the biggest decisions in bg2 come when you form your party. They totally dictate the way you play the game so here is my favorite party setup

Me : Mage. I like playing a mage for various roleplaying reasons but also great great spells. I like the choice of which spells I learn instead of getting an npc with already known spells althouth there are spells that they can learn i also like the mage stronhold

Minsc (And Boo): You gotta appreciate Misnc. He is a big strong ranger with a giant minature space hamster. Also he is a very good fighter once he gets some full plate +1 and a good sword his rightious ass kicking powers are only matched by...

Korgan : Dude i love this character. Sure he is Chaotic Evil but we wont turn on you unless you really piss him off. Firstly the character is very well made but his ass kicking powers are unequaled. I gave him a dragon sheild, dragon helm, dragon plate and the cool axe u find in Nalias quest. This way he gets -6 ac, immune to fire, 50% resistant to cold and lightning and he basically has a d10 +5 weapon (1 acid 1 fire 1 cold dmg). Also he has rather high HP. Also he gets Hangars Axe to use as ranged attacks if need be the the aforementioned axe you find in Nalias castle as a close combat weapon.

Yoshimo : He might not seem too useful when u first find him and his character isnt especially well made but his giant saving grace is his amazing Set Traps ability. Traps make all the difference as I stated in a post a few topics down. Also if you dual him as a fighter/theif he can do some decent dmg with his Namara +2 if u find it near the crypt king in the graveyeard district. His backstab isnt sensational but what the heck. His traps make up for everything he is missing. Sure he betrays you but you can avoid it

Jahera : She is good at everything but a master at nothing. She is a relitivley effective fighter if you give her the spear of Haroken you find in the graveyard district. Also she taken morph into various things which isnt that spectacular. Finally she gains high level cleric spells pretty fast. You get stuff like Harpers Call and Harm etc relitivley early on in the game. Way before my other cleric ...

Aerie : If anyone finishes the game with her in their party they should get like 10 million exp and be automaticaly raised to God-hood. Her whining is immposible to put up with but if you learn to ignore it she can become very useful. A cleric mage is hard to find and a precious thing when you do. Although she levels rather slowly he can supply a lot of spells, summons and everything else. I find her a very good npc to have for those that need some extra spell firepower

Basically I get Yoshimo to scout ahead. I send in Korgan and Misnc to lay down some heavy ass kicking while me and Aerie cast spells from the back. I get Jahiera to go right after Korgan and Misnc to provide extra damage while she can also heal them up if need be. I get Yoshimo to pluck away from a distance with a ranged weapon or backstab. Overall having a very easy time dispatching enemies such as golems, beholders etc. If something big attacks me like a lich or dragon is just get Yoshimo to setup traps and I lure the creatures into them. So far I havent had real trouble with anything. Not even Fircagg

when i first played the game through i practiclay did just with just my ranger .by the end he had 84% of the exp ,duel weilding celstial fury & peridan he had 4 attacks per round. He was so good the rest of the pary was just imoen, aerie and hear-dalis. HE deafeated Firkragg by himself with just an improved haste. i had my ranger from oringinal baldurs gate with the tomes so he had demi-godlike stats.

secondtime i am playing as a cleric/mage which is good becuase he has healing and earthquake as well as minor globe and haste etc

I like to play in multi-player mode as I dislike the NPC's that the game provides. With the exception of Minsc and Keldorn Firecam. I also tend to like melee parties better than heavy magic parties. So my main character is a multi-class fighter-thief. She sneeks up on people and backstabs you to death. I have Minsc and Keldorn as my shock troops. Minsc uses Warblade and Keldorn has Carsomyr. Together they kick some serious ass. I have a single class cleric and a single class specialist mage invoker. I believe in keeping clerics and mages single class because they move up in levels faster and have better access to higher spells that way. That works really well for clerics, as you want them to get a 6th level heal spell as soon as possible. Lastly, I round out my group with an Archer. This I think is one of the best classes. Right now my archer dishes out 20+ points of damage per arrow and VERY rarely misses. You may notice that Imoen is not in my group personnally I think she is barely marginal as an NPC. I chose to complete most of the quests before I went to Spellhold so Imoen was very weak compared to my characters at that time plus I already had a thief in my main character.

This evil party setup is pretty powerful:
Half orc fighter-thief dual class (same exp as Korgan, 19 strength)
Korgan (weak boy with only 18/76 strength)
Jaheria (19 strength with the girdle)
Viconia (18/00 strength so she can wear heavy armor, uses that sling of seeking)
Edwin (give him a caster robe and the gauntlets of dexterity, he's quite agile)
Nalia (-4 AC with just normal gear, decent archer. Second best caster in the game).

The good party setup is also pretty powerful:
Kensai-mage (level 9 kensai skills, natural 18/00 strength)
Minsc
Keldorn (19 strength, gauntlets of dexterity)
Yoshimo (fighter-thief, dualed immediately when met, fulfills all thief skills, good with a bow)
Cernd (sure, he's only a slightly better druid than Jaheria but there'd be too many tanks with Jaheria)
Aerie (here's the tough part--Jan Jansen must be your thief until Yoshimo gets his thief skills back, and that's a long time).

I'm experimenting with a third party, with a blade as a PC. Still haven't found the right combo. Trying to make it: Blade, Minsc, Valygar, Jaheria, Aerie and Imoen. The problem is having too many weak people with strength below 18/01, and not having a good archer.

Me mage: spell power to deal with large groups and other mages.
Aries: good healing and mage spell gave her cymor falyer. best looking love insterst.
minsc: good, dragon mail, fostbighter and the mace of distuption. kills pretty much any creature.
Valgar: two katannas and a ring from the demilich. basicaly back up for minsc.
Jharia: more healing powers of fighting if needed. ( why she is a love intressed, i mean she seems more like an anut in the frist.)
Imoen or jan: ranged attack power.

Turin....
There's a spoiler about your party. read below if you want it.
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Korgan and Aerie do not get along and will eventually fight. Try replacing Aerie with Amoen; or Korgan with Keldorn (the latter is probably better because you will find the items to outfit Keldorn and make him the better of the two, and you need a secondary mage, probably)

[Rikard T'Aranaxz]

hm
i'm now playing a alll magic party

Necromancer (Rikard)
Kensai dualled to mage (Kaël my other nick on this forum)
Ranger dualled to cleric
Blade
and the NPC's
Jan (really great and funny)
and Edwin

but you may first wanna finish the game in npc mode

Intend to have

me(sorceror)
jahira
minsc
keldorn
mazzy
thief

will keep jan for humor, but imoen is like my little sister, damn it!
she probably studied magecraft just because the main charcter did

looking foward to jan and minsc dialog. plan to ditch yoshi because, well, you know, and I've figured out with the helm that allows simacrum casting, whatever thief I keep can setup many traps.

the various rings also can make a thief very well skilled.

but, the important thing is, my frontline chars are mages/druids!!!
stoneskin, is quite effective, and requires a lot of hits to down. thus, the whimpy mage is the best "blocker" it also casts real fast, and my regular mages will have several always ready