For the love of all things HOLY... why??

Why in the world are you almost forced to use an evil party? I mean, I personally think they screwed up royally when they made just a limited number of possible characters to join your party. I mean, you always want to get the best party together that you can right? My main character is a paladin, but with the dual class characters, it makes for an unbalanced team in the later stages as pure classes start pulling away from the dual classes. As a paladin, I have an evil pure mage and an an evil cleric in my party along with Minsc everyone else. I have the 6 people Stat wise that I want to use and Imoen isnt even one of them.
Do you HAVE to use Imoen? And for the love of all things holy, WHY limit the characters that way? I mean its just pisses me off. If I make the 6 people I want and start them in a multiplayer game, its just too stinking quiet.. nobody says anything unless you talk to an NPC. They REALLY should have made a "Personality List" so you could start a game with the characters YOU want to use and just randomly assign a personality according to the character you created. Sure.. use the cookie cutter ones (like Minsc and Boo) if you want, but come on... not everyone wants an evil party.. sheesh. Why do we gotta accept substandard char's just because we wanna be a paladin?
..sorry.. rant over

You totally confused me. How is it that your "forced" to play an evil party???
Also you DO NOT have to use imoen. Thank god.

Q) Do you want to have a mage with an 18 Int. WITHOUT having him as your main char?
A) Edwin = Evil

Q) Do you want to have a pure cleric? WITHOUT having one as your primary?
A) Whatsherface - Evil

Now take a look at the statistics of most of the other char's. I mean come on. One of the chicks even has a measly 16 as her primary stat for her mage class.. and I think a 16 in wisdom for her cleric one as well (not positive about that). The only halfway decent characters you have to work with are Minsc and Yoshimo IMHO. I mean come on. "Throw me a bone here will ya?" I mean if your going to make such an awsome, which I DO think it is, and give us all this depth, at least put the finishing touch on it by adding enough characters to please everyone or let us make our own Hand-made characters without having to sacrafice so much char. interaction that you do with a Multiplayer game.
I dunno.. I dont think it would have been THAT much harder to add just that little bit of finishing polish to an already outstanding game.

Yea i agree, the game should have had more allies. But if you wanted a powerful mage then you should have made one. OR a powerful cleric. However your right, the multi-classed good chars suck. I tihnk jahera or whatever and nalia and aerie all suck big time. I see what you mean now. The powerful "pure" chars are evil. It sounds like you want powerful good magic users as allies. If you want a powerful magic user so bad, you should have made your main char one.
If they had put a "personality" maker or design thingy, then that would be awesome.

Hmmm. Well, the cleric dude (Amenoen) is great. His Wisdom is Lousy (12, lol), but in all honesty at higher level, the bonus 1st to 4th spells really don't make much of a diff. He has awesome HPs and sling specialization, so he really rocks. Also, he starts at a much higher level than the others. IMO, he beats out the drow with her 18 Wis and 19 Dex - Just slap the guants of dex on him and he rocks.

As for a mage, Iemon is the best - she can fire arrows since she is a thief, and you don't have to carry Yoshimo if you have her. That leaves you space to pick up Edwin (until he breaks) or Nalia (Int 17) who also has thief abilities. Now you can pick from the fighter pool - yeah, the Dwarf rocks, but slap the guant of ogre on the Ranger dude, give minsc the girdle of Giant Strength, and you now have a nice, well-rounded party of good and neutral characters, all who can go up levels fast since they are single or dual classed, and two who eliminated the need for Yoshimo (although I still have him since I haven't gotten Iemoen back yet).

There is not necessity for 18 Int for those 9th level spells, so your out of luck unless you still have Edwin or you find an int boost for Nalia or Iemoen...

Oops, I meant to say 18 Int IS necessary for 9th level spells, heh.

I have a perfectly good good/neutral party:

Main character Paladin - Holy Avenger
Minsc - Flail of Ages (or whatever it's called)
Yoshimo - Great bow and arrows
Jaheira - Summon fire elementals/Gauntlets of Ogre power and Sling that does str dam bonus
Nalia - Bow and arrows/fire support
Ae-whatever (Cleric-Mage) - Fire support/protection removal

The Paladin has 50% magic resistance, -5 AC, and 20% resistance to fire, cold, and acid - runs right in thick of things, mages can throw fireballs right there without hurting Paladin. THWACK goes the evil mage. SMACK goes the demon. BUH-BYE goes the golem.