What is a good party for a Cavalier (my character) in BG2?

I don't really want Imoen back and I'd prefer to get rid of Minsc as well. And I also don't want Yoshimo. But I like Jaheira and Aerie.
So - so far that would be:

Me - Paladin (Cavalier)
Aerie - Cleric/Mage
Jaheira - Fighter/Druid
----
I need a thief and one more tank and one more mage I suppose?

Jan is thief and mage, and should do the job in the thief category. He has some nice gadgets that make his thieving skills better than it looks like. He's also pretty funny to boot.

I love Korgan as a fighter/tank, but he's obviously ill-fitting for a paladin party, and I'm not sure who is the best alternative if you don't want Minsc either. I've not used her myself, but think Mazzy is pretty decent, though that's more as a deadly archer rather than fighter. She's not the easiest to recruit, though. Anomen might be another tank-type NPC, but he annoys me something fierce, so could never play with him.

As far as mages go, Edwin is brilliant, but also evil, so hardly a good fit. Nalia is almost a pure mage, just a few levels as thief, so she may be your best bet.

Maybe:
You - Paladin
Aerie - Cleric/Mage
Jaheira - Fighter/Druid
Jan - Thief/Mage
Mazzy - Fighter
Nalia - Thief4-Mage

Keldorn is another obvious tank possibility, but since you're a paladin yourself I didn't include him. Easy to recruit, though, and give him the dexterity boosting ring and he's a mighty fine tank.

e: As an aside, it is perhaps unfortunate that some of the best pure classed NPCs in important classes are evil. Korgan (fighter), Viconia (cleric) and Edwin (mage).

Fortunately, there are alternatives available.

Mazzy is a pure fighter, and Minsc doesn't level up that much slower, being a ranger. (Also, Keldorn, but I have never used him.)

Imoen and Nalia level up as fast as a pure mage, meaning they get 9th level spells near the end of Shadows of Amn (instead of having to wait until late ToB).

Anomen levels up as fast as a pure cleric, but with the advantage of being able to get grand mastery and having an extra half attack on top of that.

It's also unfortunate about the lack of pure thieves in the game.

You don't need anything, you can simply play and finish this game with your party of 3.
There's a mage spell for opening locks and traps can be avoided or survived.

You can change alignment with Shadow Keeper (or EE keeper).

I believe that the reputation conditions in which a character will leave change according to the new alignment, but the dialog will not change. (For example, if you make Aerie (or another normally good character) evil, she will complain about you not being a good person when your reputation gets too high.)

Yeah. The idea was just that I could try to get Edwin and/or Korgan into my party but not make them leave if I hit reputation 20 eventually. A cool fighting dwarf tank and the, apparently, most powerful mage in the game ... that sounds tempting!

Best to just use the tweak from the BG2 tweak pack that stops NPCs leaving due to reputation. (and you can have them still complain or not as you like with that).

I'm pretty sure their breaking point is based in their script though (not just on their alignment) though I'd have to double-check as it's been a while since I looked.

Oh God.
Does that work when I had already used that tweak thingie when I first installed BG1 and 2? And then use it on a current save game?

Yes it will work. It's based on a table, not on a script. The tweak just changes the table.

Okay, thank you. Just installed it. Let's hope for the best, haha.

Although Edwin and Korgan are great, you don't need super powerful NPCs to complete the game.

Then again, you don't need to rescue Imoen to beat the game. (You do need to go to Spellhold, but you can skip the entire dungeon with a couple polymorph teleports (that are tricky to pull off.) Note that doing so does skip some important story sequences, however.)

Difference being that not partying with powerful NPCs doesn't require cheats/glitches. :P

*facepalm*

Then again, you don't need glitches to finish the game either. Just use the cheat keys to warp to the last area and Ctrl + Y Irenicus. Much easier, much faster with the same amount of stupid.