this is the first time I've played BG2, despite being around when it was new. I'm currently involved in making some party decisions. I have to pick up two mages (had nalia, she left to help her family; not ready to go out that far yet). My affiliation is true neutral and most of my current party falls in that quarter, give or take a point. I have Yoshimo, but hear that Jan is also an excellent thief. How does he compare to Yoshimo. I wnt to pick up Jan before I do the thief quest and am thinking of dumping Yoshimo afterwards and picking aerie. Any thoughts, guys?

First time player here as well. Did not pick up Jan, but have Yoshimo and am fairly pleased with that. He is a good thief, not least his throwing traps trick. He is a pure thief as well, so should get better at things than Jan, although Yoshimo will only get 20 skillpoints per level due to his kit.

Jan is a mage too though, so can of course be handy to have around. Depends a bit on your protagonist I suppose. Also hear that Jan is hilarious.

What type of build does your protagonist have, and who are your party members?

My protag is a true neutral druid of the last possible subkit (can't recall it's name at the moment, but it gave an amzing array of anamorph skills, as well as vampiric touch, 2 heal minor wounds charges, and call on holy might). hope that helps for that. I have Minsc, Jaheira, Yoshimo, and Keldorn (Lawful good. I picked him up for the cult of the unseeing eye quest. I stopped at a certain point when I became bambarded by undead w/ no mage or primary cleric). I really want to let Keldorn go home and be w/ his family, but he is currently my primary mele character.I have very little success w/ the trap skills. Am I doing it wrong?I should let you know that, as per my research, Yoshimo unconditionally leaves the party at a certain during SOA. But Jan is available all the way to the end of TOB, and that he levels as a theif throughout... That was the reason I posed the initial question. It seems that many mages dual class as thieves, but Jan seems to be a very strong secondary castor who can serve as a great thief.

Yes, I just hope no one here spoils your game. You seem a bit too concerned with which NPC is "the best", but let me tell you they are ALL useful. Just pick who you want and enjoy the game. The more you ask questions and read the forums, the more you ruin the discovery of learning things yourself by playing the game first hand. And that is the real fun of it. (I wish I had not talked about Jan so much, oh well)

For a first-time player, definitely take Yoshimo. You can take Jan too, especially if you're short on mages, but having Yoshimo in your party opens up a lot of opportunities that don't exist otherwise. He's also got some really great dialog with a wide variety of people, too. Jan has great dialog as well, but it's usually just Jan being ridiculous. Yoshimo has a very different style.

Really though, there's nothing wrong with having multiple thieves, especially with multi- and dual-classes thrown into the mix. You only really need one person to pick locks and deal with traps, but backstabing works much, much better in twos or threes than alone. In particular it helps to alleviate what I call "lone backstabber syndrome," which is present in a lot of combat games that also feature stealth. Basically, the one guy who can stealth gets isolated by getting into position, and as soon as he backstabs a guy and reveals himself, he becomes a huge target and (usually) gets severely wounded because there's no one nearby to help. With multiple thieves, you can position a sizable force undetected, which can help turn the tide in a lot of fights before they even get started.

To echo what anamorphic said, don't worry so much about perfect class balance. You don't actually need character from each class or even one character for each role. (They make life easier, but they aren't strictly necessary. For a while, nearly every times I played BG it was with a solo character.) You shouldn't really be thinking about characters "competing with each other" for spots. Just pick characters you like and who seem useful, and experience the game.

Thank you Anamorphic. I had already basically decided on what I had discussed in the initial question. I Was just wondering what you elder adventurers might have to say about it...

By the way: I appreciate all of your responses; but it has been my experience that this game is not very fun unless you have a well ballanced party. That's the real origin of my concern.

Not really. The game might not be lots of fun when you are unfamiliar with the rules (and BG doesn't help too much I must say) and you are constantly in wtf-just-happened mode.

When you familiarize yourself with the ruleset every party is lots of fun, especially in the unmodded game which is not very difficult.

I currently have both in my party but only until I find Imoen. Then it'll be byebye for Yoshimo.

Both have some very nice banter dialogues and love to ridicule the more serious NPCs like Keldorn, Anomen and Mazzy

Not very difficult? WTF? Maybe for a 1000th-time player, but let me tell you from the perspective of one who struggles to go through the game for the first time. There are a lot of battles that are difficult - extremely difficult. Since the OP has already picked up Keldorn, he should already know about one of them (for me at least). There are many, many others of course, and I'm still only in chapter 3.

Thoroughly agree with the people who say you should just enjoy the game though. I've asked a bit too much here and there when running into problems, and people seem to have an extreme urge to tell what will happen although I make it abundandly clear I haven't gotten to this or that point yet and don't want spoilers. Some have been small, others are huge. You can only play the game for the first time once :(

Cullen12, you seem to have a good party, though you lack a mage. Picking up Jan might be a good idea then. I have heard he and Minsc are hilarious together too.

Setting traps (or throwing with Yoshimo's special snare) is difficult until you get the Set Traps skill a fair bit up, because they tend to fail. I've gotten Yoshimo's to 100 now, so he always succeeds.

One thing I will say for advice, is that if you don't have a mage you'll run into problems pretty quickly. You have some cover in a Druid protagonist and Jaheira, but you need a mage for dealing out the hurtin', and not least for taking down enemy mages. At least that's my experience.

You've already come across Nalia. She is a pretty good mage as well, and I'm a little sorry I didn't pick her up myself (but am pleased with the party of ill/thief, Jaheira, Yoshimo, Minsc, Keldorn and Aerie). I'm not sure if you have come across Aerie yet, she is available early on. She is pretty good as well as she is a multiclassed Mage/Cleric.

Probably not, but remember on the level up screen, you have to scroll down the list of skills to put points into Set Traps. I completely missed that my first level.

In the beginning I found targeting the trap over the circle marker (or portrait) of the thief seemed to work a lot more often, but this could just be my imagination.

As to the well-balanced party, I'm just saying you can find that balance during the natural course of the game. I picked up almost every NPC (besides the fact most of them have their own quests that are fun and worth experience anyway) for deciding who to keep. First hand experience is better than second hand.

@AndyBuzz - LOL at "wtf-just-happened mode" (I know it too well!)

Either or. You should definitely have Yoshimo through at least one play through. Jan levels slower, but you'll still have more than enough points with him. Even Imoen who never exceeds Thief level 7 could be your primary thief when you get her back. Her backstab isn't great and she only has a couple traps, but otherwise...

I find Jan to have more tactical possibilities because of him being an Illusionist/Thief, therefore having a bigger repertoire of "tricks under his sleeve", the most basic being able to cast invisibility on himself during battle and then backstab, which Yoshimo could only achieve with a potion. Yoshimo is more than capable of handling all the thieving needs of the party as well though, so it really depends on what sort of playstyle the player prefers.

Pick Jan.
He's funnier and a multiclass thief is always more useful than a single class one.