2 questions. How do you play Glint and who should I replace Safana with?

ZeroxSP7

Current setup.

Me-lawful good human fighter. High mastery in longswords. Specialized in bastard swords

Minsc-my 2h sword guy

Dynaheir-my mage. I make do without enchantment spells. Horror is my go to crowd control spell

Glint-my thief. Also has cleric spells

Corwin-my archer

Safana-kicking her out. Glint has more to offer and Safana just doesn’t mesh personality wise with the group. I already prevented the romance from continuing with her. She’s just too selfish and I feel like she’s not really the kind of person to see things through to the end with me regardless if she has nothing to gain from it. In short, she’s not a friend or even a good one at that. So she’s out. Who do I replace her with?

I’m currently in Troll Claw Woods. I’m considering M’khiin, Jaheira, Voghiln, and POSSIBLY Rasaad.

Also how the heck do you play Glint? Currently I have him decked out with the Strength gloves, full plate mail, Ashideena, and a shield fighting up front. Should he be in the back? Currently there’s only me and Minsc up front. His THAC0 is around 11 I think? Should go up more with cleric buffs. It’s his APR I’m kinda worried about.

atcDave

When I've used Glint its from the back, with a sling.

I'd say you really don't need another thief as long as you have him. So go ahead and get some muscle to replace Safana, Jaheira or Khalid would be the most obvious choices.

DinoDin

Glint is going to be trash in combat except for cleric spells and backstabs. You can just leave him in the back with a sling and play him in combat like you would Viconia. If you can add a pip to him, you could potentially add quarterstaff for some okay backstab potential, especially if you ended up with the +3 from BG1. But basically he's a utility character and shouldn't be up front.

I'd lean towards adding another caster, Voghiln or Mkhiin. You're replacing a primarily backline character anyways, Mkhiin does well with the shortbow too. But I've found Voghiln's immensely useful in most playthroughs. The bardsong plus the way he scales with certain mage spells is great.

Trouveur

Don't put heavy armor on Glint, it will prevent him to use thief skills.
I use him on the back with with a sling.

My current party is very similar to yours (my main char is a paladin using longsword), and I took Voghlin. His song really helps all the fighters. I gave him the bard hat, the returning dart, the gauntlet of weapon expertise and the bless amulet, that's way he's positioned between the frontline and the backline so they all benefit from his song. He does good damage too and bring spells and can use wands.

jmerry

Heavy armor actually isn't all that bad for a utility thief; while it locks you out of using stealth or disarming and unlocking stuff in combat, you can just take the armor off and do that stuff out of combat. Detecting traps and more importantly illusions is not impeded by heavy armor, and you can even detect and attack at the same time with a bit of micromanagement (click attack on an enemy, then click detect).

I still wouldn't do it, though.

ZeroxSP7

So I’m gathering from people that it’s better to play a Cleric as a back line person with a sling rather than send them into melee with heavy armor?

DinoDin

It's more about which companion your cleric is and what the rest of the party composition is. For example, you might put Viconia on the frontlines at the start of SoD, because you don't have that many good frontline options. But then as you progress, you'd slide her to the backline with a sling, because you have other options like Jaheira, Khalid or Dorn.

In Glint's case, I just don't think the tedium of switching armor all the dang time is worth what he gives you on the frontlines. Most players will have more fun with just leaving him in some heavy leather and a sling.

ZeroxSP7

I think I’ll keep him up front then. I won’t take Jaheira or Khalid. I thought about taking them as replacements for Voghiln and Corwin but I’ve decided against that idea. I need more frontliners and I also need the protection from evil 10’ spell.

Trouveur

Two frontliners are enough. With Minsc and your MC you are good. Just make sure their AC is low.
If you really want a third frontliner, Voghlin with mirror image and stoneskin will be better than Glint.
Clerics are good in the front, but Glint is a cleric / thief, and thiefs are best wearing light armor for using their skills, but light armor is not a good idea in melee.

atcDave

A cleric/thief is generally a poor front liner. A fighter/cleric is easily a melee juggernaut, even a single class cleric can do it in a pinch. But cleric/thief or cleric/mage is weak (at least until late BG2 when any character can work from the front).

The problem with the cleric thief is twofold, as mentioned above you need to switch armor to perform thief functions. If you have another thief for that, then you can forget this.
But you still have a cleric who will have to divide experience with thief class, which truly contributes nothing to melee. weaker hit points, no help on weapons. Trying to use Glint up front really may bite you when it comes to some of the huge melees later in in SoD. Let us know if you make it work!

ZeroxSP7

Working well so far. I’m doing the siege at bridgefort. So far killing everybody super quickly with just haste and bless. I keep restarting just to see if I can keep some of the defenders alive. I’d LIKE to keep all of them alive but oh well. I’ll probably just opt for a surrender.