Is my group alright?

Cooper

So this is my first time through, and I'm a little curious if I'm, like TOTALLY just making things harder for myself ;P My current group is myself (fighter), Imoen, Jaheria, Khalid, Branwen, and Rasaad.

24jel

I don't have an answer but if I could just add a question related to yours: can you rearrange your party throughout the game? I.e. if I remove Imoen from my party for instance, and replace here with someone else could I have her join me again at a later date (and how would that, if at all, effect her xp level?)? I have already experienced you can do some irrevocable damage to certain characters, but if you nice I mean

CaptRory

It'll work, but you're fighter heavy. You have four fighter-types, one cleric and a druid multi, and Imoen which can be dualed to a mage. You might wanna lock Khalid in a room somewhere and recruit another mage like Neera or Xan or someone.

Hoius

Well, it's good you're a fighter because Khalid is good mainly for absorbing damage but not inflicting it. I usually send him ahead as bait, because he has 17 constitution and therefore can take a serious punch! Jaheira - not a bad fighter/druid, but sadly you can't keep her without Khalid (if you remove one of them from the party the other leaves too). Imoen - very good thief, who you can duall class as a mage later in game if you wish (but if you're new to the game I'd advise not doing that on your first playthrough). Branwen is an OK cleric (clerics are best used for heal/support) with some fighting ability, it's good that you have her in the party. Rasaad - cant' say anything about him, I havent found him yet. I only know he's a monk - they usually are good melee damagers.

Your party is OK, but I personally think it would be more effective if you had a mage (you'll need a good spellcaster with offensive spells later on in the game, because it gets pretty difficult). If you wish to acquire a mage for your group, I'd advise either removing Rasaad (your fighter hero and Khalid should be enough as the brawn of the group - he absorbs the attacks, you deal damage) OR you could remove Branwen (because you already have Jaheira as a healer/support) OR you could remove Jaheira and Khalid (leaving you and Rasaad as the brawn) and acquire another character in addition to the mage (having a ranged damager i.e. is not a bad idea because those characters can disrupt enemy spellcasters easily. Maybe get Kivan for the group?).

Again, I think your party is OK, but if you don't change it at all at some point, in the second half of the game you'll have difficulties with the more powerful enemies (especially whith the spellcasters and archers!).

I hope my advice is of help, good luck and have fun playing the game

CaptRory

You can remove Khalid without Jaheria leaving.

You can:

A) Kill him off.
Put him in a building somewhere by himself and remove him.

valky

I agree with Hoius; Jaheira is decent enough to be your full-time healer with decent combat abilities, so you won't necessary need Branwen (with her you could still abuse some XP-resting-level-mechanics...) anyway, IMO 1 healer is fine in BG1 + TotSc - you don't really need any more, if you keep an eye on the equipment for your melees, which you have QUITE a lot! Only in BG2 I'd take a support healer..but as we are talking about BG1..that's not really needed.

As you are playing a figher, I'd suggest to get Ajantis (Paladin-north of beregost) + branwen = your melee combo; the others should be some decent ranged chars AND casters, as you'll need them later.
From you party-constellation I assume you are being good aligned, so maybe the Minsc+Dynaheir team (ranger+mage) or Kivan (Ranger/High Hedge)+Neerah (she is JUST freaking awesome!) + Imoen.

just my 0.02$

[I don't like Rasaad, he is just way too weak....]

edit: can you still break coupled pairs apart?

edit/edit: everyone plays different ^^ but Branwen does her job fine, even if her combat abilities suck - she is a very nice cleric and you can easily get her a Warhammer +2 (electric). Or you might be evil and check out Viconia..and Edwin and and :P way a shitload of constellation possible in BG1 ^^

sandmanCCL

Khalid is the better part of that duo.

That said, you don't really need both Jaheira AND Branwen. One or the other should suffice. I'd dump the happy druid couple and go pick up Kivan (he's just chilling north of the main building in High Hedge) or Ajantis (he's near the bottom left, next to the road, in the area just north of the Friendly Arm.)

You really ought to pick up an arcane spellcaster at some point, especially if you plan on keeping Imoen a thief. You can either dual-class her into a mage at level 5 or 6 depending on how long you want to wait, then going and grabbing one of the many spare thief NPCs til she regains her thief levels, or just go get someone like Xan. I highly recommend Xan. He's amazing.

Cooper

Alright cool, thanks everyone I'll do some thinking on this one. On one hand, I've had Jaheira and Khalid ever since I would try to bumble through this game when I was younger (never got passed the mine) so I feel weird about ditching them, but I'm SURE there are better people out there Like Ajantis, Kivan, and Neera

valky

http://www.gamebanshee.com/baldursgate/npcs.php

maybe that helps a bit more :P take your pick

edit: take the alignment into account...so Brenwen==good / Viconia == evil....one will leave you either way, just as a stupid example.
[else, you mod the game, which ignores the alignment....but it feels like a cheat ^^ I'd rather kill an innocent to maintain a neutral reputation, than to install such stuff...hey - I want to have an evil char in my party, the other can just shut up :P)

Hoius

@CaptRory - LOL, I didn't know about option . Personally I don't like killing off characters and preffer just removing them from the party (what can I say, I'm like Good Guy Greg ). But yeah, killing Khalid (or letting him die in battle with enemies) IS an option if you want only Jaheira.

xxxsmb1987xxx

I have had Khalid since the start and he is great he has 26% xp from kills in my party

sandmanCCL

There are plenty of ways to lower rep easily that don't hurt you all that much long-term (because killing innocents tends to turn a lot of people red you needed to talk to otherwise). Siding with Silke, for example.