It is my second time through the game and I am in somewhat of a dilemma. I dualled Yoshimo to fighter at Level 12(I did not know of his treachery). Eventually he would fulfill three fundamental roles for my party: a back up fighter wielding anyone of three +2 short swords(with grand mastery); the primary archer(with the ripper +2) and the groups thief(lock picking,finding traps etc)

This would fit in well with my party
me(a mage)
minsc
korgan
Sir anoman
keldorn

Now he has betrayed me and I'm struggling to find a replacement for him... there are a number of natural replacements:

Imoen-I find her pretty **** apart from her theiving skills, she can't use the bow for a start.

Nalia- basically a poor man's Imoen

Mazzy Fenton-is good in the short sword and bow, but lacks thief skills.

Valygar-can step in as the bowman, but again no theif skills

Obviously these can't come in till chapter six, Imoen will have to do for now.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

I think the perfect solution to your problem would be Jan Jansen. Not only can he cast mage spells, he has a good crossbow, and theif skills. Whats more, he is multi-classed mage/theif, so he is always improving both skills. And, you get good dialogue as well.

(Edit) It depends on whether he has many quests remaining when he gets back to Athkatla. If h did them all before he left, theres gonna be nowhere to get lots of experience for Jan. I never really liked Imoen in BG2, but i suppose that was suppose they made her hair ginger which always annoyed me as it seemed like she was bald or something. (/Edit)

[This message has been edited by Wildfire (edited April 22, 2001).]

My advice is since you are stuck with Imoen keep her. She is not bad at all and replaced Hoshimo quite nicely for me. Jan is a great guy but by the time you can get him again I think you will probably have grown to like Imoen.

Imoen is a good mage with decent theiving skills, she can have more spells than jan, and if you give here the pick pocketing gloves, the danger sence ring, stealth boots,
good archmagi robe or elven +1. and a choice of the other theif rings (if you took bohdis quests and killed theives). if not then u cant get em. but even with out those, imoen is still a better mage than Jan, just give her time to gain levels, i saved quests so by the end of the game she was level 18 for me. (last time i used her in my party)

Honestly, I always thought Imoen was a perfectly fine thief for BG2. This has been debated to death before, so I'll give my abreviated opinion on the subject. Nalia obviously sucks as a thief. Say what you want about knock and detect traps, but those are thief skills, which she has none of. Jan's thief skills are perfectly fine and superb to anyone elses by games end. I never cared for his backstabbing ability, but otherwise he was very good. However, from a mage standpoint (the more important standpoint in this game by far as thieves are hardly necessary), he sucks. He maxes out at level six spells, where as I was able to get Imoen casting level eight spells by games end (a big help). And her important skills are fine (pick locks and detect traps) with the ring of danger sense and ring of lock picks. Both are over 100 with those I believe. She can't hide in shadows, but you have Minsc for that and aparantly plenly of fighters to take up Yoshi's slack. You won't find a better thief/mage como than Imoen, and if you want a better thief/fighter, I'd suggest creating one and beefing up his exp.

I chose Imoen. I thought that her thief and mage skills could be developed pretty well. Besides.. :rolleyes: I thought there would be a classier ending with her around ;)

Hmm, sorry but it would have been a good idea to put SPOILER in the title.

Yoshimo's plot was completely spoiled for me in a similar post. Unfortunately any newbie interested in Yoshimo and reading this post through their interest will now be completely spoiled in the same way. Hey, I know it's not intentional but please put a little thought in before posting anything regarding character plots. :)

Better? See if we can save any souls we haven't spoiled yet. ;)

I totally agree that Imoen is a good character. She performs the basic thieving skills just fine and all her xp goes into improving her as a mage.

I really like bringing Yoshimo along to Spellhold, it's a nice story and provides a smooth transition to Imoens reunion.

I have grown to like Imoen, I had no real need for a back up mage being a pure mage myself but she has come in useful. She can use a cross bow too! Not only has she replaced that scummy Bounty Hunter adequately but she offers many spells.