hello Dako-ta,
just like you, I have yet to beat the game with one of my teams. For whatever reason they never make it into Baldurs gate, maybe cause I'm spending most of my spare time with Diablo or the Dark mod. I'll try to answer some of your questions nonetheless
1) can't answer that, don't have ToSC.
2) my only information here is based on dualing Imoen. Once she turned mage, she lvled with those values. If she'll get more life after her first class is reactivated, I still have to find out.
3) I also shun 2-handers, mainly because I like my frontliners shielded. Imo it may be important if the hit interupts a cast or not, thus I tend to the "earlier" weapons.
My bow wielders are just that, and therefore only carry a melee weapon for emergencys, so the shield is no real option here.
4) In my games Imoen always had that wand in her inventory ( german version for Mac).
5) From personal exp, I know that Kivan, Minsc, Garry and Kagain just stay there and wait patiently.
Dyna stayed, but when I had her rejoin, all her equipment was gone and her spellbook almost empty. Branwen said goodbye and left the scene for good. From Jaheira I've heard, that she left also, but was back when the party came back to that area later. The team Minsc / Dyna stayed, but with the mentioned drawbacks on Dynas side.
6) As said before, I can't tell which abilities of the team will be needed in the second half. My groups tend to neglect the arcane arts and focus on the physical part. So read the following with that in mind.
Usually I have two frontliners ( or just Minsc alone) and all the others attack with bows, slings, darts. My casters just do blessing on the own and curse on the others as first action and thereafter throw whatever is in their hands.
Imo that "one or two guys at front " approach works fine. Mostly there isn't more space in front anyway, so you want all the ranged firepower you can get flying down the corridor. And in bigger areas, I set up a battle formation at a choke and have a scout draw the foes into my trap. Kivan with bow in stealth mode is a formidable scout, I had him kill half a map all on his own and only retreat to the battle formation for the "real" threats or the occasional heal.
For your party, I wouldn't mind to drop Khalid. I haven't played with Ajantis yet, so I don't know about his bow abilities. Minsc is definitely capable to stand his ground alone ( with some artillery assistance maybe). If you want to keep Minsc without Dyna, you could always let her take the point for a while
. Then again, there aren't many mages for a good aligned party. Talking about "good alignment" : Branwen will start to complain eventually, and it'll take a high charisma leader to keep her calm.
For me the party Iolanthe, Imoen, Ajantis, Branwen, Minsc, Dynaher looks like a balanced team:
you have three healers, two mages, two(and a half) frontliners, a thief and at least three bow/missile chars (though Dyna won't score to often), that should carry you through. - And in your next team give Kivan a try
please report, how you did
Wild