A 'neutral' party.

[Craig]

I'm playing a gnomish Theif/Cleric, who's True neutral. I was thinking of getting Vicona and/or Branwen, Montaron, Coran, Xan/Edwin.

Now I'd like a good party, that's fun to play with. But I don't want them to be crippled or always fighting. There's also the fact that some of the party members are linked together, so it'll be hard to get rid of Xzar. Oh and I'd like to keep imoen too! So many choices!

Any advice?

[Nethellus]

If you're playing Tutu, permanently killing Xzar, giving him the "chunky death", will cause him to disappear without Montaron leaving, and vice versa. That is probably true for all npc pairs.

I don't know if you can do this in the original game though.

[RedneckJedi]

I simply wasn't able to keep Xzar from charging a wolf with his bare hands... Thats how I got him out of my party without Monty leaving... You do realise that you will have 4 thieves in your party if you get Coran, Imoen, and Monty....

[anarchistica]

Sword Coast Strategems allows you to separate NPC pairs. You can also simply leave an NPC in a building then kick him. Without his/her little talk to you the other one will stay.

[Craig]

That looks like an overall, good mod! Will installing it mess up my current game though? And is Tutu the same as TotSC? I've not heard Tutu before.

You are right, that is a lot of theives, but not pure thieves, I might revise it so I have fewer, but this is what I mean about ideas!

Any other suggestions?

[CFM]

TotSC is Bioware's official expansion to Baldur's Gate.

Tutu is a mod from the modding community, which allows BG1/TotSC to be played using the BG2 game engine and interface. So you could play through BG1/TotSC using an Archer kit, higher resolution, etc. It's the BG2 interface, using BG1 content.

If you want Monty, but not Xzar, then try this:
Enter a house somewhere, that you'd never need to re-enter, with your entire party.
Select everyone in your party, except Xzar, and exit the house, leaving Xzar inside.
Dismiss Xzar, as you would normally, via the character record screen.

Normally he would try to approach you, which would initiate his departing conversation, which would initiate grabbing Monty and disappearing. But since he's not currently in your map area, he can't initiate his departing conversation and grab Monty. So as long as you don't re-enter the house with Xzar, you're all set.

Alternately, you could feed Xzar to the wolves...