B-tier is fine with me, as long as there's some decent variety.
In BG1 practically every area you visited had least 1 NPC trying to crash the party.
Without even wandering off the beaten path, you were bound to run into a dozen hangers-on by the time of the Bandit interlude. Just walking the main highways or stopping by the taverns. Wander a little further and you'd run into a Kivan or Shar Teel or whoever. Often times they were just thrown at us as "maybes" along the way, without needing to be anything particularly special or stand out. Just trapped in a mine or some such. Pretty much exactly like Halsin lol
IIRC in Baldur's Gate I they didn't expect people to reload when characters they liked died, so the army of replacements for the last (class here) that died weren't needed-one of the reasons the roster for Baldur's Gate II was so much drastically smaller.
I personally like Halsin because he seems ambiable, grounded and if I'm being vain, has a nice voice and bucks stereotypical elf appearance; he's not a scrawny beanpole prettyboy like Astarion or (possibly) Tav or any other elven NPC, he looks like a confident f&*%ing gigachad that could knock out a bear in one punch.
