dtgreene: Since you have apparently played it, perhaps you could answer at least some of the questions I askked earlier in this topic?
Also, does the game have any option to change a character's class?
fronzelneekburm: Here are the answers to your questions, courtesy of Wolfram_von_Thal:
1. No, your party isn't necessarily permanent. You can always pick up NPCs on the road - they are almost overpowered in the first hours of the game, so it may be a good advice to pick up one or two of them if one finds the game too hard. There is a place where you'll be able to get your own characters back.
2. yes
3. skills improve both by using them and by you distributing skill points to them.
4. In my whole playtime (about 300 hours) my characters aged about two years and it didn't matter. I don't know what happens if they get older, but there are means to rejuvenate them later in the game.
5. As far as I remember: No. Resurrection halfs your character's constitution but it restores over time to normal.
6. In my experience healing is important in the first parts of the game and it's effective enough, later in the game I didn't even bother about it as my party was strong enough to survive every battle.
7. I don't even know if there is a levelcap but realistically you won't get higher than to level 15 in one game. I didn't reach this level with any of my characters as I multiclassed them. Multiclassing is a good idea as it increases your HP and makes your characters more versatile and gives you the possibility to get access to the nifty special classes (Pirate, Assassin and the wonderful Jester).
8. At the beginning it's relatively demanding to survive but with enough knowledge it works pretty well (again: it's a good idea to pick up one of the recruitable NPCs if the game seems to be too hard at the beginning). There are certain enemies in the game that have a very mean attitude and use brutal instakill attacks that can wipe out your entire party - even if this party is on level 10. They are seriously overpowered but can be countered with the right kind of magic. Later on the game can be almost a breeze if you know how everything works. That's how the game rewards your dedication and it's a great feeling if your party grows from a ragtag band of weaklings to a battle hardened veteran adventurers.
9. There are a lot of missing hits going on with inexperienced (and/or tired) characters.
Here are my thoughts on some of these answers:
3. This sounds like Wizardry 8. (Wizardry 6 and 7 also took this approach, but there are some skills that can't improve by use.) (By the way, one thing to test: Use a hex editor to raise a character's skills to 100, then level up the character. Can the game continue, or is it softlocked? (I think Wizardry 6 and/or 7 had an issue with this at one point.))
5. Interesting approach to resurrection, though the question is if whether it still makes sense to reload whenever characters die or if it is worth continuing.
6. The problem isn't whether the party can survive a battle without having to heal, but more whether the party can heal in between battles in a reasonable amount of time. When it takes longer (real time) to heal after a battle than to win the battle itself, there's clearly something wrong. As I said, Wizardry 6 and 7 have a serious issue with this (as does Pool of Radiance, but that's a different series).
7. Good to hear that there's class changing.
8. Sounds like the game has somewhat of an inverted difficulty curve, where the game gets easier as you progress. (This is a common problem in games with growth systems.) Also sounds like some battles aren't exactly fair, a problem seen in such games as Dragon Quest 2 (a couple enemies have a spell that, if cast, is a guaranteed game over), Wizardr 8 (MAKANITO anyone?), and Paper Sorcerer.)
