Warning, spoilers ahead!
Basically, I go with Might rather than Magic myself. But with a large helping of magic. Except for AoE spells, most characters will dish out more pain with weapons than with magic.
There are a bunch of ways to set up a party. Light Magic is quite useful, so you want someone who can cast it. Presumably Dark would also be interesting (both Day of Protecttion and Shrapmetal are Dark spells, but the former is really more of a convenience than anything else). But it must be a real challenge to get your Reputation low enough to attain mastery. Since the mobs outside can be VERY large, I like to have three characters who can make it rain (i.e., use area-of-effect spells). I also like to have three healers, but that is not always possible.
I recently started a group of Priest, Archer, Druid, Druid, and much to my amazement they are kicking monster butt. However, I did use an editor to allow my druids to use spears and daggers.
For combat purposes, dual-wielding in this game FTW. The to-hit bonuses of both weapons are added together, and so is the damage. Believe it or not, a dual-dagger mage with two Divine Daggers that do extra damage may be your best killing machine. With Hour of Power and Day of the Gods, he can hit for 100 points, which is enough to get the attention of most monsters. Dual Lionheart swords are also quite nice, but the killer is a Titanic Trident of the Dragon and a Lionheart Sword with a good enchantment. You can get those at Abdul's in the desert if you're patient enough.
Bows are critical. CRITICAL. I think it would be just about impossible to get through even Sorpigal without them. Deliver the letter, jump on the coach to Ironfist, and get bow ability and bows for everybody first thing. Then you can nibble around the edges of the huge mobs and slowly whittle them down.
Skills for the party? Some skills are really convenient, others are useful in combat. Keeping in mind the fact that you're going to be 7th level about a game week after you start the game, you don't have to pump up the combat skills immediately, especially as your best early bet to improve attack ability is to find a weapon with a decent bonus. Disarm should be raised to Expert ASAP, IMO, because even the low-level chests can be buggered with nasty traps. I like to get Expert in Identify and Repair early, simply for the convenience of them. And Water Mastery is also something you want to do fast. I'm doing another group (I enjoy starting groups in this game) with a Druid who made Water Master at 11th level, which is pretty early. He used horseshoes to build up some other skills. Learning, Meditate, and Bodybuilder are useful, although I usually don't raise them beyond Expert (or at least, not until I'm over 50th level and have Mastered everything else). Diplomacy is about useless. You do want to pick up a couple of NPCs, but most will join you at Respectable reputation or even worse. I like to go with a Banker and a Merchant, but other combos could probably be useful. It's just that money is so tight before you have bought all the good spells, every little bit helps.
You only need Bow skill and one other weapon skill, unless you want to dual-wield a dagger and a spear, in which case you should probably start with Dagger and do Spear later. Despite the suggestion of the locals, I've never run into a monster that is immune to one weapon but not another. So no need to learn a bunch of them, just Master your primary as and when you can. Dagger Expertise will get you dual-wielding, but swords require Mastery. Fortunately, Sword Mastery is also free. As for armor and shield skills, I ignore them until the important stuff is maxed out. As with many RPGs, AC is not very important, since by the time you get decent AC, most of the monsters cut through it like tissue paper anyway. I have a Paladin with AC 175, and she still gets knocked around in h-t-h combat.
Mix your Black potions ASAP; you should have enough herbs in Sorpigal and Ironfist to make enough for everybody by March of '65. You might also consider, when using Black potions, not raising non-critical stats so you don't waste potions. A Paladin does not need an INT boost, a mage does not need a Personality boost, etc. And only your lock picker needs Luck, the rest of your chars can raise it to 15 anyway through the Sorpigal fountain.
As to your what classes you want, Paladin, Archer, Druid and Mage covers you for Light, 3 offensive mages, and 2 healing mages. (These days, I like to use the Editor to let my Mage cast healing spells, too, just for the convenience) If you want to use Light or Dark magic, you need either a Priest or a Mage; I doubt there is much value in having two Light Magic users, so it's basically one or the other. Since the Mage has one of the easiest initial promotion quests going (one you can achieve in January of '65, if you try), and since he has the offensive punch, both magically and in melee, I tend to lean towards them. A Priest cannot dual-wield (and neither can a Druid unless you edit him.:)) A knight is about worthless. You've got only four guys, they should all cast spells. Yeah, a Knight has an easy initial promotion (but one of the toughest second promotions), but so what? All he does is fight, and he's no better at it than anyone else with comparable skills and attributes. You could take a knight and concentrate all the support skills in him (Disarm, Identify, etc), but you could do the same thing with a Paladin. Anyway, Identify and Repair are free to Mages from the start, so you might just want to use them and concentrate on one magic school. With a Paladin-Archer-Druid-Mage (or Paladin-Druid-Druid-Mage) group, the Archer would concentrate on Air first (and add fire soon), the Druid on Water (and add Fire later), and the Mage on Fire. Later on, you'll want two Water Masters so you can plant Lloyd's Beacons in some of the remoter regions; your first Water Master will used all his up after Ironfist, Kriegspire, etc.
As for attributes: aside from raising one char's STR to 25 (which cen become 50 very, very quickly, which is actually important), you want to concentrate on raising PER and INT as appropriate for your spellcasters. I usually raise everything but Luck to at least 10 for everybody (no need to put any points into Luck, since Sorpigal has a fountain that will raise that to 15 permanently). Your initial stats are not too important, since there shrines, potions, fountains, and equipment that will raise them to high levels (125 STR, anyone?)
It's a madhouse of a game, lots of fun, though. Save you coin, get to Free Haven by May for the Shrine and the major spells, and you'll be just fine.
-- Mal
Post edited September 14, 2014 by malthaussen
