So I have been playing MM7 for a bit. Since I picked a party where no one can go higher than expert in disarm trap, which seems like a stupid move now. Sometimes when I open chests, I end up to 1-2 people dying from them. Besides waiting till I have more HP. Is there any spell or something else that will protect me from taking so much damage?

Telekinesis will help you open it from a distance, but that's a higher level spell.

Not sure whether Protection from Fire/Cold... etc help or not.

The very first question would be: What classes do you have in your party? Some classes might be able to go a little higher in Disarm Trap after their promotion (depending on alignment).

The second question would be: How far have you gotten in the game? You might consider restarting and adjusting your party.

Suggestions for the current party:
-Higher HP totals may allow you to tank the damage, especially when combined with healing (magic, potions, resting) after each chest. As you progress to stronger areas, trapped chests deal increasing amounts of damage, though (I think; I've pretty much always taken at least Master Disarm in my party to avoid taking damage).

-The Perception skill gives a character a chance to dodge trap damage. This skill only works for the owning character, however, so your archer having 20 skill points in Perception won't help your sorcerer avoid the damage. Iirc, most classes can't get much higher than Expert in this skill, though.

-Increasing resistances might help mitigate the damage? I'm not sure about this, though, and I suspect it isn't true.

-The Telekinesis spell (Master Earth required to learn it) can be used to open a chest from a distance. Open the chest from far enough away, and the trap won't hit you at all.

-There are some recruitable NPCs that give bonuses to the Disarm Trap skill. I think the highest bonus comes from the Burglar, but be advised that he will take 20% of any gold you pick up (he lies about just wanting practice).

-There are also recruitable NPCs that give bonuses to Perception.

-You don't need a bonus to Elemental skills for Telekinesis; there is no roll to cast or target it, and you are either far enough away to avoid the trap damage, or you aren't.

-You may be able to find equipment that gives a bonus to either Disarm Trap or Perception. Most equipment bonuses for a given skill won't stack with each other; I think they will stack with an NPC for the same skill. NPCs of the same class (ex. Teacher, Teacher) won't stack bonuses, but NPCs of different classes that help the same skill (ex. Instructor, Teacher, Scholar) will stack. However, you can only have two non-quest NPCs with you at a time.

This is true and it was extensively used by me. If you have high elemental resistance, you get a chance to get half of damage from elemental trap, then you have chance to half it even more, etc. Luck also helps in reducing elemental damage.

This was extensively seen by me in MM6 (I didn't play MM7 much, but these mechanics remained almost untouched). One time trap one-shots some of my peeps, then I buff all resistances and luck and then save/reload, so that everyone is alive and healthy after triggering high level trap.

In the early game, back up your Disarm Trap expert with a Locksmith and/or a Burglar. (Since the Burglar takes a huge cut of your money, what you want to do is open all the treasure chests without touching the goods, kick the Burglar out, and then go back and loot them.) This is kind of a pain, but it'll keep you going until you get a "Ring of +12 Disarm Trap" or whatnot.

The other trick is the Regeneration spell. As long as the traps aren't outright killing your characters and breaking your gear, with Master Body Magic and Regeneration you can walk off trap damage quickly enough that it's a reasonable solution.

My party is pretty basic. Knight/Archer/Cleric/Sorcerer

I have only played the later MM. So maybe that's why I thought it be right, maybe I'm remembering wrong. But I'm pretty sure my archer had disarm trap covered in mm8. So I really didn't know what would be good.

I'm really crap all into the game. I'm up to the part where I need to rescue some dwarfs from a mine. Which I'm also finding hard, well in general I'm finding the game very hard. I never seem to remember having this much trouble early on in the later ones. So restarting wouldn't bother me.

I can't say I really looked into the classes at all, so maybe it would be better restarting it to setup it up better for myself.

On the note of the followers, are they really good to have around at all?

So on looking it up more, if I just dropped the archer for the thief would that be the way to go?

Wall of Text incoming!

-I'm guessing you are referring to the Dark Elf in MM8, since "archer" isn't a class in that game. The Dark Elf can GM bows and disarm traps, so it fits your description.

-It looks to me like you're pretty screwed, as far as using the Disarm Trap skill for end game chests. It certainly isn't a show stopper, since the Sorcerer and the Archer can both eventually use Telekinesis to open chests from a distance (dungeon sight lines permitting), the Archer can GM Perception (at which point, he'll always dodge trap damage, regardless of who actually opens the chest), the Knight gets a pile of HP for tanking (and to feed to the others via Shared Life; get a life leech sword or spear for the Knight, if you can!), and the Cleric gets all of the Self magic spells for healing and raising dead. The Cleric and Sorcerer can also boost your resistances by quite a bit.

-Assuming this is your first time through the game, and if you haven't done a whole lot of side quests, then I'd suggest restarting. Take the default party (Knight, Thief, Cleric, Sorcerer), as they have pretty much everything covered by at least one person. I seem to recall that the default stat distribution isn't horrible, either. The Archer has plenty of power, being a Knight/Sorcerer hybrid, but he doesn't bring much in the way of unique skills to the party. There are other party combinations that can kill things faster, but they often require some extra work/cost to deal with certain situations. You could possibly swap the Knight for a Paladin; the Pally still has GM Repair, and is a Knight/Cleric hybrid. The Paladin can use healing magic, and he is more defensively inclined (preferred equipment being Mace + Shield) while the Knight is all about raw "Hit things until they fall down" combined with "I have more HP than you".

-If you have a Knight in your party, and you are planning to go down the Good alignment path later in the game (as opposed to Evil), then stop (or finish) what you are doing, go to Harmondale, and get 5 Knight level arena victories. If you haven't decided whether to be Good or Evil yet, then do it anyway in case you decide to become Good. The Arena fights are much, much easier to beat at lower levels. The Harmondale stable goes to the Arena on Sundays; the prize money for winning will easily pay the stable travel fee. If you want to do it quickly, then look around town for a Horseman follower (reduces travel time when you use the stables), then dump the Horseman after you finish getting the victories. You need 5 "Knight" wins; Page, Squire, and Lord don't count. Again, the Lord Arena difficulty will not fulfill the criteria.

-A note about restarting: there is a luck well on Emerald Island. I think it has enough charges to boost two character's luck up to ~15 (which is about as high as it will go) if you reduce their luck. If you are willing to spend the time (both in game and RL) screwing around for about 3-6 months of game time, the well will refresh and you can boost the luck of the other two characters. This is just a minor boost, however, so feel completely free to skip it.

-If you do restart, then don't bother with the Stealing skill of the Thief.

-The mines can be rough if you try to go there early. Clear Harmondale and the Barrow Downs first, maybe run a few of the easier quests in Erathia and Tularean Forest. Complete some promotion quests to boost your character's power. Make sure to use the spell pedastals that are in the Bracada map to get the free casts of the spells each one offers. If you really want to complete the quest right now, then you can probably just run through the upper level of the mines, grab all the dwarves, then run out again. Be careful not to get trapped by slimes, and save before you attempt it.

You are probably better off making sure you can reasonably clear the upper floor of the mines before you finish the "Save the Dwarves" quest, though.

You'll need magic damage to hurt the slimes. All the wands you've been finding should be able to help with this, with the archer and sorcerer using their own MP to cast damaging spells. If you find a weapon that adds fire/cold/electric damage, then a character can use that weapon to deal damage (the physical portion will be ignored, but the elemental damage will still hurt the slime). Preference would probably go to the Knight if you only have one weapon with bonus elemental damage; the archer and sorcerer can use spells, and the cleric may be busy healing.

The medusas on the bottom level of the mine are much stronger than the slimes on the upper level, and the medusas are immune to magic. You'll need to use weapons and bows to kill them. Be careful down there, because they can paralyze or petrify characters; there are plenty of potions in the area to fix these conditions, but the potions are finite in number.

-Certain followers can be very helpful, while others are basically useless:
-If you don't have expert Air, then you can use a Cartographer to have Expert Wizard Eye active until you go to the Tularean Forest and teach someone expert Air. Dump the cartographer once you can cast it yourself.
-A scholar can identify anything you find, and he gives a little bonus experience as well; this is a pretty good follower until your sorcerer has some spare skill points to use on the Id Item skill.
-The instructor and teacher give pretty hefty bonuses to experience earned; they are my favorite follower pairing as soon as I'm not so crunched for gold (the teacher is reasonable, but instructor is a bit pricey for low level parties).
-If you aren't sure what you want, then go with a factor and a banker; after the initial hire cost, they are effectively free since they give you more bonus gold than they take.
-I'll use the horseman when I'm stacking arena victories, then I'll never use it again.
-If you need a town portal but you don't have the spell yourself, then a water master can fill in for you; I would just hire the water master, use his spell, then dump him before I go adventuring again. You can rest to make his single cast available again, if you need to portal multiple times. The 2000 hire price is a little steep, but the real killer is his 20% fee on gold found. I absolutely would not take him with me when I'm ready to look for loot again.
-Same with the Water Walk and Fly followers, though I've never actually needed them. Expert Water isn't hard to get (allows you to cast water walk), and fly scrolls can be found or bought if needed.

Be advised that the more powerful followers won't appear in the smaller towns. Look around in capitals (like Erathia or Tularean Forest) for them.

Thanks for your help Bookwym and everyone else that replied. After reading everything it does seem easier just to restart with a better party. It's my first time playing and without wanting to look up the story line, though I did, scan over it anyway. Seems like I'm basically at the start. Not like I lose much of anytime at this rate.

Good to know I don't really need to worry about followers. I did find some that sounded alright, but wasn't sure on the whole thing. Explaining it all out help me a lot. Thanks again.

I fail to see the usefulness of restarting. Expert lets you disarm with double skill so you just have to put a few more points into it to be as good as a traps master, before you find the master trainer there's no difference at all and there's also the earth magic spell and powerword:reload if you don't want to spend many skill points.

Thieves are better in melee than archers while archers are better with bows.
Outside combat better traps disarming is the only noteworthy benefit (stealing is useless) thieves have over archers while archers can get grandmastery in chain (sorcerer and cleric are better with leather armor since without chain mastery you get a speed penalty) and their spellcasting can be quite useful while thief spellcasting is useless.

Restart only if you want a more fitting party to your taste, don't make it for chests.
None party are bad, there are only parties not good for the roles you want to play.
If you change your party for chests, maybe you'll regreet for you will find the new party is lacking in other thing more important for you.

The key for a good party is playing as ROLE play game, as you will have this party for a very long time, and you don't have to be bored with... Make it a good story, not just character sheets.

My prefered party is Ranger + Archer + Paladin + Monk (I love hybrids). It's not perfect, but others are worst for me. I finished the game with, and it was very fun.

I tried with Cleric + Thief instead of Paladin + Monk, but it didn't pleased me.

One fun party in MM7 was four Knights. When I first played the game, a poster on an old website (might have been AOL's game board) told to try it. If you like hitting things, it was a heck of a group. (Probably wouldn't have worked in MM6, since that game is might & MAGIC.)

For MM6, would a party of 4 Sorcerers work?

Wow. If you survive the first, ahh, 20 levels. It would be wicked.

Some definite, glaring weaknesses in that party, and certainly not a party for a newbie. The hack and slash front would be covered, though!

I recently played with 1 Cleric and 3 Sorcerers, and did just fine. So if you can get bows for them early game and run away to rest often to refill mp, I'd say yes it's very possible. Late game they should be able to obliterate anything in their path.

Master Meditation, give each one a different elemental school to start. Then pick and choose light or dark for who you want. Take anything else after that might help out. I believe it's very doable.