I also have realized the hard way that Erana's feat is useless until she gets some extra spell slots. As for Keapon, I went with the first roll (hence the unoptimized stats) and could not begin to figure out how to specialize in a school of magic. With regards to Elsa, I have her carrying a rapier for when she gets Weapon Finesse, but I'm still on the fence about what other weapon she should use.

Oh, missed maximize spell on Erana. It's even worse than you think, since there is almost no randomness in Cleric spells. For instance, cure light wounds cures 6-13 hit points. Maximizing it to a 4th level spell is useless when you could just prepare "cure critical wounds" for 11-39 hit points of healing. The earliest you can actually start using it will be level 15, when you can memorize a maximized flame strike.

For Elsa's weapons, if you're going the dual-wielding route you'll want two of the same kind of weapons so you can take the weapon focus feat line and have it apply to both weapons. Shortswords would make sense, since rapiers cannot be used in your offhand without a substantial penalty.

Ah well, at least those will balance out over time as I gain additional spell levels and stat points. Not sure what to do about the frontliners for feats, though. Rakeesh and Toro are probably going to wind up going the Great Cleave route, but after that I'm not sure; I could always give Rakeesh some extra INT and have him take Whirlwind Attack, but that's not really an option for Toro what with his abysmal INT. A little torn on Elsa, though; on the one hand, dual wielding would allow her to get a lot of sneak attack, but using a rapier with its nice crit range would require using a different off hand weapon (which wouldn't make the most out of Weapon Focus). If nothing else, I still have time to make her a dedicated archer with her current feats, but archers seem to have a harder time getting sneak attack.

Buffing with the Blink spell should also allow sneak attacks.

My philosophy on the base weapon damage is that it really doesn't matter that much. In the end it will be all the stacked magical damage buffs that really create uber-weapons. But if you can't hit the target to begin with, even uber-weapons do zero damage. If you are having a tough time deciding to take dual-wield or not, consider this.... a scythe does almost as much damage as 2 light weapons and doesn't get the -2 to-Hit penalty. Plus 2-handed weapons do 150% damage when they hit. Win win.

In the end, ToEE is going to be brutal to your party, no matter how good their builds. And the only way to win is to be even more brutal in return. You need to plan your battles and leverage your strengths. If you treat it as just a standard hack-and-slash, you will die sooner rather than later.

For this reason I've always preferred Empower to Maximise.
From the description, it seems +50% is about as good overall as max roll, but takes a slot one level lower.

The thing is, I've never checked if the feat works in game the way I'm thinking (be it ToEE or NWN).

How to do this in ToEE? I don't see it in the preferences menu.

EDIT: OK I found it in the options menu in the TFE-X launcher.

A 2-point intelligence boost is unrealistic to begin with, but you'd also need to boost dexterity by 4 points. This is just not happening. The improved critical feat is a nice choice, much better than weapon focus and the #1 reason to specialize in a specific weapon. For Toro, iron will to help that low will save will be useful. When in doubt, improved initiative is always a fine choice; when a high-damage tank goes first he can eliminate enemies before they get a chance to act.

First of all, sneak attack damage is not multiplied on critical hits. Since SA is going to be where most of Elsa's damage is coming from, it's not the end of the world if you sacrifice your critical hit chance. With that said, the kukri remains an option; it's a 1d4/18-20 light weapon. It's a very rare weapon type, though, so you'll definitely need to craft if you go for it.

Archers really aren't very good in core 3rd edition. While later publications offered more options, only the core rules are implemented in ToEE and the feat and class selection for archers here is pretty dismal.

This. I run high-optimization and I frequently got smacked down (particularly at low-levels). ToEE is ruthless, and that's what to love about.

To be entirely honest, they're both quite overpriced. Empower is more realistic at a 2-level offset, but it's still not something I'd be inclined to use much at all. These feats decent for spontaneous spellcasters, since they stretch your spells known, but I find them close to useless for prepared spellcasters. In the vast majority of situations, you're just better off preparing a higher-level spell than modifying a lower-level one.

For the most part, the only metamagic worth using are the ones with only a 1-level offset. The sole exception to this is the outright godly quicken spell metamagic. It's exorbitantly expensive, but it's pretty much the only way to cast two spells per turn. As for choosing between empower and maximize, it depends on the spell. Some have a very large random component, others do not. In NWN, Maximized Isaac's Greater Missile Swarm is an extremely good use of this metamagic and on its own is enough to make me seriously consider picking up this feat.

Wait, doesn't Whirlwind Attack only require DEX 13? Both Toro and Rakeesh have DEX 16, which should be ok if that's the case. Little pressed for time, so I can't respond to everything else yet.

I agree meta-spell feats are an excellent way of upping-their-game for Bards or Sorcerers. One thing though that I think can be said for Maximize or Enlarge: you might not necessarily NEED to learn a higher level spell of the same type, if you already have a lower level spell that is maximized. For example, some people might argue that Magic Missile is worth maximizing, since it always hits and it is rare to encounter mobs with immunity to magic energy. Thus is might actually be your most effective choice for a 4th level evocation spell.

Extend Spell is quite useful I find. To be able to have duration spells last 2x longer for 1 extra level is pretty cool. There are a lot of good low-level spells that otherwise suck because they only last 1 round, or some like Grease that expire quite quickly. Suddenly even the lowly Daze spell is actually worth casting.

Heighten spell is great for any spells that require a DC save or fail (ie. most). It is the most widely useful way to make almost any spell harder to resist. Even better than getting Spell Focus imo, since you can apply it to any school, and it stacks with itself, so you can turn a lvl 1 spell into a lvl 5 if you want (awesome for Charm).

Still Spell is pretty cool to allow your Wizard to operate freely in armor. Elven Blue Chain is the best you can do in ToEE for Wizards and Sorcerers that have some armor proficiency, but even that has a small chance of spell failure.

Sorry, for some reason I thought Rakeesh was at 9 dexterity (must have mentally transposed the dex and con stat). Yes, he meets the dexterity prerequisites. I still stand by the other half of my comments, that a 2 point intelligence boost is unrealistic.

Some of my favorites are extended enlarge person, extended haste, extended greater invisibility,

Heighten can be very useful for spontaneous casters. However, it's not as good as spell focus, since spell focus does not require you to use higher level spell slots and can apply to your highest level spells. It's possible to create some truly outrageous DC's with the spell focus feat chain.

Craft Wonderous Item: Headband of Intellect +2 for 2000 gp. Not sure if the boost will count towards gaining a feat, however, since I think the spell Fox's Cunning won't allow that. It'd be worth trying though.

By pen and paper it works, but it's not implemented in CRPG's since you would lose the benefits of the feat if you took off the item. That'd be one nasty edge-case from a programming perspective.

I don't know. The in-game help says that a feat goes inactive if you don't have the requisite ability. That might mean it just won't work any more if you take the headband off. Like I said, it's worth trying at least. Also ditto for raising Con on Rakneesh.

Think I'm going to have to shelve this attempt for now. School is getting rather busy, and my characters as they currently exist are getting their asses handed to them, so I either am looking at some sort of grinding to fix that or starting from scratch, which I don't have the time or energy for. I tried doing some quests around town to level up, but the need to give incremental instructions every few feet as opposed to giving the party a destination and reading a book got old fast; that's not saying anything about the more serious issue of some of the townspeople just flat out refusing to initiate their quest.

That said, I still would appreciate any advice anyone cares to leave here in the meantime :) Thanks for your input thus far.

This is typical. If you're running Co8, the best place to start is the Welkwood Bog, an area added by the mod for the sole purpose of providing fertile grounds for 1st level characters to level up.