I am new to this game and i am a little confused about the party system. I am a 3rd level wizard, just out of the prelude and need some friends to back me up. Being an elf, my search skills are good and my knock spell can open doors. Also I have the pixie familiar who is very good at unlocking and disarming things. This meand that i could survive without a rogue if necessary. I was thinking of hiring the cleric and the barbarian from the trade of blades, maybe the rogue from the hall of justice at a later date, and briefly picking the others up to complete their quests and recieve their reward items. Is this a good idea or not? Please be honest!

You can only have 1 henchman at a time in the game.

If you're good aligned, I'd recommend either the half-orc barbarian or the elven cleric. The cleric is a decent tank and can heal, the barbarian is a great tank. There's also a dwarven fighter who is an adequate tank, but he's evil.

<font color="lawngreen" face="trebuchet MS"> Actually Grimgnaw is a Monk [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>

I don't think the alignment of the henchmen really affects the game, as long as you can deal with their unsettling nature. Both Tomi and Grimgnaw are fairly evil, but there's no reason not to use them.

It's not a bad idea to do all the quests for the henchman. Each one of them gives you an item and some of them are pretty good. One of them gives you a ring of regeneration, and there are no others available until chapter 2.