I am a casual rpger so would very much appreciate help from the more experienced players regarding what skills and stats to advance with respect to my group of adventurers, and also what formation I ought to put them in. Here is my group as presently configured(I hope I dont have to start over):

Dracon Fighter with Sword, Shield and Bow,
VI with Spear and Bow,
Valkeryie(hmm, feline looking race) with Spear and Bow,
Mylas with duel wield Daggers and Bow,
Ranger with Bow, and Sword and Shield,
Bard with Dagger and Shield, and Sling,
Priest with Sling and Staff,
Wizard with Sling and Staff.

The group seems to work fairly well, but I am not sure what formation I ought to keep them in and also what skills, stats I ought to concentrate in for each character. They are all level 9 or 10 at this point and I am ready to pass into the Trynton zone. I would very much appreciate any help possible. Thanks.

Hi Norgoth!

Well, this is a question... as many answers as people. Rather then throwing my own opinion on you (my party only has a bard and Vi in common with yours...), let me point you to www.geocities.com/jandrall, where you can find detailed descriptions of all classes (what to concentrate on, what weapons to choos etc...). The only thing I'd like to suggest is trying a sword with your bard, you'll come across quite some fine of these later on, I don't think one dagger can compare, at least for non-rogues.

Uh, yeah, about formation: Try fighter+Myles in the front, the two valks in the left and right, wizard+priest in the middle, and bard+ranger in the back. That would mean your bard couldn't use a melee weapon, you might prefer to put him into the front, too. Since you might pump vitality for stamina, he'll have enough hp anyway...

Hope that helps, enjoy the game!

Never forget your towel, cheers
Philipp

Thanks Pyrates. I tried to hook up to that geocities site to no avail. Any idea how to get to it or a mirror site with the same information? Again, thanks for the input.

I would go for one really large "front line" if you want to train most of the characters in melee, so I would have no one in the front rank, put the Bard, Ranger and Dwarf in the middle, flank with Vi and your Valk, and put Myles,the priest and bishop in the rear. Only Myles then won't train melee very often but he'll leave you pretty much everywhere after trynton so it's no loss if he doesn't develop that well, let him use ranged combat. You could put him on one of the flanks too I guess.

And don't go with an exact "formula" on the jandrall pages, use them just as a guideline, alot depends on how you play, if you see skills going up alot that he says to raise with level up points and others you want to go up that are lacking, adjust and raise the lacking ones instead.

Enjoy ;)

You'll get alot of opinions on what classes to play in wizardry.....and if you know the community....you'll know that there are lots of different styles.

From the sound of it...you have 2 valks?

I have a fighter, lord, thief, ranger, mage and bishop. If I did it again I probably would go fighter, lord, ninja, bard, bishop, bishop.

As far as formation.....some here have taught me to look out of the box. you have a formation that suppors 3 in front, 2 on each side, 3 in the center, 3 in the rear. One set that I have seen work wonders is putting none in the front three....and if you have 8 party members...put the casters in the back. I have found that when I had members in the front front...my casters in the center could get hit flanked and in the rear much easier then when I put my fighters back a rank.....it just seemed to protect them....as well as, it let the first 4 members in my party attack at close range.

Why bishops? Well.....I found that later in levels, my bishop had twice as many spell points as my pure caster did....with the same spells......they do get levels slower....but when my bishop had 2x the sp's...he was 2 levels lower than my mage. Its hard to train in all 4 spell realms...but with 2 bishops, you could focus on 2 or 3 for each bishop.

Most members here prefer the bard. There are lots of instruments in the game. You can get an npc bard to join later....but in Wizardry 8, NPC's have a way of leaving the party just when you need them. Also, bards can pick locks and disarm traps.