I got Wizardry 8 a few months back from a bargain bin. ( I didn't get it when it came out initially because I was busy with Wizards & Warriors ) I don't get that much time so its taken a while to get the group up to their current levels. I put some effort into making my group (Planning). I got to about Arnika and then restarted with a more refined group. They're all designed to max out their attributes as soon as possible. Here's what I came up with.....

"A-Ko" Dwarf Valkryie ( currently level 17 )
Plan--------------------
- Stats to max at lvl -> Str 13 Spd 15 Dex 27 Sns 37
- Armored fighter to hold flank position with polearm
- Use modern weapons (first musket now blunderbuss)
- Defensive priest spellcaster
Observations--------------------
- Weak Int and Sns have made skill development slow
- Had accuracy and weapon speed problems at first.
- The damage she is doing now at 17th level is inspiring. (Mystic Spear)
- Real strong Divinity and Mental magic skills. (Divine Trap training)
- Decent Divine magic skill, but all other magic skills stink.

"Lord Port" Elf Samurai ( currently level 17 )
Plan ---------------
- Stats to max at lvl -> Dex 15 Spd 15 Str 31 Sns 35
- Dual sword master with high criticals
- Bow for distance weapon
- Offensive Mage spell caster
Observation--------------
- Abandoned bow in favor of using cursed Bloodlust
- Bloodlust and Lightning strike. So happy together.
- Really bad accuracy problems initially with Bloodlust.
- Used a ankh dexterity to help while dex and skills rose.
- Bloodlust vastly outperformed Bushido Blade when I tested one.
- Gave Cloak Perception to compensate for weak senses.
- Very powerful in wizardry and Earth due to vault training.
- Decent in Fire and Divine magic skills but not good in other magic skills.

"Lucas" Human Monk ( currently level 17 )
Plan----------------------
- Stats max at lvl -> Spd 13 Str 17 Dex 27 Sns 32
- Martial Arts master to crush opposition
- Use thrown items as distance weapons
- Carry lots of spell effect thrown items
- Learn Psionic magic skills
Observation ----------------
- During the early and mid game the damage just wasn't there.
- Now becoming one of the groups biggest hitters.
- Extremely Strong Psionic and mental magic skills (Divine Trap training)
- Fair Fire and Divine skills but Very weak Earth, Water and Air skills
- Ended up giving up thrown weapons for a wrist rocket.
- Perfect Canidate for wearing the Helm of Serenity.

"Sam" Hobbit Ranger - ( currently Level 17 )
Plan---------------
- Stats max at lvl -> Sns 13 Spd 15 Dex 25 Str 31
- Scouting considered important
- Uses the bow constantly while defending the rear formation postion
- Have alchemy as back-up
Observation----------------
- Never had a problem with accuracy
- Weaker in mid-game do to low damage
- Improved greatly lately due to high # of attacks and criticals
- ( maxed spd/sns, cloak Percept, ankh speed and Flynn's Cap )
- Has no melee skill to speak of as he is a constant bow user.
- Currently competing with Bishop over highest mythology skill.
- Low hobbit piety has crippled this character with spellpoints.
- Only Alchemy and Earth magic skill is high ( vault training )
- All other magic skills are pathetically low

"Starspeak" Mook Bard-Fighter (current level 19 (bard 18 / fighter 1))
Plan-----------------------
- Stats max at lvl -> Dex 12 Spd 18 Str 24 Vit 35
- Use Music Constantly and Develop Thief Skills for group
- Become an extended range fighter after maxing out music
- Use a crossbow
Observation----------------
- Most valuable character in the early game.
- Her music became less effective as monster resists grew.
- The crossbow was dropped for a bow for stanima reasons.
- Instruments that enemy resists don't effect are valuable.
- ( Haste, Armormelt, Heal All )
- Before the fighter switch she had Music:100 PickP:98 Locks:75
- Melee and range skills are currently weak. (too much music)
- Heavy weapons, instruments, and armor has caused encumbrance problems.
- Giant sword (beserk!) does tremendous damage though slow and stanima costly.

"Forge" Faerie Bishop ( currently level 17 )
Plan:----------------
- Stats max at lvl -> Int 12 Vit 22 Spd 23 Pty 37 Sns 38
- High vitality required due to severe low hp problems.
- Save all spell picks for 6th and 7th level spells
- Learn all other spells through books.
- Concentrate on Psionic, alchemy, and Divinity
- Learn every spell in the game.
- Upon learning all non-mage spells switch to mage class
- Keep Faerie in middle of formation
Observations:-------------
- Obviously weakest group member at first.
- Now one of the most powerful group members
- All magic skills are above 75. Many are maxed out or in 90's.
- Hps still on low side despite high vitality.
- Power Cast crucial if you want spells to affect high resist enemies
- Sheer number of spells compensating for leaving Pty alone
- All weapon skills extremely weak.

Myles : Did what I could to turn him into a frontline fighter raising str and spd exclusively. But he never came into his own until I gave him 2 thieves daggers. ( which I learned at that moment were cursed. ) He did good melee damage but I didn't like the loss of ranged attacks. At that point I gave him up for Madras. Also for some reason Myles kept getting himself killed. I must of heard him complain "You let me die?" 4 or 5 times.

Vi: She's been with me for a while now. She's a vital part of my formation: one armored, extended range fighter on left and right flanks. I've even avoided some areas to keep her on the team. The bard once she switches to fighter should fill her spot nicely though. I've decided to keep her with the group through Rapax territory despite her objections.

Madras: If there was one thing I seriously considered before playing was "Should I have a gadgeteer?" I'm kinda glad I didn't go for it. I kept Madras around for a while though and constantly used his lightning rod to up his engineering. Finally I made a nice triple X-bow for my bard to use when her stanima was low and she needed a backup. ( That plan didn't work out well at all )

RFS-81: Old Sparky has been a group member ever since I found him and gave Madras his walking papers. He's kind of a pale reflection of my monk although inferior in almost every aspect.

---------------------

Overall I'm quite happy with the group right now. They've become quite strong. I've only had to reload for group death 3 times. One early cemetary encounter (before soul shield) with screaming heads turned out very badly thanks to insanity. My first try against the death lord in the Mountain Wilderness went sour when the samurai was turncoated and before anyone could react critically hit two other characters. ( That turncoat spell effected an elf through a level 7 magic screen. A level 7 soul shield was cast a second too late. Talk about bad luck! ) Finally a group of friendly trynnies pushed me out of the tree. ( Technically the valkryie's cheat death prevented group death, but I somehow forgot to save my current position before turning off the game ) I've just entered the Rapax area and still have the Rynjin, underwater areas and southeast wilderness areas to go as well.

[ 06-16-2004, 05:17 PM: Message edited by: booklord ]

It looks like a fun group. In the last few games I played, I completely ignored the RPC's so that I could focus on developing my main group of 3 ro 4 (depending on the game)

Welcome to IW Booklord!

You are obviously a very thorough individual, that will serve you well on Dominus. Your party reminds me of one I created a long time ago, maybe my 2nd or 3rd. IIRC it was my strongest party, after that I began experimenting with randoms and strange combos.

The only comment i have is that you're very likely to finish the game before the 4th Attribute max on most of the chars, and fairly likely before the 3rd, and certainly before the Bonus Skill for those Att's has any noticable development. I've found it much more useful to max Dex first (and asap) with everything but a Bishop, who i usually give Int max first. Then developing the other important Att's equally with the remaining points gives you a more noticable result than trying to activate more Bonus Skills.

A few more observations.....

</font>

• Strength I find strength to a highly valuable stat for any heavily armored character. (Armor gets heavy!) The damage bonuses aren't any laughing matter either. Finally Power Strike is IMHO one of the most valuable expert skills.</font>
• Intelligence Power Cast is a must have for any pure spellcaster in the later game. My Bishop couldn't imagine being without it. If you're not planning for Power Cast than this stat is one of the easiest to ignore.</font>
• Piety I decided that spellpoints were not a priority for the combat oriented members of the group. As for the bishop I decided that I'd make up for delaying piety (bishops start decent anyway) by having a massive number of spells.</font>
• Vitality I generally ignored this stat except to make sure that no character had a vitality so low it became a liability which in the faerie bishop's case it was. I shudder to think what his hps would be if I had not chosen vitality to be one of the first to stats to raise.</font>
• Dexterity I only maxed out dex first on my end on 2 characters: the samurai who was using 2 weapons and trying for as many attacks as possible, and the bard who wanted to learn music and thief skills quickly before she multi-classed. Raising Dex third didn't seem to adversely harm the other fighters of the group. ( No one started with a low Dex ) The Ranger and Monk never had accuracy problems, they had damage problems. The valkryie's problems really only lasted until she got a decent weapon. A big factor in my decision was that I don't view Reflextion as that good an expert skill compared to Power Strike, Power Cast, and Snake Speed.</font>
• Speed I made an early choice to specialize in speed in most of the characters. It worked for me. 5 out of 6 now have Snake Speed, generally attack first, and attack multiple times in a single round. ( The mook bard-fighter is a bit hampered by the giant sword, but oh the damage she is causing.... )</font>
• Senses I put off this stat for all characters save the ranger. The one thing I've noticed is that senses has a much bigger effect on initiative than I thought it would. In addition I suspect that a low starting initiative played a big part in slower close combat skill development in the samurai and valkryie.</font>

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As for the expert skills having any noticable development...... I've got to disagree. My characters at at level 17 ( well except for the bard-fighter's 19 ) and they have already made strong gains in their expert skills.

The Valkryie's Power Strike is nearing 40.
The Bishop's Power Cast has risen at a break neck speed and is currently in the high 80's. ( At the rate he's going he may max it out before level 19 )
Reflextion is around 10 for the samurai and 20 for the bard-fighter.
Snake Speed for the Valkryie is around 10 for the Valkryie, Samurai, Ranger and Bard.
Snake Speed is in the 20's for the monk.
Eagle Eye is almost 50 for the Ranger.

[ 06-17-2004, 09:50 AM: Message edited by: booklord ]

--"As for the expert skills having any noticable development...... I've got to disagree. My characters at at level 17 ( well except for the bard-fighter's 19 ) and they have already made strong gains in their expert skills."

I was talking about your subsequent maxes. Usually, if you haven't got a given Bonus Skill by L20, it won't do you much good before you're done with the game, so trying to max attributes beyond one or two is less effective than raising the less-important ones evenly.

I can believe that. Most of my characters are designed around the concept of maxing out their two most important stats first.

For my fighter types there are only four stats I really considered important. Str, Dex, Spd, Sns. Now that they've maxed out 2 each they're working on the other 2. ( I don't cast spells with them often enough to make piety an issue, they aren't suffering from hp problems, and int is the most easily ignored stat for a warrior type.

The bard is slightly different because having made the switch to fighter, I'm finding the character plagued with heavy equipment ( armor, weapons and instruments ) and stanima problems. As such having maxed Dex and Spd I'm raising her Str and Vit to attempt to aid her. ( This is a deviation from my original plan to raise Sns instead of Vit )

Finally with the Bishop, I basically chose to have one maxed stat. ( Intelligence ) Maxing vitality is a long process that won't complete until level 22. But the advantages a higher vitality give me outweigh the advantages of a nother expert skill. Having maxed Int I'm now raising Spd. Senses takes a back seat to speed. He's got plenty of spellpoints so Piety can wait. Str and Dex are as low priority stats to him as Int is to a Warrior type.

I might be tempted to spread out the bonus points , but none of my characters seem to need that at the moment.

[ 06-17-2004, 10:55 AM: Message edited by: booklord ]