[el_kalkylus]

Andraste, The problem I have with alot of magic in the party is that it takes so long to choose spells, to scribe scrolls, and to finally cast them. I've been running a magic heavy party before, and it was fun at first, but now I've played the game so much that I just wanted to get through it as fast as possible (real time) with as much power as possible, and without dying (on highest difficulty level).

I don't know about magic light though. I think my party had enough magic for every situation. In ToB, they also get the special ability 'greater whirlwind'. I had 4 fighter types who could cast greater whirlwind and beat on the enemies, so you can imagine the damage they do. Especially the dwarven kensai was a good damage dealer.

Here is is statistics from my final save in ToB:
Main char (dualwielder) - 495 kills
Ranger/Cleric - 414 kills
Kensai(9)/Mage - 379 kills
Fighter/Thief - 254 kills
Kensai - 425 kills
Keldorn - 173 kills

My rangers were not so weak that they couldn't handle melee range if such situations appeared, especially since the monsters were already half dead once they got there. I let all ranged attackers attack one monster at a time. It was almost like pressing Ctrl-y (instant kill) on each monsters when I chose my targets.