[vesselle]

personally, i HATE having each member of my party waste their attacks every other round by using them to swallow potions. in my book, that's bad management.

the priestess is a healer, that's what she should be used for. why use TWO of your bard's precious turns to drink down stamina and then a heal? esp when the priestess can use those same 2 turns to heal/restore your entire party.

as time goes on, you are going to have your hands full with bad monsters, who can do more damage in one round than a whole herd of whatever you're currently facing. and mid game has lots of elemental resistant baddies....that means divinity spells are a "godsend".

the way i see it, each party member has a focus. the priestess may not be melee or a magic caster, but she is still important. she's the one pumping the gas to keep the killing machine running. also, it's a shame to water down another strong char to make them take on priestess duties. a bard is great as a bard, but when you start slacking on the point management to add in decent healing abilities, she's not gonna shine quite as much.

but this is my playing style. if you really don't like priestesses, then don't play with one.

btw: my party is almost exactly like yours, except my fighter is a human Valkyrie and my priestess is a dwarf (because of their natural damage resistance) and i put a few extra stat points into her STR and VIT to up her to approx 80 HPS.