[Bear]

Worth noting when you consider your formations is that your Ranger, Gadgeteer and Bard could all potentially be placed in your front lines. Obviously their main strengths are not melee but if you give them all some decent armour (note: there are some pretty good bard-only armours), a decent sword (lots of them around fairly early) and a shield (or a second weapon if you want to live a little more dangerously) then they can practice their skills in the easy fights where you don't want to waste ammo on a bunch of creatures 3 levels weaker than you. Plus, your guys will be practising their sword skill so that later in the game when you have 4 or 5 pretty good swords, you can use all of them to decent effect.

I think your party looks like it could be really good and fun. Do make sure though that when you start playing, you build your characters in a manner that enhances what you want to do with them. There are some web sites with lots of good advice on building the various character classes. Poorly built characters are frustrating and annoying, well built characters rock!

It's a great game. Have fun!

Bear