one of the 4-person parties i completed the game with was a ninja, monk, rogue, bard combo. I was going for the CoC so decided everyone should go cursed. so not only did we not have magic (except for the monk's psionic book up to lvl 4 spells), but neither did we have significant ranged attacks (the monk could throw, the bard only started using bow after i got fang, having used bloodlust most of the game, and the rogue was using dual thieves' daggers).
early on (ie through trynton and the don), this party was incredibly difficult to keep alive. and they had a really tough time through the magic-heavy areas (ie mountain wilderness sprites/fire monsters, bayjin) due to lack of resistances. BUT by the time I got to the rapax castle this party was by far the easiest i've ever played. as we fought our way through the throne room to get up to the templar area, we had 30+ rapax, including priestesses, warlocks, samurais... and my monk and ninja would each critical virtually every round. in one memorable sequence, my ninja got 3 criticals and my monk 2 in one round. whereas early the rogue and bard was carrying the bunch, by the end they hardly got a look in.
when we left the castle, the ninja had a 125 criticals (incl class bonus) and the monk was wearing the assassins cap to have 120 criticals of his own. and ascension peak was a huge anti-climax. even the army, which we had to close with, was little trouble with the help of all those death bombs the rapax drop. (that's a strategy tip
)
if anything, this "critical party" was among the best party experiences i've had. it differed from the norm (for me), it involved different challenges at the different stages of the game, and in the end was quite a lot of fun.