As you may remember, you can hire a Monk (RFS-81) later (without magic). I suggest you take a Gadgy or a Bard with you. Gadgets or instruments helped my party later ( full heal and the like ) and both have access to good melee weapons. The gadgys omnigun was always a great weapon . And IIRC the bard can use the cursed Bloodlust early (if you don't want him to use ranged weapons).
For me I prefer a pure alchemist in my party because I want to earn tons of money [img]smile.gif[/img] . And I get Portal spell and Summon Elemental early.
A ranger could be a good addition with his ranged criticals but I never played one. So I can't help you with that.
A good member could be a Lord,too. Bonus on dual weapons, heals himself, can use best armor and dual wielding sword/mace or mace/mace can deliver huge damage to the foes.
But, of course, there is no party in the game, that can survive game weariness.
[img]graemlins/monster5.gif[/img]
[ 06-21-2004, 09:05 AM: Message edited by: Loudhy ]