The Best Party

I was just wondering if some of the experts or otherwise would like to post what they think the best party composition would be, and I'll post mine just because I think they are tough...
Warrior--&gtaladin
Warrior-->Barbarian
Priest-->Monk
Wizard-->Warlock-->Samurai
Wizard-->Warlock
Wizard-->Warlock

You got to think much further than 2 classes, because it's not difficult to get to around level 9-11 in any class. Also, think about your final class, and also in terms of what spells you want each character to be able to cast. If your warlock becomes a Samurai, his spell-learning ability in Fiend and Moon spells are cut by half (that is, your max spell level learnable is your fiend/moon-craft divided by two, 12 (6) being maximum in each). So you'd better be careful to get all your level 7 Fiend/Moon spells you want before changing to Samurai. The exceptions to this rule are warlocks and Zenmasters. Your warlocks can still learn all the Sun and Stone spells unhindered.

For warriors, if I could start again, I would do something like this:

Warrior --> Barbarian (ASAP) --> Paladin --> Ranger --> Samurai
Warrior --> Barbarian (ASAP) --> Ranger --> Samurai --> Paladin

The reason for the quick move to barbarian is that it's not useful to gain levels as a warrior relative to being a barbarian as the latter gets more skills to learn as well as tons of hp. As a barbarian, you should level as far as you're comfortable, gaining hp and skills (I won't suggest going past level 7 though). The main disadvantage is that you don't learn any spells. Note also that you should not rise too far for barbarian, because you'd be hampering your skills training in your new class. This is important: for example, once a barb turns into a paladin, he cannot get more than 1 skill to train per level until he surpasses his barb level. This is bad because you want to up your new skills (esp. things like spiritcraft). It gets worse when you hit Samurai - suncraft, 2nd weapon, prowess, etc, etc.For each of your magic-capable classes, plan your spell-learning carefully.

You don't have a rogue in your party, so be certain to train your barb to do traps and locks. Someone must also learn to pickpocket, an important quest-aiding skill in the game.

Get a ninja! They're super cool! You could consider Priest (concentrate on Vinecraft) --> Monk (finish your Spirit spells) --> Ninja. Bear in mind that you cannot finish monk/samurai training until you reach the second town.

Since there're so many magic schools, also plan who's going to specialise in what. For your wizards, make sure you cover your Stonecraft spells because no one other than the wizard, valkyrie and Zenmaster can cast Stone spells, and you won't be seeing any of the last two classes until near the end of the game.

Also, plan out which wizard is going to do Blessings and which one Enchants, bearing in mind who should learn what Artifact spell. This is if you plan to make/enhance your magic items.

Wizard --> Warlock --> Samurai sounds great!

How about doing Wizard --> Bard --> Warlock for one of your wizards?