How about a "stealth trio"?

[The Procrastinator]

My current game is going smoothly and I'm already thinking about my next party. I think I'll try one of those smaller parties. I'm considering a "stealth trio", that is, a three member party consisting of a felpurr monk, a faerie ninja and a hobbit rogue. Stealth training and maxing speed asap. Any idea on how to develope this party effectively? I'm thinking about starting the monk as psionic to get heal wound and to train him with charm on burz before even getting to level 2, at which point I'd permanently switch him to monk.

Whaddaya think?

Very interesting building a party on stealth. You will all get to be fairly strong, but you will lack magic unless you train your guys with magic also.

[The Procrastinator]

Of course I plan to train their magic skills. That will be no problem with the monk, since he can get charm pretty early (first level if I start him as a psionic), but the ninja is another story. I'll have to wait for level 10 to get knock knock, and I'll have to reach 30 in alchemy to get it. That could become a real problem. In my current game, I have a dual class ranger/alchemist. I started her as a ranger for 1 level, to have decent hit points, then I switched to alchemist for 5 levels to build her alchemy skill and spellbook, but it was very hard to get alchemy to 30, I had to postpone level up for 1 or 2 levels before getting knock knock and another level before learning all the spells available thru spellbooks. This strategy is out of question with a 3 member party, considering I want to raise dex/spd/sen as much as possible right from the start.

[The Procrastinator]

I realize my previous post wasn't very clear on one point. When I'm saying that I had to postpone leveling up, I meant before switching back to ranger, because I wanted her to spend the less levels possible as an alchemist, which was 5 levels, just enough to get knock knock and the other first three levels of spells. BTW, she's doing fine now, but I'm not sure I'd go through all that trouble again.

I did the same thing with a mage/samurai, with much more satisfying results, but I think it's a strategy that would work much better with a psionic/monk or a priest/lord, because you could only spend one level as a spellcaster, train with the charm spell, and then have heal wound for your 4 first levels as an hybrid, and then have decent spell casting ability when you reach 5th level as an hybrid. See what I mean?

[ChaosTheorist]

Sounds like you're trying to build Alchemy by casting spells. Not the best approach: the quickest way to bring up the Alchemy skill is by mixing potions. As soon as you get Alchemy to 15 (which is at creation for an Alchemist), start buying Light Heals and Heavy Heals and mixing them. In addition to building Alchemy, it builds your bank balance. I know that "train Alchemy using Knock-Knock on the vault door" is the party line, but doing actual Alchemy--mixing stuff--is faster and can be done a lot earlier. Oh: make sure you have someone with sufficient skill in Artifacts--15, I think--to identify the mixed potions.

[Psycho]

I found playing all chars with stealth, takes a lot of training and time before you get results...

I prefer to include a valkyre in my party... covers the priests spells, nice damage with spear, high hitpoints, cheats death (hit points are actually doubled) and without stealth draws attacks to her.

This way you don't have to train (cheat) stealth up to 90-100, you have the benefits from the start...

[The Procrastinator]

Chaos: of course I'm aware that mixing potion raise your alchemy. It's also very paying. I was planning to train her both way. While she's training at the vault, Braffit replenish his stuff. Anyway, I don't plan to train them to death, just what it takes to let them have their spell level at the earliest level possible (which means the objective is 15 point at 7th level, 30 at 9th, 45 at 12th, etc).

Psycho: your idea is good, but I'm really into the idea of a "stealth trio" I started it yesterday, just after my last post, and let them train all night. Now they all have 97 in stealth, they are at 8th level and training in Arnika. They died suprisingly not that often. I didn't have to reload that much, really. I think they'll all eventually fight with cursed weapons (can monks use the staff of doom?).

My best battle was with those 11 modais (the smallest ones) on the way to Arnika. I placed my party in a crevice and just fought them one by one, taking rest once in a while. Took me like 75 rounds, by I got them!