Quick and dirty party recommendation?

[Thick McRunFast]

Hi all,

I know there's guides, FAQs, and walkthroughs aplenty out there, but I wanted to ask for some party/character recommendations all the same and perhaps strike up some interesting discussion.

Note that I'm not really interested in doing a lot of re-rolling or using the editor, as some of the guides suggest. I'm more than willing to start with basic classes and class change out to more advanced ones later on.

Thanks!

[taz5100]

took me hours just to get characters with 14 to 16 bonus points lol tried patch it didnt sem to do anything. I started with a ninja a valkrye a thief a bard a mage and a priest. I am having an issue with my ninja missing all monsters on basement floor of castle not sure why tho.

[Thick McRunFast]

Yeah. I know the feeling. As for the ninja missing, maybe an issue with (currently) low weapon skill? From my experience with later games in the series, Ninjas start as sort of jack of all trades, master of none, but get pretty brutal later.

[Protonic Flux]

Yeah, baby your Ninja for now. I have 2 of them and a warrior in the party. Right around level 4 they start to come around. By endgame your Ninjas will be one shotting monsters and your going to be laughing to yourself thinking, "How is that EVEN POSSIBLE"

[Volucris]

My party is composed of a Valkyrie, a Samuraï, a Monk, a Bard, and two Bishops. My group is currently level 5-6, and the Kirijutsu skill begins to kick in combat which is nice (instakill criticals !). I chose my party without taking the gameplay too much into account. I love medieval japan and Valkyrie Profile so that explains the front row. Two Bishops overseeing the group seemed kind of mandatory. The first one more of devotee, useful for the menial tasks of blessing, enchanting, detections, blabla. The second one morally flexible and alltogether egotistic to push the group on a meaningful path (at least for her...). And a Bard because dungeons are quite gloomy.
This game seems balanced to be playable whatever combination of classes you choose. I might be wrong but this is impressive for such an old game !

[Socipat]

I'm not even looking at the other posts, because you said quick and dirty. For quick and dirty you need to know what race goes with what prestige class. your party should look something like this.

Rawul Fighter (promo to lord)
Felpurr Fighter (Promo to Samurai)
Dracon Thief (Promo to Ninja)
Rawulf Priest (promo to Valkyrie)
Mook Psionic (promo to Monk, if you can get the stats)
Farie Mage (Promo to Bard, You can also go with an Elf and promo her to a bard or samuria later)

All of, with the exception of the Mook Psionic, are easly obtain with good stat on 1 to 3 tries. And all can easily be promoed, again with the exception of the Mook Psionic to a Mook Moonk; with the min of attribute points and leveling. Do keep in mind that attribute points and skill points are awarded on a random basis, with skill points getting only a small boost from intelligence and attribute points are a 50/50 chance per succecful point gain. (If you get an attribute bonus while leveling up you have a 50/50 chance of getting another bonus point).

[Socipat]

Originally posted by taz5100:

took me hours just to get characters with 14 to 16 bonus points lol tried patch it didnt sem to do anything. I started with a ninja a valkrye a thief a bard a mage and a priest. I am having an issue with my ninja missing all monsters on basement floor of castle not sure why tho.

If you hit the lower levels early then you will miss alot as those monsters are of higher level than the 1st and 2nd floor monesters. What you want to do is consertrate on a primary form of combat for your characters. If you went threw the first and 2nd level with no weapon and you want to give you ninja a Kantana, I would suggest putting a wakizashi in his off hand and nothing in primary to build up his sword skill in combat. once at about 20 or so give him the Katana and place a dagger in his off hand to build up wands and dagger.

[Thick McRunFast]

Good info. Thank you.

[Grakor]

Some of the advice above is a little dodgy. Here's a quick and dirty party recommendation, followed by reasoning:

Dwarf Valkyrie
Felpurr Samurai
Elf Monk
Hobbit Bard
Dracon Ranger
Human Bishop

Some of these you can start off as a "cheaper" class and then class change, but some of them you really shouldn't. The big no-no is that if you're going to use a bard, -start- as a bard, don't class change to it. The main reason is that a starting bard has the lute, which gives free sleep spells. If you don't start as a bard, you simply won't ever get a lute, which is the main reason to have a bard in the first place. The other instruments help, but the lute is the main reason to have one, since he makes the early game much easier.

Beyond that, this will give you all of the magic types on at least one character. Valkyrie is better than lord here, as the two are largely interchangeable but valkyrie levels up faster. The bard is your skullduggery character. You could replace the ranger with a ninja, but ninjas are difficult for the first few areas. If you're planning on transferring this party to Wizardry 7, faerie ninjas do get access to what is arguably the best weapon in the game, but I'm not sure it's worth the early game pain of rolling and baby-sitting one.

If you want a slightly easier time, roll most of your characters female, since they get access to a few decent items the men don't. There's only one male-only item in the game, and around five or six female-only items.

[Thick McRunFast]

Sounds like excellent advice. Thanks Grakor.

[HunterZ]

You really want two melee fighter types (fighter, lord, samurai, valkyrie), at least one thief type (thief, ninja, bard), at least one priest type (priest, bishop) and 1-2 offensive caster types (mage, psionic, alchemist). Note that I left out Ranger and Monk, as I'm not a big fan of those classes in Wiz6 (despite rangers being my favorite fantasy RPG class in general).

Note that promoting from anything to a ninja is going to be tough, because it will be difficult to find armor. On the other hand, I guess they have good AC even when naked.

Also, having a bard in the party in the early game is extremely helpful, because you basically get a free sleep spell by using the Lute in combat.

I've also heard that it's better to level a mage and then switch to a priest (or vice versa) than to level a bishop, as it takes as much XP for a mage/priest to go from levels 1-10 as it does for a bishop to go from 10-11. It may at least be worth doing a priest->bishop class change instead of starting with a bishop, as you will pump up his priest spells on the first go-round, then concentrate on mage spells while re-leveling as bishop.

Finally, note that it is a waste to put a ninja or monk (or really any non-pure spellcaster who you want to have use short-range melee weapons) in the back 3 slots in your party, unless you want them to have to hide before they can attack. This is why I generally like to have a party of 2x fighter-type, 1x thief-type, 2x caster-type, 1x priest type, and give the casters quarterstaves or slings.

[Thick McRunFast]

Makes good sense. Very good advice there. Thank you as well.

[Socipat]

Originally posted by Grakor:

Some of the advice above is a little dodgy. Here's a quick and dirty party recommendation, followed by reasoning:

Dwarf Valkyrie
Felpurr Samurai
Elf Monk
Hobbit Bard
Dracon Ranger
Human Bishop

Some of these you can start off as a "cheaper" class and then class change, but some of them you really shouldn't. The big no-no is that if you're going to use a bard, -start- as a bard, don't class change to it. The main reason is that a starting bard has the lute, which gives free sleep spells. If you don't start as a bard, you simply won't ever get a lute, which is the main reason to have a bard in the first place. The other instruments help, but the lute is the main reason to have one, since he makes the early game much easier.

Beyond that, this will give you all of the magic types on at least one character. Valkyrie is better than lord here, as the two are largely interchangeable but valkyrie levels up faster. The bard is your skullduggery character. You could replace the ranger with a ninja, but ninjas are difficult for the first few areas. If you're planning on transferring this party to Wizardry 7, faerie ninjas do get access to what is arguably the best weapon in the game, but I'm not sure it's worth the early game pain of rolling and baby-sitting one.

If you want a slightly easier time, roll most of your characters female, since they get access to a few decent items the men don't. There's only one male-only item in the game, and around five or six female-only items.

Interesting counter but you failed in noticeing that he dosn't want to do a lot of rerolls. So lets break you party down by that.

Dwarf Valkyrie base 9
Felpurr Samurai Base 12/14
Elf Monk 14/16
Hobbit Bard 6/6
Dracon Ranger 5/6
Human Bishop 14/14

Now lets break down the rolls.
Any number above ten your looking at an average of 15 to 20 rolls (unless you get lucky or cheat).
Any number between 5 and 9 you'll get with in 1 to 3 rolls.

lets break down the classes.
The Dwarf Valkyrie is arguable the easiest and most useful of the group to get. No real cons there.
The Felpurr Samuria is an essential in my part, but you want quick and it took me over 1/2 an hour to get the base point for mine. Its better to start with a fighter and build to Samurai
The Elf Monk and Human Bishop like wise would take about 5 to 10 min to build. (fyi I don't cheat and I make 1 character in about 3 sec. So when I say 10 min your looking at about 30 rerolls)
The arguments about the bard and ranger classes can be found on other forums. But basicly your better off starting with a mage and building to a bard or Bishop. I would go with Bishop as the Bard is proving to be a waste of space later in the game while a dedicated spell caster that can heal and do damage is always better. The ranger suffers from the lack of weapons and armor. So starting with one is not a good thing. Your better off starting with an alchemist (equiped with a short bow) and train to Ranger later in the game. The best Alchemist is the Farie (5/5), plus the Farie can use the suede pants and dublet as well as all the ranger weapons. The build however is not easy.

On a Final note if you really want a Bard in you group go with a Farie and train to use the bullwhip, thrown weapons, and wands (artifacts),