Suggested party for your first playthrough.

[Master Cheese]

This is a suggestion for those of you who just picked up the game and are a bit intimidated by all the options available to you. While it isn't the strongest party possible, it certainly is a very strong one and will make use of as many ressources you'll find through out the game as possible. It's my personal favorite just because it's fun to find so much stuff your party can actually use in all those treasures and secrets.
Also, it is completely viable for any difficulty and extra challenges you might want to tackle.

Frontline:

Insectoid Battlemage.
Chitin Armor and Natural Armor(or Quick is also viable)
1 Concentration, 1 Magic school of your choice other than water(go armor first if you want to be a watermage)
+5 Vitality, +5 Willpower
Don't let the class fool you, Battlemages are actually the best tanks in the game. Also, they do very good damage early. Once you find a wand and a certain spell, you'll know why. Don't stop at armor 2, go for at least 4 and you'll be able to spend the rest of your points to cast the spells you want. I suggest at least 1 more point in concentration though.

Lizardman Knight.
Fast Metabolism and Endure Elements traits
1 Armor, 1 Heavy weapon
+5 Vitality, +5 Strength(or a couple of points in dex instead if on hard)
This guy will be rivaling the tankyness of the battlemage next to him. You shoud also invest points into armor unless you just found a heavy weapon which requires more points there. After maxing out both of these you should invest a couple of points into accuracy so that he wont miss with the big swings.

Backline:

Minotaur Rouge.
Head Hunter and Aggressive traits
1 Throwing Weapon, 1 Accuracy
+5 Strength, +5 Dexterity
Yes, as strange as it seems Minotaurs excell as Rouges in this game, simply because throwing weapons scale with strength. Max Throwing Weapon, Critical and Accuracy on him and be amazed. Even early game the rocks thrown hurt like a brickwall just decided to alter it's location towards that monsters face.
If you're completely against having a Rouge Minotaur in your party, make him a Barbarian and give him light weapons that scale with strength, but keep him in the backrow. Just get a second point in Accuracy early and max Light Weapons instead. You'll have a good time aswell.

Ratling Alchemist.
Mutation and Aggressive traits
1 Alchemy, 1 Missile Weapons.
+5 Dexterity, +5 Vitality.
Potions are a very strong ressource of power for your party and this character will make sure you'll get every piece of it without lacking in damage. Since you'll make sure that he has a high dexterity he won't be needing to invest skillpoints into accuracy. Critical is the way to go.
If you don't like to make use of that many consumables and simply want him to deal more damage, make him a Rouge instead. He can still mix potions, just not that many but will gain more crit chance as the game goes on.

Here's a brief list of things that should make you happy if you find them ingame:
- Spiked Fruits
- Eggs
- Cheese
- Skulls

Enjoy every corner of the game to the fullest,
M.Cheese

[Ancient Toaster]

I disagree.

For a very first time player, the best party is this:

Frontline:

Lizard Man Barb w/ Heavy Weapons
Lizard Man Barb w/ Light Weapons or Heavy Weapons (Toss a coin, there are more, and better Heavy weapons in the middle to late game, and the best Light Weapon is late game and not that good)
Lizard Man Alchemist w/ Fire Magic, Air Magic and Concentration
Minotaur Alchemist w/ Alchemy and Throwing

For your Frontline guys, get Endure Elements and Accuracy as your first skills. Overall you want 2 to 3 in Accuracy, Max Armor and Max weapon style, put a couple into Critical as well.

Your Alch Wizard, you want 3 in Concentration, Max Fire, 3 in Air and whatever else, maybe a couple in Water, ultimately it doesn't matter because you'll mainly be doing Force Field, Fireball/Fireburst/Meteor Storm and Light, that's it.

Mino Alchemist will be your utility man. Starting strength is good so your throwing weapons will be very nice added ranged damage. His accuracy will suck the most of your fighters but he can throw bombs and brew potions so he's useful. Collect Skulls with him too. Couple into Accuracy, Max Alchemy ASAP and throw a point into Throwing now and then to keep it's strength up. You'll be using Ninja Stars for most of the game. Being able to throw two at the same time from both hands is pretty nice later.

Lizard Men are the best race, period. Their Endure Elements trait means they have 50 resist all right out of the gate, and Fast Metabolism and Poison Immunity are good too, take your pick. With a higher Starting Dex than anything but Ratlings, they already have better base accuracy than any other race. Barbarians are better than Knights in just about every way. Barbs get Strength per level, and huge HP gains per level. +1 protection per level is very pitiful, which will get you an extra 14 or 15 protection by the end of the game, which is nothing. This is why I find Insectoids overrated as well. Their two unique traits are not that useful. 10 Protection isn't that useful. 10% cooldown is but it's not that important. Having 50% resistance to Elements is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ important. Lizards laugh at Ice Wraiths, Fire Elementals, Wyverns, The Eyeball enemies etc. Anything that throws elemental attacks, the Lizards basically can take it.

Minotaur because why not? You'll want to collect the Skulls your first go around and he can hold onto them and do very decent Damage from the back row with Shruikens and Throwing Axes, and Bombs

Ratlings are overrated. The cheese is everywhere and they get stat ups with it it but who cares? You'll probably end up with Strength stat ups for your mage or Willpower for your Fighters. Just brew potions for Stat ups, they are incredibly easy to make. With two alchemists you'll be rolling in materials at all times.

[Master Cheese]

My party was carefully designed around the idea of getting most out of the ressources you find throughout the game.

Every time you find a Skull, you'll be happy for your minotaur.
Egg? Happy for your Lizard.
Fruit? Happy for your Insect.
Cheese? Happy for your Rat.
Ingredients/Recepies? Happy for your alchemist.
Quarels/Arrows? Happy for your missle weapon user.
Throwing weapons? Happy.
Scroll? Happy.
Heavy Weapon? Happy.
Your party misses out on half of these which will dampen the joy of discovering every corner of the world.

Even If you were trying to create the most overpowered party you still failed because there are way more broken combinations than what you listed and I deliberately stayed away from those.
The party I suggested is also designed to be an easy walkthrough on easy, normal on normal and hard on hard. If I were to show one of the broken ones easy would be boring, normal would be boring and hard would be easy. The challenge is part of the joy of this game, so please don't interpret it like I'm trying to break that for newcomers.

[Ancient Toaster]

I see your point, but there are a few things you'll want to make sure extremely new players know: This game is hard (even on easy, compared to most games) and having a party that isn't up to snuff is going to create restarts and headaches. I don't find making a party around the joy of discovering Crossbow bolts and Cheese a good party for a new player. There is plenty to discover with the party I listed above, and not be completely broken. You want completely broken? Go ahead and make a 4 lizard man party. Racial food preferences are not that big of a thing in this game, you need to eat 3 for +1, 4 for +2, 5 for +3 etc. And it doesn't mean all that much in the end.

You don't miss out on much of anything with my party. Both frontliners get use out of Light and Heavy armor. Your Lizard Alchemist wizard gets neat staves and orbs, cloaks and jewelry. Your Minotaur gets recipes, throwing weapons, skulls. Your frontliners get heavy weapons, light weapons etc. Food is about the least "cool" thing to find in this game, and making a party based on getting the most out of food is dumb. You don't make your party happier by eating that food, you get random stats which don't mean much.

[Master Cheese]

I played through the game with this party myself and I asure you that you won't need a reroll. As long as you dont spread your points all over the page you'll be fine. You can facetank mobs on easy. You'll need a bit of dancing on normal and on hard of course you'll have to play smart, which is what you're meant to do.
Your party is fine too, but I don't see why you see the need to neglect mine. My Lizard is much tankier than yours and does almost the same amount of damage. The Insectoid battlemage is the best tank in the game period. My alchemist will do as much damage as a normal missle weapons user even though 5 skillpoints are reserved for alchemy. Lastly my Minotaur will level accuracy aswell as crit, so he will hit and hit very hard compared to your utility Minotaur.

[Dr.Disaster]

Both your parties have pro's and con's.

@Master Cheese: your party is pretty versatile which is a good approach to get the most out of the game. Yet there are points that do not make much sense for a first-playthru suggestion because it is also a lot based on information first time players do not have.

It is true that the Battle Mage can become the best tank in the game. Yet it is unusual to pick an armor-focused spellcaster for the front row. This lures players to deviate 4 to 5 skill points for Protection which usually would go into more energy or another magic school. It is possible to have a Battle Mage running around with Armor skill, some Concentration skilled and flinging the top damage spell of the game but then you also need to tell first-time players how to do this a.k.a. spoiler them. Otherwise new players won't know which skills are needed and by the time they find that spell scroll they either been lucky to pick the right skills beforehand or can't get it to work anymore because it requires more skill points then they have left.

A Ratling Alchemist going for Missile Weapons might make sense due to their boosted Dex but actually it doesn't. Your Minotaur rogue showcased it: as ranged attacker he goes Throwing + Accuracy + Critical. With the alchemist being the character to provide the party with potions he'll sink 5 points into alchemy which in return takes away from either Critical or Accuracy skill. Yet both these skills go hand in hand for all(!) ranged weapons. That's why most players found that making an alchemist a spellcaster is way more beneficial.

@AncientToaster: no doubt, having a group of Lizardman seems a good preparation vs. magic damage. Yet there is not that much magic being thrown at the party in general. The most damage dealt is physical melee. True, there are areas and events when you'll face a lot of poison or ice or lightning damage but you can always prepare accordingly by using protective gear or elemental shield spells or simply side-stepping.

[Peter Il Prete]

I'm a roleplayer, so I decided to start from a story: 4 tribal insectoids were been enslaved in the desert of xafi after a raid... been sold for more usefull resorce, the emarked on the ship... 1 warrior, 1 alchemist, 1 mage and a scout (missile).

[s_greyjoy]

first time through, doing normal ironman with human knight, minotaur barb, human alchemist and ratling wizard. wasn't concerned about min/maxing with the races/classes, just rp'n and going in blind

[Peter Il Prete]

Originally posted by guizhang:

first time through, doing normal ironman with human knight, minotaur barb, human alchemist and ratling wizard. wasn't concerned about min/maxing with the races/classes, just rp'n and going in blind

I luv yar mind, 1st time on any RPG, in my opinion, MUST be Roleplayed, not powerplayed.

[Francis_Mallman]

Yeah, RPGs are about choice, and playing the way YOU want to play, not the way somebody else wants you to.

[Spocks Toupee]

Originally posted by Master Cheese:

Minotaur Rouge.
Head Hunter and Aggressive traits
1 Throwing Weapon, 1 Accuracy
+5 Strength, +5 Dexterity
Yes, as strange as it seems Minotaurs excell as Rouges in this game, simply because throwing weapons scale with strength. Max Throwing Weapon, Critical and Accuracy on him and be amazed. Even early game the rocks thrown hurt like a brickwall just decided to alter it's location towards that monsters face.
If you're completely against having a Rouge Minotaur in your party, make him a Barbarian and give him light weapons that scale with strength, but keep him in the backrow. Just get a second point in Accuracy early and max Light Weapons instead. You'll have a good time aswell.

What's class is a ROUGE?
Also "aswell" isn't a word, it's two words "as well"

[Blud]

Originally posted by Spocks Toupee:

Originally posted by Master Cheese:

Minotaur Rouge.
Head Hunter and Aggressive traits
1 Throwing Weapon, 1 Accuracy
+5 Strength, +5 Dexterity
Yes, as strange as it seems Minotaurs excell as Rouges in this game, simply because throwing weapons scale with strength. Max Throwing Weapon, Critical and Accuracy on him and be amazed. Even early game the rocks thrown hurt like a brickwall just decided to alter it's location towards that monsters face.
If you're completely against having a Rouge Minotaur in your party, make him a Barbarian and give him light weapons that scale with strength, but keep him in the backrow. Just get a second point in Accuracy early and max Light Weapons instead. You'll have a good time aswell.

What's class is a ROUGE?
Also "aswell" isn't a word, it's two words "as well"

♥♥♥♥ happens spelling nazi, anyone with a brain can figure it out,, now can you add to party or are you just going to-----oh oh two commas I guess I better get out of here.

[Spocks Toupee]

Originally posted by Blud:

♥♥♥♥ happens spelling nazi, anyone with a brain can figure it out,, now can you add to party or are you just going to-----oh oh two commas I guess I better get out of here.

Nah, this guy consistently spells ROGUE wrong, and "aswell" is starting to become an internet trend that needs to stop.

See ya.

[RADKILLA[420]]

i prefer playing with what im given for the first play thru.

[Warren]

Originally posted by Spocks Toupee:

What's class is a ROUGE?
Also "aswell" isn't a word, it's two words "as well"

I cant' believe you don't know what class a ROUGE is.
Don't you know that MOULIN ROUGE translates as RED MILL?
Also, don't you get that typing "aswell" instead of "as well" saves you time and effort? It's ONE full spacebar less in the process. Your keyboard will last much longer.
Really, ignorance, aswell as prickiness, can be so annoying...

[Master Cheese]

Thanks for the heads up. English is my second language you know.
Although it's quite ironic to get corrected by a guy who's writing "WHAT'S class is a rouge?"