PetrusOctavianus: Piece of advice:
If you are going to play the whole Pools series with the same party, look up the racials restrictions on class levels in the Pools of Darkness manual first, to avoid getting an unpleasant surprise laters.
Only Humans can reach max levels in any class but Thief.
Also, in Pool of Radiance there's no Ranger or Paladin; they become available in Curse of the Azure Bonds.
Also, consider not trying to take the same party through the entire series. There are many setups that work really well in PoR, but are non-viable later in the series. Also, in CotAB and SotSB, if you import old characters, there is not that much room for them to grow, and much of the fun of RPGs (and other games with growth systems) is seeing your characters get stronger throughout the game.
Going from SotSB to PoD, however, is a good idea, because you get to keep your equipment and can gain more levels than in the rest of the series combined.
One more thing, from what someone posted in another topic, dual-classing right away in CotAB is not a good idea and will result in much frustration; wait until you reach a place to train other than the one in the starting town. (Apparently, this may also be an issue in PoD as well.)