I remember playing this years ago and painting myself into a corner combat-wise, I was travelling in the open somewhere after one of the first town, met a group that basically annihilated me.

I was told at the time I had a bad party mix, which I would believe, as I just made my party with whatever sounded cool.

Whats the best party mix or what classes should I avoid during creation.

SPOILER
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i seem to remember finding either a samuari sword or armour in the monastry at the start, what class uses that is it just any fighter class or a specific type, sorry for being vague, it was years ago.

Thanks for any help :)

It was a long time since I played the game myself, but I can try to recollect something of the party I used to use. I know I would make two lizardmen warriors, put them in the front. Give each lizardman the highest strength stats you can, give them two handed weapons, and watch the enemies turn to jelly >:-)

One thing I like to in RPGs in general, is limit my party to just one mage and healer, then fill the rest with warriors to act as meat shield. Use two hander weapons whenever possible and go by the offense is the best defense strategy. I had a lot of fun in Dungeon Siege watching by two warriors fight side by side with their 2 handed axes, shredding the mobs as they came close. Then I had my mages in the back reinforcing them.

My core team normally consists of

Fighter - Pure raw power, I normally make him/her a Dracon for the Acid Breath area affect
Valkyrie - Pole arms gives added melee range and has priest abilities, Valkyries also have the ability to cheat death which can really come in handy.
Samurai - Nice blend of fighter/mage and are skilled in the are of Deadly strike with swords that can instantly kill a foe when properly speced, tend to make mine Felpur. They also gain Lightning strikes which allows them to attack multiple times during there turn.
Bard - Musical instruments can really come in handy and the added rogue skills are nice
Priest - Dwarf or Rawrulf, the defensive abilities speak for themselves and has a few nice attacks

Last spot I normally put another magic user like a Mage or Psionic. A bishop is nice for uncursing and they can learn all four spell books however they don't gain any magic bonuses the pure classes get and they can easily become a Jack of All Trades Master of None. Psionic is good though for causing confusion to enemies which can cause them to loose there ability to fight or even attack there allies.

My last party, as far as I remember, was a samurai, faerie ninja (a must have), bard and gadgeteer combo (for fun) and two casters. One was alchemist dualled to bishop as soon as I maxed alchemy (knock knock), second I can't remember. Single class caster, wizard or psionic. Whatever, any of these two would work.

Not a good party for beginners, mind you. Require some careful playing on the beginning, when they're much weaker than single class party. But they totally demolished everything by the endgame.

Also, vanilla game is too easy. Try some mods like Deathstalker's or Dodd's (google those). Both are VERY combat heavy and so much fun.

My party - Gadgeteer-Mook, Fighter-Dracon, Bishop-Elf, Ninja-Faerie (worth only if you later find Cane of Corpus), Samurai-Hobbit and Monk-Elf (not very good choice, better would be Psionic)

And for most of the game I had Vi Domina (Valkyrie) and Saxx (Bard) as my companions.

I remember that I gave up on this otherwise quite cool game because of its unforgiving leveling of NPCs. Each level I gained for my party made the respawn tougher in a (at least for me) no-fun way.

So for whatever party you create I suggest go for powergaming/min-maxing glory.

Well, you can find the soundtrack on YouTube. Not exactly party music, but I'm sure a talented mix artist could create something worthwhile from that. Haven't seen anyone do it yet, unfortunately.

Its samurai armor in the monastery at the beginning

Thanks for the replies guys, plussage all 'round :)

My team was kinda like Wolfsites, so I was going in the right direction, this input will help me fine tune what I should be doing.

Thanks again all :)

I say continue making parties that sound cool. You are role-playing after all...

I find that making super-efficient parties has, not ruined, but at least marred the experience of several games for me. I made whatever parties I liked for Wizardry 8 and managed just fine, so I think you should do the same.

Maybe on subsequent playthroughs, I just couldnt get past the area i mentioned at the start, coulda just been stupidity on my part, but the game has always been "unfinished buisness" for me, I want to get it off my to-do list, then maybe revisit it with a better perspective :)

Hmm, fair enough. I can't remember for sure, but I think you can adjust the difficulty slider at any time. If, after a few tries, you can't get past a certain area, turn it down to easy and plough through the bastards! Then turn it back up again to continue the game!

how come wizardry still hasn't made it into the gog's catalogue?

I personally prefer Lord - Samurai - Ranger - Bishop as my ideal party. I occasionally swap Lord for Valkyrie, Samurai for Fighter, Ninja for Ranger, and/or drop the Bishop entirely. Smaller parties aren't for everyone, but I generally like them because you don't need as much loot to make them efficient and they level up faster. Honorable mention goes to Fighter - Rogue - Gadgeteer - Bard - RFS-81 for being one of the more enjoyable ones though, simply because it's such a change of pace as you have no magic whatsoever, only gadgets and instruments.

Wizardry 8 is kinda tricky because the monsters can be fairly tough, and because they're scaled to your level in the early stages you can get in over your head fairly quickly. The most important thing that makes you effective in the Wizardry games isn't your level but rather your skills, so if you get a lot of level-ups without getting a lot of skill-ups you can have problems. If possible, try to train your skills as much as possible, by inspecting traps over and over or casting spells over and over and so on.

Another important thing to remember is that corners and doorways are your best friends. Unless you're actively trying to run away or are facing ranged-only enemies, you absolutely want to wedge yourself into the narrowest spot you can to avoid getting surrounded. If you get surrounded, Higardi Roustabouts and Brigands can be very brutal in the early stages, and Juggernauts can be very brutal in the middle stages... and all of those can be found on Arnika Road, which in many ways is the hardest area in the game. If you see a group that's definitely too tough for you, just run away. If you can avoid getting trapped, the enemies will retreat after 3 rounds of not being able to catch you, so you can save them for later. Arnika-Trynton road also has a few open areas that can be used to lure or avoid enemies entirely without getting into combat at all. (Chameleon helps here.)