Garran: Some character types "mature" more quickly than others, which can also make for a lopsided experience.

A gadgeteer, for example, is a fairly weak character in the beginning of the game, with a poor-quality ranged weapon and very few other tricks to call on. (The lightning rod is nice but uses up a horrendous amount of stamina at that point.) But unless you go out of your way to avoid assembling devices, he's a true terror in the late game with spammable AoE instant kills and a direct ranged attack that outclasses pretty much everything else.

The bishop, likewise, is a fairly weak caster in the early game because of his unfocused spellcasting, dabbling in a bit of everything. By the end of the game, he can easily leave all of the focused casters in the dust. Similarly, the strongly hybrid classes (melee/magic) can take longer to get going than the straightforward ones, like the fighter.

If your party consists mostly or entirely of "late bloomers" like this then the early going can be REALLY tough, especially if you don't take extra time to develop their skills in the easier areas.

Of note: while the game scales encounters to your party level, each zone has a level range. This might make it seem like going in a bit underleveled wouldn't be too daunting, but the way the game works it's actually a very bad idea in most regions: if you're underleveled, the encounter generator actually wraps around and spawns encounters appropriate to the upper end of its range (which can result in L30ish groups in Arnika if you arrive there at level 5ish or lower!

F1ach: I dont have those dialogue options with Antone.

triock: You must write it yourself, this way you can ask about anything in the game. ;)

F1ach: I never knew that, thank you very very much mate, I really appreciate that bit of info :))))

HomerSimpson: Unless

triock: Sometimes reading the manual really helps. :D

F1ach: Well, I have a boxed 1.24 copy with no manual, it says the manual is in the game folder under manual, but its not there, but I have played it before and do remember a fair bit, but not about typing I guess :)

F1ach: Whats the fastest way to the Mines do you guys know? I'll go pick up the 'bot to replace the Psi later on.
Thanks for all the help :)

triock: You can read it (or download if you want) here ;) - http://misc.weedwhacker.org/misc/Wizardy8-Manual.pdf
triock: IIRC the entrance to the Mine tunnels is in the Swamp.

F1ach: Awesome, thanks for the linkage mate :)

bevinator: Yeah, there are a lot of neat things you can manually ask people about. If you don't feel like typing, you can just click the words they say, or shift-click to select multiple words. For instance, grilling Burz about "ships" will get you some useful info for later, and a lot of people have interesting stuff to say about "destiny."

Also, most of the recruitable NPCs are terrible. All of them have a large number of areas where they simply will not go, and only three (Saxx, RFS-81, and Vi) will travel to the final area of the game. Many Wiz8 veterans will call them "experience-sucking vampires" which is not wholly inaccurate. Those three are pretty good, though. RFS will actually travel with you anywhere, which makes him IMO the best of the RPCs, but he's a monk with no magic which may or may not be your style. In most cases you're better off having them stay as NPCs than party characters.

Myles, in particular, is very useful if you just recruit him and then immediately drop him off at the fountain in Arnika. If you do that, he will then patrol the fountain for the rest of the game, making sudden Savant Trooper/Orb attacks a lot easier to deal with. (He's a lot stronger as an NPC, too, with ~200 HP and 3x2 attacks per round.) He eventually can get into some trouble with Savant Henchmen and so on, but in the earlier stages he can pretty much kill anything in Arnika single-handedly.