My experience with M&M is EXTREMELY limited and as such, i have no idea whats what. I'm in the middle of going through the manual, but would anyone mind dropping some suggestions, tips or advice on stuff i should keep in mind, do or don't do while playing?

What critical question i had is concerning the starting party, i read that there is a default party, but forget it...i never go with those, even if i have no idea what skills do or don't do, call me foolhardy, but i want to create my own custom party, otherwise why am'i playing a party-based RPG? :P
Anyways, i'm thinking on very general terms of creating a party of a Dexterity-based Fighter/Warrior, Rogue, Healer and Offensive Caster...is that somewhat good setup, or should i consider something else?

Anything else could also help :)

Thanks!

Knight, robber, cleric and sorcerer is quite a standard party, so you shouldn't have trouble with it.

IMO, its important to have both a cleric and a sorcerer for access to some very important grandmaster level spells in body, water, and air magic. You can probably finish without them, but its more difficult.

You also need a tank, and the knight is the best class for that role. Your last character can really be anything that strikes your fancy, so rogue is fine. I found on my play throughs that disarm trap wasn't that big a deal, but rogues deal good damage so it won't gimp you. Really, once you have a knight, cleric, and a sorcerer the fourth character can be anything.

Can rogues open locked stuff?

There is no 'locked' stuff per se, but for more powerful containers you'll need a character with Disarm Trap skill. Thief is best suited, but Archer can learn it as well and then be buffed with items.

Regardless of class, remember to teach each character basic Merchant, Learning (bonus XP) and Bow (ranged weapons are extremely useful). Spellcasters should get Meditation for bonus SP and others Body Building for HP.

If you mean the part in Tatalia, all it takes is an Invisibility spell / scroll and some careful movement.

Druid promotion, on the other hand, requires a lot of traveling (plus unlocking the Island first) & dispatching quite a lot of enemies protecting the altars.

I enjoyed having a monk in my party, even more than having a knight or paladin. I found that the combos doubled the available attack bonus and armor class. Attack damage wasn't as exciting as one might hope, but overall, playing as a monk provided an interesting aspect of roleplay and was certainly worthwhile as a fighter character.

Also the monk is a viable replacement for thief if you choose the dark side, since M disarm trap is available only for ninja. And the promotion quest ain't hard at all, especially if you remember the button sequence so you don't have to infiltrate/butcher the school of magic.

Decided to go with Knight, Ranger, Cleric and Paladin.

The game will be quite hard with the ranger as only character able to cast elemental spells. You don't have anyone in your party to cast elemental magic at master or grandmaster level, no spells like town portal, beacon, fly or invisibility. Even expert spells won't be available before the second ranger promotion.

Unless you know exactly what you're doing (some players consider fast travel spells, flying and invisibility cheesy) I strongly recommend replacing one of your characters with someone who can at least master elemental magic, a sorcerer, archer or druid.

Oops, sorry...don;t know WHY i ever typed Paladin, i meant Sorcerer, lol.

Ranger has the easiest first promotion quest.

Someone mind "enlightning" me as to what promotion quests are? lol...

Every character class has three promotion quests. Well, technically two, because the second one depends on which side you choose. Apart from changing the class name, you can get higher skill ranks (normal, expert, master, grandmaster) or learn previously unavailable skills.
For exmple monk can get promoted to initiate and then he can learn body/mind/spirit magic. After that he can get promoted to either master (light side) or ninja (dark side). Whichever side you choose, after the second promotion he can learn GM staff, unarned, dodging and learning.