I just downloaded this game since I had a free long weekend and I've been having a blast, although the game was a HUGE pain the butt at first. Here are some tips to help new players get to the really fun stuff.

The main selling point of the game: All the fun of D&D rules, plus awesome X-COM style combat and exploration.

1-Download the Circle of 8 Modpack with New Content. Tons of new quests, even some mini romances, great fun.

2-The game just plain sucks until you get to Level 3. There's no way to avoid it. Hang in there, drink some tea, and it'll take off.

3-Either use a walkthrough for the Homlett quests or just skip them in favor of the Homlett Blacksmith's zombie quest.

4-You can use the World Map to quickly jump to the Homlet Tower, Homlet Church, or Homlett Inn. This will save some huge amounts of hiking time. You can access the world map from almost any outdoors area.

5. There is only 1 guaranteed safe resting place in the entire game, that is Homlet Inn.

6. Any item that's called "Magic ___" is UNIDENTIFIED. You need a wizard or sorcerer to identify it. If you don't, there's gonna be problems. (the exception is potions, any blue potion is a heal pot, just drink it, if you have a cleric you dont really need them.)

7. If you want to be able to complete all the quests, download a character editor (you can get one at the website Wizard's Place), make a party spokesman/Chief PR Officer with high Charisma, and max all the different communication skills. (Works in real life too! :D)

8. Crafting is awesome! Get a crafting guide from Gamefaqs, get the Craft Magic Arms & Armor feat on a Cleric and Wiz/Sorc, wait until Level9 or so, then have at it.

9. Disabling spells are AWESOME in this game: Charm, Web, Stinking Cloud, and more. Use an invisible or sneaking scout to locate a group of enemies. Lock them down with Web and then pound them with Fireballs. Alternatively, Charm (mind control) a few big fat enemies to create a buffer zone between you and the enemy contingent. They simultaneously hold the line, take damage, and deal damage, allowing you to sit back and let your ranged attacks fly. Think like you're playing Starcraft.

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My party: Greatsword Fighter, Spear Fighter, Sorceress, Cleric, Rogue. Currently kicking lots of butt at level 7.

I agree this game is one of the best sandbox adventures I have ever played, where you can kind of do whatever you want. A few tips and corrections to your comments: Make sure everyone has a Slashing, Piercing and Bashing weapon in their inventory ASAP. ToEE is brutal when it comes to damage immunities. Just like any D&D game, experience is divided according to # of party members. So it might actually be easier to "solo" for a few levels (the Homett fetch-and-carry quests), then go to the Welcome Wench and add new party members by clicking on the book on the check in counter.

Elmo (Fighter 4), Furnok (Rogue 4), and Fruella (Fighter 3) are three NPC's you can hire early on in Homlett that will make the early game easier. Ditch them once you level up your party, since they all charge a looting fee. If they die before then... big deal. Pischella (Wizard 1/ Sorcerer 1), Spugnoir (Wizard 2) and Ronald Rynnwraithi (Cleric 1, Co8 mod only) all have decent stats/skills and don't require a looting share (well Spugnoir does, but just have him copy all those scrolls into his spellbook, then scribe them again for general use), so they are worth joining on a more permanent basis to the party. Meleny has good stats for a spellcaster (Druid 1), but you won't be able to recruit her if you don't complete the Homlett matchmaker quest arc.

Tips: Level up Pischella as a Sorceress, and keep her at Wizard 1: she will be able to copy ANY level scroll to her wizard spellbook (with high enough Spellcraft skill - btw the bonus effects from Scholar Kits stack and there are 4 of them you can get early on), and scribe those spells as scrolls for the party too! Spugnoir and Furnok make good ranged attackers, since they both come with the requisite skills. Furnok has a magic dagger and an Ring of Invisibility! Fruella can throw her cleaver in combat, and it automatically returns to her hand due to an NPC item bug.

Don't forget to Scribe Scrolls! The easiest way to upgrade your spell caster! In Co8 mod, you can click on the signpost in front of the Welcome Wench, and it will take you anywhere you want to go in Homlett. Depends on what you mean by "guaranteed". Homlett isn't "safe" if you get the Butcher of Homlett reputation. You can craft magic items in Burne and Rufus's tower, but you can't rest there. You eventually get several options to safely rest in Nulb (whorehouse, own house). The Moathouse tower comes with a storage chest for excess loot and you can both rest safely there as well as craft magic items, so it is my preferred Base-of-Operations. Imo why buy the house in Nulb when the Moathouse is free? Wonilon's Hideout, the secret Circular Stair and the Tunnel under the Bandit Tower are all safe for resting (well the tunnel is more like 90% safe), but you can't craft items and have a chance of catching Filth Fever there (just rest again a full day till you get better). Any merchant can identify items for 100 gold, so no need to have a party member do it if you don't want to waste a Sorcerer or Bard spell slot. Have your Wizard scribe Identify scrolls and use those to identify items, it is about 30% cheaper that way (Spugnoir NPC is perfect for this: join - scribe identify - kick). A spellcaster can cast Read Magic on any potion to identify it for free. Not all potions are what they seem ;) No need to cheat. Just roll up a Bard as one of your party members. They are perfect for this. Also, some of those skills are not based on Charisma (Intimidation - Strength, Bluff - Dexterity, Sense Motive - Wisdom, Appraise - Intelligence, etc.). But afaik, as long as one of the party members has a high enough skill, their stats are used instead of the party leader (unlike some other D&D-based games).

One more thing: It does make a difference who you sell your loot to in ToEE. Sell metal items to the Smith, leather items to the Leatherworker, cloth to the Tailor, gems to the Jewler, magic to a Magician to get the best prices. High Appraisal skill will affect this the most, modified by Intelligence (NOT charisma), what Familiar you have, and certain magic items and spells. Bards or Rogues will be able to develop the highest Appraise skill, so building a dedicated appraiser with high Int is worth it. You can make a profit fairly early on scribing scrolls and then selling them to generate cash, if you build and equip your character properly. Ideal build: 18+ Int with a Merchant Scale and a Raven Familiar, maxed Appraise skill, cast Fox's Cunning before talking to merchant or use Heaband of Intellect. Afaik, the only places you are allowed to craft are the Welcome Wench Inn, the Moathouse tower, Burne and Rufus's tower and the House in Nulb. I have never found a place where crafting is allowed in the temple.

Scribe Scroll is a crafting skill that can and should be used from level 1 to keep the magic flowing in battle. Craft Wands can also be good early on, and with high enough Use Magic Device skill, ANYONE can become a wand wielder. Craft Wonderous Items becomes useful from level 3 onwards for some misc magic items. Brew Potion is good, since anyone can drink a potion in the heat of battle. But the number of spells that can be brewed into potions are quite limited, so imo brewing potions is for Clerics only. Once again, Spugnoir is good for any of these roles (brewing is kind of useless for Wizards) if you don't want to waste skills from your "permanent" party members.

There are some high-level NPC's (Burne, Mother Screng, Kella, Darley, Ashrem) who can become good crafters if you level them so they can learn the skill. Lareth the Beautiful can craft some decent stuff in mid-game, if you manage to convince him to join and then put up with having him in your party till he becomes a lvl 6 cleric (don't enter the temple!). Its kind of fun to see the effect he has on the game as well ;) But only Kella and Darley can become a permanent re-joinable NPC, so remember to level and craft asap with the others before they leave you forever. In ToEE pay specific attention to the spell descriptions for saving throws and resistances. Some spells may sound underpowered till you realize that they don't allow a save, etc and thus can be very useful against the right enemy. For example, many of the ray spells are based on a to hit roll, but don't require a DC save. Protection from Evil protects 100% against mind control! Glitter Dust bypasses spell resistance! It pays to learn your spells.

Hope this helps anyone starting out.

Good advice! It can be hard to get into, especially if you are just getting used to the rules. But it does pick up.
And yeah, the starting NPCs can totally save your bacon while you're still green. There's others, like the tower with a spider at the moathouse. Or any room where the camping icon is green, (which unfortunately looks fairly similar to the yellow "dangerous" icon).
Be careful, I do think the spider room can give you the filth fever disease. All the shopkeepers have an Identify button, so they can do it, too.

The one thing I feel like throwing out, is to learn the rules of the 5-foot step and use them! I use it pretty much non-stop.

I'd add to learn how to, and then hotkey at least 5-foot step and ready vs approach.

So its okay to solo? Cuz i wanna solo as a dwarf paladin

If you mean "solo" in the sense of 1 character that you create, then yes. But there will always be 3 open slots for 3 NPCs to join your party, which will prove quite challenging to ignore throughout the whole adventure.

You can add and subtract new player-characters into your party at any time by clicking on the check-in book at the Welcome Wench in Homlet. But once you subtract a character in this way, they cannot rejoin the party in the same game (but their character starting stats remain for you to use in the roster in new games).

So you could even start solo with one character, then halfway through switch and end solo with another.

Any of those three NPC's dwarves ?

Nope. Mostly humans and half-elves. Guess dwarves don't live around these here parts. But there is a gnome. Also a troll, a hill giant and a demon, among other things. Check out the full list under Section 1.22 here.

I'll just mention the game is damn silly hard for a beginner. A solo character pretty much has to do all the boring fetch and carry beginners stuff in the beginners village. And you'll still die a lot.

And if you dont have C08 modpack installed and level cap raised (originally max 10),
it probably is impossible to clear the game with solo character.

But i'll be a Dwarf paladin. Thats Dwarf x Moradin himself. Not to mention DUAL AXE WIELDING PALADIN. Probably not a good idea XD Just something i like to do. Is it like the other games and Paladins have super awesome 'Long Swords' out there?

Actually there are. :)
Also, you can craft super awesome weapons yourself, assuming you take the appropriate feats and can cast appropriate spells. Basically meaning you have to be a cleric of lafwul and/or good domain.

Though I think a single cleric level would suffice, if craft magic arms feat is also taken.

Damnit man im a paladin not a fighter, i aint got the feats! Maybe, not sure how much this differs from NWN or icewindale. I'd prefer to use my trusty dwarven axes than a fancy shmancy paladin sword.

I mean you can grab any masterwork weapon, dwarven waraxe works just fine, and boost it with holy damage, or fire damage, or something. Might be spoilerey, but I don't think there's a good dwarven axe in game, I think there's a decent normal battleaxe though.

But to solo the game... I dont think its doable with weapons you find.

There are actually many ways to "finish" the game, so it wouldn't surprise me that someone eventually chooses a path that allows them to successfully solo. But expect to die MANY times finding that path :D

If you don't have a high-level cleric or druid to forge, the best you can find is Scather or Fragrach. Both are bastardswords I believe, and if you don't know what you are doing, it is quite possible to miss both. Unlike other games like IWD that use D&D, ToEE doesn't offer much in the way of magic uber-weapons. There are, however several easy-to-find holy weapons, which can be quite effective when fighting demons ;) The Co8 modders corrected this somewhat by offering Masterwork weapons for sale of each type, so you can craft your own. Actively crafting is part of a winning strategy in ToEE. And of course just about all magic spell buffs stack, so ultimately that is the easiest way to turn your mediocre dungeon-grunt into a heroic god of battle...

...Or you could just convince Scorpp to join your party. He is a force unto himself ;)