Just a few things that may not be immediately obvious.

First, the manual isn't just a throwaway. It actually contains a fair bit of useful information on the rules of the game, including detailed weapon and armor statistics. It's well worth reading through.

You can crouch in this game. You can also jump (press J), and you can also crouch and jump at the same time. You'll need to be able to do this to progress and to find all the secret areas. Actually, it's useful to stay in a crouch for most of the game. It doesn't slow you down, you won't have to toggle it to get into tight areas, and it makes it a lot easier to see and collect a lot of the loot that's lying around.

The light green border around your characters (inflicted by giant bees and rock lizards, among others) is not poison, it's acid. If you're wondering why Cure Poison doesn't do anything, that's why. You can remove the acid with Dispel. Poison is a darker shade of green. Disease is grey, but there's no Cure Disease spell (though there are potions). You can cure it with Aid.

The AI is stupid. You can draw enemies around corners to engage them in smaller numbers. Additional monsters usually won't engage you once combat begins. This is especially important when you start fighting spellcasters.

The automap fills in based on line of sight, not necessarily exactly where you've stepped, and yes, the map can be difficult to read. My best advice is just to check it often and be conscientious of where you're going. Don't just run around blindly and rely on the map to get you back to safety.

I clicked no in one of the prompts to clear a cave-in in the Troll Caves.

Will I get stuck?

How about recommended character builds? Which skills are worth taking and which are useless?

Hmm, I hope not. Can you click the rubble to get the prompt again, or leave and come back? I don't recall if any of the cave-ins block the only path back to the main area; if you can't clear it, you may be able to go around. I would certainly hope the game wouldn't break that easily. Most of the NPCs you will recruit are heavy warriors, so make sure your main party has the rest of the bases covered. If you make four meatheads hoping to fill out magic and utility with NPCs, you'll be disappointed.

It's probably obvious, but you'll want at least one solid spellcaster (I usually start with one focused caster and one hybrid fighter-caster) and someone who can pick locks. I recommend giving everyone a few points in the Cast Spells skill at least within the first few levels; having those extra spell points comes in very handy, even if only for healing and curing. See Secrets is handy, since it can alert you to secret passages that you might otherwise just speed right by. Xenology lets you analyze enemy stats and weaknesses, so it's helpful, but not essential.

I don't recommend Merchant or Pickpocket. The fact is, you won't be buying much once you're past the early game. The loot you'll find is much better, and if you do have need of a few things, you'll have plenty of cash to spend.

Fast Talk will sometimes let you avoid a fight. I never used it, but instinct tells me that it's probably useless against most types of enemies. Those points are probably better spent on combat skills.

Don't neglect Dexterity and Intelligence. They affect the number of skill points you get for physical and mental skills, respectively (or at least, the manual says that they do, and my experience bears this out).

There's no skill cap that you are likely to reach, so you should probably stick with one weapon skill per character. Splitting those skill points will hurt your chance to hit and number of attacks per round. Have a few different weapon skills in the party to make the best use of the loot you'll find. There aren't that many good knives in the game, though, so I would either skip Knife or keep it to one character. Knives do open up the Close Combat option, but honestly I don't know what it does. The manual doesn't really explain it.

I don't know much about how Shield and Acrobatics work, or what benefit shields provide if your Shield skill is poor. I will point to this easy-to-miss line in the manual, though: "When attacking, characters automatically use half of their weapon skill to parry, their full shield skill to block, or two-thirds of their acrobatic skill to dodge enemy attacks." Your weapon skills should be reaching 400, 500, or more by the end of the game, so what this says to me is that you'd need to also somehow spend hundreds of skill points on those defensive skills to see any benefit. Sounds like it's not worth it.

You can get around the cave-ins. The thing is if you clear the first one right away as it happens you are in for a world of hurt...and mantises that just spawned behind the cave-in, better leave them for later after picking up some treasure and level-ups.

Every RPG I play I always make a "dummy" party first to test the game's aesthetics as much as I can, go back and create my proper party.

Just cleared my first dungeon, here is my experience particularly with range weapons:

Just having one character with a range weapon skill is enough, maybe two, one for bows and the other with firearms.
You have to click shoot mode or press F to enable shoot mode. Most of the time you'll be fighting turn base battles than shooting.

Completely shooting an enemy down is situational, you'll only get 1-3 shots before the real combat begins. It doesn't mean its useless, use distance & terrain to your advantage against enemies and DO shoot them down whenever you can.

When combat starts I don't find their contribution to the party's overall damage useful. Your character needs to use a turn to switch their equipment(from bow to their melee weapon, melee weapons offer better damage, from what I've seen in the manual and experienced so far).

I gave Bows skill to my "Paladin"(btw that's her name too!) because she'll be busy buffing(herself too!), healing & switching weapons, my main damage dealers are a high Dex Faerkin "Thief"(great stealth skills for backstabbing and Close Combat{stealth can fail against speedy monsters}), high Strength Jurak using Axe/Maces(this guy has the firearms skill, Axe/Maces have a VERY high damage skill for combat, also by this point of the game he is also a backup healer!) & a dedicated "Caster" who also heals just in case. Everybody can cast in this game, the more the merrier!

The characters were created using the Detailed option, Quick option gives you less concentrated skills which I did not like in my "dummy" parties.

Starting skills for my "Paladin":
Swords 30 (picked Bastard Sword)
Bow 20
Casting Spells 50(picked Heal, Cure Poison, Strength)

and now

Swords 85
Bow 31
see Secrets 12
Casting Spells 100 (I think every 25 points you can pick another spell still not sure how it exactly works)

Might be leveling Swords a bit more now I think. Hope it helps!

By the way none of my characters have the Shield skill, I tend to never use them in FPP RPG's.


EDIT:
So just discovered the shoot mode works different.
1. Activate shoot mode.
2. Doesn't matter who your current active character is
3. Shoot with the cross hairs, your shooting/fire rate will depend on how many characters currently have a range weapon equipped.

"Thunderscape has an original music soundtrack that is in Redbook audio
format. If you do not have a CD audio patch cable linking your CD-ROM drive
to your sound card, you will not be able to hear the music. A patch cable
may be purchased at any computer store for under $10. You may also enjoy
the music of Thunderscape by using the CD disk with your home or portable
audio CD player. Tracks 2 through 13 can be played the same as any music
CD."

dat readme file!

I just got the official strategy guide book in the mail yesterday :D.

Is it illegal to scan the maps and post them? I think others would find those useful if they get stuck.

Few tips I found that is useful to me:

-- One thing I personally found very useful, is if you hit the "F4" key, you'll be shown your coordinates on the map. Each map is set up by a 63x63 grid. So by using the F4 key, you can see where you are on the map. It's also good if you're olde school and like to make your own maps while you play.

-- Also, you can trust NPC's that want to join you in Thunderscape. I don't think this is really a spoiler. Some of these olde games I played NPC's backstab me like crazy and take all my stuff, but they're safe in this one.

-- Also, you can walk in the game! I found the default run speed just too fast for me, I like to take my time while I play and enjoy it, I'm in no hurry. By using the right mouse button, you can look around and move in the game. Hold down the right mouse button and you'll see an arrow appear on the screen for which way you'll be moving. The higher you move the mouse up the screen, the faster you'll go, so by only moving it slightly up, you'll move much slower, at a walks pace.

Please do post those maps!

How does one identify the individual stats for an item? I see that I found a buckler on the ground, but how do I know how much defense or whatever it gives?

You can identify them at shops, but the manual also lists the basic stats for most non-magical items.

Agh that makes it such a pain in the ass. Guess I'll have to refer to the manual a lot. I'm also guessing that there's no way to slow down sprint speed?
The music is rocking out though.

Thanks OP A++

You can also cure Acid Burning with the Aid spell. If you use the Dispel spell, I think that also removes your buffs too (such as Strengthened, Amored, Hastened, Magical Barrier).

Hola

I don't know, maybe. The book is by Prima, so they'd probably have to give consent over it. I don't know though when it comes to this. I have scans of guides from Prima that other game publishers released with their box games, so I think they do give consent for guides to be released with games.

I actually have a lot of stuff I could try to contribute for other games too :). But I don't know, unless I find some friendly faces, I don't think I'll ask a staff member about it all.