Unfortunately, I do not have such a resource. However, here is what I do know:

SL = Spell Level, while PL = Power Level

Stamina costs are mentioned in the Russian thread and are 20 + 8 * SL, so 76 for a 7th level spell. That then gets multiplied by a value dependent on encumbrance; if you're in the red, the cost is triple normal, so 228 for a 7th level spell. (That's more than PL 6 Restoration restores on average, and you can't reliably get PL 7 with stamina casting.)

Success rate seems to be similar to spell success rate. In particular, I note that being the minimum level to cast a spell only lets you get 100% success rate at PL 1; for 100% success at PL 7 you need to be 6 levels higher. Also, I am pretty sure that 100 is not enough to get 100% success for PL 7 for SL 7 spells.

It seems that the spell can be cast up to 2 or so levels higher than the highest safe level; if this happens, there is a chance for the spell to fizzle or (if applicable) backfire. This means that you can't guarantee success until you're 6 levels higher than the minimum. On the other hand, the spell can be cast up to 2 levels *lower* than the highest safe level; there's no fizzle/backfire risk if that happens, but the spell won't be as strong. Note that not every spell can backfire; in particular, HP restoring spells can't backfire (I think the developers decided that it would be rather cruel to kill a character who is just trying to heal a companion, as Heal Wounds is much stronger than other 1st level spells).

I installed the game (but haven't started playing it) so that I could check starting Stamina and Carrying Capacity for Bard and Gadgeteer.

For Bard, Mook does still look the ideal choice. (I have used this combination in the past.)

For Gadgeteer, Dwarf is looking good, despite the -10 bonus points, but it is a bit hard to compare it to other races due to having -10 bonus points on character creation (meaning that the values are slightly inflated, a difference that will correct itself at level 3.) (I have also used this combination.)

In both cases, Lizardman gets more carrying capacity, but less Stamina, probably due to low starting Piety.

One question is whether it's worth raising Piety at character creation if I make the character a Mook; it provides more Stamina, but doesn't really do anything else useful.

Edit: Did some more testing, and it looks like Gnome is the way to go for both Bard and Gadgeteer if Stamina is your primary (only) concern; if you boost Piety as well at character creation, both have more Stamina than a Dwarf. (For the Gadgeteer, I compared it to a Human Fighter whose STR + VIT + PIE is 10 points lower than the starting value of a Dwarf Gadgeteer to account for those -10 bonus points.)

very weird race choices you propose :) ..

We're talking about characters that will achieve 125 STR with 40+ gear .. Caliban is available in Arnika ..
Carry capacity will never be an issue on this guys. Especially not at character creation ..Carry Capacity = Floor((STR*2.4+VIT*1.2)*RaceCarryMod)

Out of combat stamina regeneration formula might depend on maximum stamina amount Round ((STR+VIT+PIE) * (0.7 + (level-1)*0.033)) .

125 STR will help with that too.

In combat you replenish stamina via the stamina spell (very efficient ) .. and by also using weapons (much more stamina efficient than using instruments..) or potions of stamina, pickme up or restoration

Out of combat - make them female and that takes care of out of combat stamina regen issues if you don't care about waiting a bit between fights (stamina regenerates quickly out of combat anyway) ..

And this is why felpurrs & hobbits make great bards and engineers to me . High initiative and ability to max DEX, STR quickly .. Mooks and GNOMES have decent stats EXCEPT for abysmal staring SPD that lowers their viability in my book .

I consider piety a dump stat on all professions but especially on Bard and Engineer .

Of course, my analysis *does* make an assumption; namely, that the player considers Stamina more important than anything else; a player who considers it important, but not *that* important will make a different choice (as I mentioned, Mook is actually a decent choice here, and I believe Hobbit is as well), and someone who ignores that stat entirely (not recommended for a Stamina caster or for anyone who plans to use heavy weapons) might make a different choice. I noticed that, for example, Lizardmen get more carrying capacity but less stamina at the start than other choices I've listed, but this is without accounting for the negative bonus (-20 for Gadgeteer).

One other thing to consider when it comes to STR boosts from equipment is what else could go in those slots. In particular, a Bard with two Rings of the Road and Caliban's Cuirass has no room for stamins regen. I also note that Caliban's Cuirass weighs 14, which might not be ideal if you are trying to minimize load (compare to 3 for the Robe of Rejuvenation. Also, you might want to spend an accessory slot on an Amulet of Healing (+3 AC, health regen), or on a Stamina regen accessory. Note that this choice might change as the game progresses; you might want to use Caliban's Cuirass until you get the Robe, at which point switch out that Necklace of Endurance for another +20 STR accessory.

Of course, the analysis above assumes you are ignoring Power Strike for this character.

One more thing I would like to point out: Carrying Capacity is a team effort. Due to the way load is automatically spread between characters, getting more CC on one character benefits the whole party, and because I want to try to avoid encumbrance on this playthrough, I am going to give everyone but the Bishop (and the mage-to-be-replaced) high STR. Also, giving heavy armor to some characters will eventually hurt the entire party; hence why I will likely be sticking to light or no armor for my Fighter and Valkyrie, at least.

By the way, regarding PIE, in the case of a Priest who will later be replaced, it makes sense to boost the Priest's PIE. At lower levels, it makes a big difference in the amount of spell points you get (which can give you higher level Armorplate for Arnika Road, for example), and this character will not see high levels due to being replaced.

One of the nice things about this game is the sheer number of different viable strategies; that's one reason the game is so replayable!

CC is indeed a team effort - that is why all my chars (nearly) max STR sooner or later. I can carry the heaviest armors on 3-4 "warriors" + carry a lot of spare ammo for all 8 chars and be above encumbrance threshold most of the time.

Soul shield helps against HEX spam fests .. Restoration after if it takes anyway ..

I find it hard to understand the stamina regeneration obsession: it is nearly irrelevant in combat .Alternatives sources of topping stamina must be used in combat regardless of the size of stamina pools. And I do end up using 4+ triple shot xbows for example (stamina guzzlers) during the late game .. Not a problem ..Stamina scales with char levels..

Out of combat stamina regens quick enough even on males .. I'll drop a stamina spell out of combat for the times I don't feel like waiting ..

Piety's direct influence on the amount of SPs scales with the amount of SPs (char level and known spells ) thus early game when you lack both the effect would be negligible. A better case might be made for training spell schools a bit faster but at low levels thus low level for the skill to be trained - no big deal since low level skill train very fast anyway ..

The skill training formula has a (100-skill) term .. Low level skill train fast even with poor governing attributes .. As the skill increases - it becomes harder and harder to train ..

Yes you can... I always grab it first trip to the bluff and like to keep the T'Rang on side

Actually, the hexed status can be cured by the Remove Curse spell.

(I recommend casting it from the main screen rather than the inventory, as casting it from the inventory will crash the game if it backfires and the backfire puts your spell point into the negatives.)

Actually, in my experience, the difference is more noticeable early on. In one recent playthrough, I has a Priest with high Piety, and she actually had a nice amount of spell points in the early game, which certainly helped; the difference became less noticeable later on. IIRC, she ended up with an amount of spell points comparable to my Bishop (who ignored that stat), maybe a little less.

Also, what if I want to cast Armorplate at PL 7 before Arnika Road, but I don't want to level up past level 5?

A small amount of stamina regen can take you from unconsciousness to consciousness if you just spent your last bit of stamina, sometimes even at the end of the same round where it happened. I also note that there's no minimum stamina for using instruments or gadgets; if you recover your consciousness with almost no stamina, the game will let you use any instrument or gadget regardless of the stamina cost. (Note that this is not the case for Dracon Breath.)

Edit: One more thing: Any amount of Stamina regen will allow the party to run outside of combat without that character losing stamina; this allows you to run forever instead of having to slow down to catch your breath. Get stamina regen on the entire party (robes of rejuvenation help here) and you can run forever with no consequences (other than not being able to search while doing so).

One thing I have realized is that, for fighter types (and in particular Lizardman Fighters), defense isn't as important as you might think in the mid to late game. A Lizardman Fighter with 70 VIT will have an extremely large number of hit points, making her unlikely to die to damage, making AC considerably less important than you would think. Get the Reflextion expert skill and an Amulet of Healing, and you now have 4-9 AC (depending on skill), health regen, and +50 Divine resistance (to help against instant death attacks). If you give her any more defensive equipment, resistances are nor more important than defense.

Now, early on I might want good AC, but at that point I haven't found enough items to put my encumbrance into the blue range, so it's not a problem.

I could also point out that I currently prefer to not use RPCs, and that musical instruments and gadgets can get rather heavy, so that makes carrying capacity more important. Plus, there is that silver nugget...

At least the armor situation isn't as bad as in Might and Magic: World of Xeen, in which I have found that armor isn't usually worth the trouble of repairing it when it breaks.

I've started the game, with both temporary characters.

Some thoughts (in Lower Monastery, pre Gregor):

For my Lizardman Fighter, I have decided to put points into Artifacts. Fighters don't have that many skills to improve, and Artifacts will help her use the Amulet of Healing and Staff of Doom once I get them. It also means I will likely have two characters who can equip Amulets of Life for cheap resurrection (the other being my Bishop, of course).

I opted for Hobbit for my Bard. The Gadgeteer (who will be my Locks & Traps character) doesn't exist yet.

If you are going to use Posseur's Cap to deal with traps, do not give it to a Fairy Mage (or else tripping the trap will likely kill her, even if it's just Dagger Scatter or Poison Darts). Give it to a Lizardman Fighter instead, who can actually tank the damage (and poison) from the trap. Of course, you will want a real solution later, but fortunately, Divine Trap and Knock exist, plus my Gadgeteer will take on that role once I create her.

The King Crab took a few tries, and I had to come back later because I still had level 1 characters when I first reached it. Picking the lock with 0 skill isn't going to work; that's why the game gives you Posseur's Cap and Knock Picks before that mandatory locked door.

I know, but it still has to be transported to where you want it, and a player who doesn't notice might pick it up and not realize that it's loading her party down. Also, there's the Sledgehammer, which is considered important and can't be dropped (though I believe you can put it in a chest, but I have a feeling that wasn't supposed to be possible).

On that lizardman fighter.. Might I suggest dracon instead. Very similar stat wise but with an enormous advantage for the early game if you want to play with no reloads (ironman). The dracon breath + stamina spell solves most of the early game by itself.

Biggest hurdle remains gregor .. I typically delay that until lvl 4 and shop session with Burz..

Iron man is something that I will never enable. It is the one thing that I detest about early Wizardry games (and the reason I only play them with save states), and therefore it is something that I will never do in Wizardry 8.

In any case, I am past Gregor now (got lucky because Paralyze (from my temporary Priest) worked, and my Ranger knocked Gregor unconscious with her mace. My party will have a Dracon, as that is what I am planning on making my Valkyrie (who will replace my Priest).

One interesting thing I noticed is that, thanks to the Light spell, my Bishop's Fire Magic has grown higher than her other magic skills. For that reason, I decided to take Blinding Flash at level 4, in the hope that it might make Arnika Road a little easier. I will probably save the level 5 pick so that she can learn Armorplate and maybe another spell at (hopefully) level 6, with the help of gains from Identifying Items (once I get the spell book in Arnika). For now, my Priest is handling item identification, and she will take Armorplate at Level 5 (got to make Arnika Road as easy as possible).

Thanks to my Mage, I already have good Enchanted Blade and Missile Shield. By the time I replace her, my Bishop will have access to those spells, but in the meantime, my Mage will take on that role. Also, she is very quick, which will come in handy at level 5 when I learn Freeze Flesh.

Note that I will get the Lightning Rod in the Upper Monastery, even though I do not yet have a Gadgeteer.

I cannot address self-imposed limitations as I do not see the fun in that but as far as your party idea goes -and this is of course nothing more than personal preference really, my opinions being no better than yours- I don't like the dual wielding Ranger(w/maces). Lords are the best dual wielders in game and aren't W8 rangers more geared for bows? I may be remembering wrong as I never play rangers (they have always seemed kind of under-powered) but I thought they got some sort of 'Critical' ability with bows and also I do not remember there being many great maces (but again my memory is not the most reliable).

As far as Gadgeteers go...I know there is that Trinnie Gadgeteer you can later recruit but since I always create a Mook Gadgeteer (so I can get into that Mook embassy building in Arnika and the good stamina) I do not know if he has his own omnigun. I would think he should but if he does not then you will be screwed as I am unaware of anyway to get an omnigun in game if the RPC gadgeteer does not have one. I also don't know about them needing less skills than other classes as they are often the best lockpickers (because even recruiting Miles in Arnika he DOES need to spread his points over a LOT of skills even ignoring locks and traps.) and Engineering comes in handy, plus 'Modern weapons'(omnigun), Ranged combat, melee combat, a melee weapon, etc.

Samurai with staves just seems as wrong as one can go to me but I never worry much about staff of doom so for all I know this is brilliant.

In my case, I choose the self-imposed limitations carefully so that they make the game more fun, not less. My no Stealth restriction (which I only apply to classes, not equipment) is really just because I don't like the way Stealth works in this game, especially since you can't turn it off. My rule about Bishop spell picks makes the Bishop more fun at low levels (because I can afford to actually use those spell picks), and makes it so that Bishops aren't quite as powerful end-game (they're still incredibly good late game, and they're not as bad early game with this restriction).

A well chosen self-imposed limitation can make the game more fun; a poorly chosen one will lead to an exercise in frustration.

(One other thing: I did turn the difficulty down to Novice for Arnika Road's first visit, as I don't like that part of the game and I think it is much harder than it should be. On this run, I ran into 33 Soldier Ants, which is a pain without much in the way of mass damage (all I had was the Piercing Pipes).)

Actually, there are great maces. The Diamond Eyes is the strongest off-hand weapon, and the Mauler might be the strongest buyable weapon. Also, most maces have high K.O. chances. Rangers actually do get ranged criticals (the % chance is equal to 1/25 of Ranged Combat, not rounded or truncated). I, however, have chosen to use the Ranger differently, and she is actually effective with a Morning Star and a Hammer.

I believe the Omnigun is actually a class ability. If a character gains a Gadgeteer level, that character will get an Omnigun. This also means you do not need to pay for starting equipment to get the Omnigun when replacing a character (but I'll need to actually verify that once the time to replace my Mage comes).

(I think there was some discussion, back before a certain patch, of trying to keep the level of Omnigun that erroneously had a 5% Kill (instead of 5% KO) chance; that was fixed in the patch, however.)

It is, however, a legal setup. I ended up going with a Fighter, however.

Edit: See later post about Omnigun. If you create a new Gadgeteer mid-game, you don't get the Omnigun for free, so be sure to buy starting equipment.

I actually found another situation where stamina regen is useful, and that is forcing locks; give your highest Strength character an item of stamina regen, and have her try to force a lock. If it fails, she will lose stamina, and she won't be able to force the lock if she doesn't have enough; however, the stamina regen will quickly restore her stamina to the point where she can force the lock again, without you even having to leave the lock screen (as would be necessary if you were to force the lock or cast a spell).

An even better option: If you have a Fighter with high Strength (a setup that is useful for other reasons), you can have her force the lock without even needing a stamina regen item; her stamina will recover fast enough on its own.

Note that this strategy might only work for easier locks; for harder locks, you might need to have multiple characters use Knock {Picks|Knock Scroll} to raise most of the tumblers, then use Posseur's Cap if there are any left (I recommend not trying to do more than 2 tumblers with the cap).

Note that this post assumes that you don't have a character with decent Locks & Traps; I actually think you don't *really* need that skill in this game. Force easier locks (add stamina regen so you can keep trying), have a high HP character open chests with weaker traps (high HP lets you survive Dagger Scatter and Poison Darts), and use Knock Knock for anything more difficult (on locks, it stacks if multiple characters can cast it, and don't forget that Rangers and Samurai get that spell).