Hello all - I picked up the game and downloaded Wizardry 6, 7, and 8 within the past week. I am starting on Wizardry 6 and have looked at some information online and I have some questions about Wizardry.

Is it worth it to keep rolling for a character until I get something spectacular, like 18? Can I get by with a lesser roll, like 12? Can I win with a party that all rolled 5's?

Are pure fighters, mages, priests and bards worth it, or should I be changing classes all the time so that all my characters get access to all of the spell books, and the thief skills, and kirijutsu, and finish in an elite class?

Is the extra mana regeneration worth it or is it okay to roll a tough front line with very little mana regeneration potential? Also, I have not found any table showing how vitality and other stats may affect mana regeneration, just that it is decided at character generation.

I have seen one guide recommend starting with 3 Priests, 2 Mages, and 1 Bard and flipping them over to elite classes to start the game. That looks like a lot of planning (and rolling) before the start of the game.

Yes to both questions.
It doesn't take that long to roll characters with 18 bonus points, but you can win the game with weaker characters. It's not needed to win the game, but if you like that kind of accountant gaming you can play it that way.
Changing class several times means your class level will be lower, which means your character's overall effectiveness may not be better than a higher level single class character, since class level is used in all combat calculations.
Higher level means it's easier to resist enemy spells, for example. Both things will work, bur personally I like to get a good mana regeneration for my characters. This is for Wiz 7, but most of it also applies to Wiz 6: http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showpost.php?p=420843&postcount=236

Thanks for the link. I looked around and found similar information for Wizardry 6. He does not advocate as much so much class changing. However, here is the list I have come up with so far:

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Okay, I have rolled my characters as follows:

Lauren the Elf Lady Mage
S11 I12 P10 V16 D10 S9 P12 K12
Age 19, 4hp, 145 Stamina
12 Thaumaturgy Skill
Spells: Armor Shield, Energy Blast

Amanda the Fairie Lady Bard
S10 I11 P9 V14 D12 S14 P13 K18
Age 18, 5hp, 102 Stamina
9 Music Skill, 4 Skullduggery Skill

Naomi the Human Fighter
S14 I8 P9 V16 D10 V10 P9 K10
Age 20, 8hp, 154 Stamina
14 Scouting Skill

Jack the Rawulf Priest
S12 I8 P12 V16 D10 S12 P10 K18
Age 19, 5hp, 148 Stamina
12 Theology Skill
Spells: Bless, Heal Wounds

Malcolm the Dwarf Fighter
S18 I6 P11 V18 D10 S11 P7 K12
Age 19, 10hp, 198 Stamina
12 Scouting Skill

Rusty the Felpurr Fighter
S16 I10 P7 V16 D10 S12 P10 K1
Age 19, 9hp, 160 Stamina
13 Scouting Skill

I started recently and I'm about half-way through the game now. I'll try to answer your questions based on my current understanding. The guide I'm using and which I'm finding helpful is this: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/564807-wizardry-vi/faqs/63361
That says that mana regeneration is decided purely based on character class. This is a factor in the recommendation to start with exclusively priests and mages (and bards) and switch them to their "real" classes immediately. The Bard is definitely very helpful due to his Lute which is an unlimited Sleep spell. With a Bard in the party, the very early game is quite easy.
I'm following the advice to change classes relatively frequently. Due to lack of experience some of the results in my game are a bit haphazard but overall it seems to work well. The characters who have changed most frequently have a ton of spell points and spells available. It's also nice to have front-line fighters who can cast powerful spells. All in all it gives you a lot of flexibility to deal with situations as they arise. However, it does occasionally require reloading to an earlier savegame to make sure you get the right combination of stats. You may or may not find that more trouble than it's worth. It also means you shouldn't switch all characters at exactly the same time. It does take a lot of rolling. Make sure that these can really change to the intended class; it's not enough to be able to pick both e.g. a Mage and a Valkyrie at character generation time, since the Mage has the extra requirement of 12 Int. Apparently it's also ideal to have a strength of at least 16 at character generation time for carrying capacity reasons, so that'll require some more extra points.
The idea is to collect a few skill points by casting spells in combat, and then (before reaching level 2) switching to the intended class. Using the Mage/Valkyrie example, you'd end up with both some early Mage spells and the Valkyrie's Priest spells. For example, IIRC you can't easily get Fire spells using the priest spellbook, so if you choose Energy Blast for such a character, she'll get a lot of spell point growth in Fire that she wouldn't get if she started directly as a Valkyrie.
If you do intend to switch classes a lot, take heed of the recommendation to use females, even if they require more bonus points to get them to the desired strength. Having the Valkyrie available as a class to switch to would have been a big advantage in some situations in my game.

That guide has a lot of information that I used. Some things they recommend are hard to do with 18 points, like rolling a priest or mage with 16 Strength and 16 Vitality and enough points to immediately switch to Valkyrie, Samurai, Monk, or Ninja. Three priests in the front line do not have many hit points, but I guess the reload button is for that situation where somebody gets killed before the Bard can put them all to sleep.

The guide also talks about immediately switching classes to a fighting class in order immediately minimize the miss chance. If I switch from Priest to Monk at Level 1, the miss chance remains at 100. It reduces by d4+1 at Level 2, or an expected average of 96.5. Letting the priest hit level 2 gives a reduction of d4, or an expected average of 97.5. This remains the same after the level switch, but at Level 2, the monk gains d4+1, and the miss chance goes to 94.0. My reading of the guide indicates that the miss chance reduction occurs when the level reached is equal to or greater than the highest level achieved. Is this correct?

Some more questions:

How much skullduggery skill is needed to reasonably farm the locks in the Keep?

Do I need to be a Mage, Bard, or Samurai in order to gain mage spells? Or can I gain these spells by improving Thaumaturgy skill?

Alchemy spells do not require Oratory skill. Does the end-game Ranger or Ninja get to use Oratory for Mage, Priest or Psionic spells?

Yes, it is. If you spam save/reload you can do with 0. Each time you try to disarm a trap or pick a lock there's a chance to get the skill raised, whether you succeed or not. My bard was able to pick the hardest lock near the end of the game with 70 skill but it required a lot of reloads for it. Locks earlier in the game require less skill and the lock difficulty has a random factor which is set when you try a lock for the first time. Mage, bard, samurai or bishop must be your active class in order to be able to pick mage spells at level up or from books. The game doesn't care about spell school when casting spells, only when learning them.

This is for Wiz 6, there are quite some differences:
http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showpost.php?p=430591&amp;postcount=22

I found Skullduggery mostly useless. In the Castle, you'll eventually find the keys you need (some of them as random drops), and even then you might get a character with the Knock-knock spell anyway. (I think there are also some locked doors in the castle you shouldn't pick, so as to not get stuck with useless keys taking up an inventory slot throughout the game).
I got my initial Bard up to around 30 Skullduggery by the early middlegame, and it was worthless since he couldn't really identify or disarm any of the traps. To make that work you'd have to waste even more skill points on it, and spellcasting is just the better alternative.

I was able to grind out 51 Music skill for the Bard before getting to Level 2 and spent the points on Skullduggery. So a total of 14 points were wasted on this skill. However, I was able to get it up to 21 on the main level of the castle and only jammed two locks in the process. So either I will find keys from the Rogues downstairs, or gain another level or two and learn the Knock-Knock spell.

Uh, what are copper keys used for? I found they do not work on the jammed doors. It looks like I need Iron keys.

IIRC those are the ones you need to use up. You'll find the doors upstairs from the entrance level, but you probably can't get there just yet. Most of the random doors on the entrance level do need Iron keys, yes.

For more comfortable playing put more skillpoints into skullduggery.

You can beat the game without ever using skullduggery, just cast knock-knock. There's was a secret optional door near the end I couldn't open with the knock-knock spell no matter how often tried (don't know if this was very bad luck or if it's really impossible), my bard was successful with 70 skullduggery after many reloads.

If you want to disarm traps use the priest spell "divine trap", if you guess the trap right chances are very high to succeed even with low skill.

Jammed doors on different levels require different keys. IIrc you can open most of the doors you jammed yourself with a knock-knock spell at high enough level.

I think you can rename our characters?
I don't recall it being particularly time consuming.
Every 10th or so character should get 15-18 bonus points, and every 100th 25-28, and every 1000th 35-38. Not sure about the excact numbers, though.
Anyway, you can always use the editor ("Cosmic" something) to speed things up.

I'd just type "aaa" or something else as character name. If the roll is bad just don't save and if you like it just save and rename the character in the menu before creating the next one.
Try to be quick at rolling and assigning points, if the roll is bad don't create a pure caster, else you'll have to waste time selecting spells.

About every 10th roll is 13-18, about every 400th roll is 21-26 (almost impossible), more than 26 isn't possible.

It's a trade-off whether you want to spend more time creating your characters or playing the game, just grinding a level more during the game will usually make your party stronger than starting with a few extra bonus points at creation.

I may be confusing with the older Wizardies, but I seem to recall getting 21-26 a few times, and in the 30 range once.