Here are some of my thoughts so far (party level 5):

On classes:

Arcane Soldier: Flame Strike is really good. It improves with stronger weapons. My arcane soldier doesn't need other skills (though I really should have boosted Evasion). As a result, she has extra skill points to spend and no where to spend them. Are any spells worth learning on an Arcane Soldier? (Normal playthrough, no speedrunning or anything.) With that said, battles are still too short for the burning damage to be significant (though I still have had enemies die earlier from it). It is annoying when she gets stunned before she can set an enemy aflame.

Paladin: Auras take a fair amount of skill points. I have stopped boosting the healing one, though I still find it useful. Should hopefully become more interesting when Strikes and later Divine Prayer show up.

Bard: Doesn't seem that useful. The Attack bonus can be replaced with scrolls for the battles that really matter. So far, the one with the most skill point issues. Also, her SP is usually the reason I have to rest. Mercantalism's first point is weaker than advertised; 106 is *not* 95% of 110.

Mage: So far, she just uses Stone Arrow (which is nice and reliable, but doesn't do anything interesting). I'm waiting for interesting spells like Flames and Blizzard which should make her more interesting.

Cleric: Can heal, but is often doing nothing. She has once ran out of PP (when my Arcane Soldier got down to 9 HP due to 16 poison; that would prpbably have been a death on Veteran Difficulty).

My Explorer hasn't learned any useful combat skills yet. I gave him Trap Disarming because I found a skill book of it. It is now level 3 thanks to another skill book and I don't intend to spend any more points on it.

On Real mode each battle matters, so Bard's Song of Courage really helps. In especially hard battles - Song of Stunning can easily change the flow of battle. Scrolls are luxury on Old-School Vet mode. Cleric will get means to recover his/her Mana and will become irreplaceable as healer. You can hit enemies with a stick with pole weapon for a chance to stun them. Later you can spend "empty" turns by recovering mana.

Funny thing, when i first started playing this game, I thought enemy casters had infinite PP. Turns out they can run out of PP, but it will take a long time for it to happen. Askary Shaman, as first caster opponent, has 70 PP...

I remember reading about using a certain higher level Mage spell to steal all of an enemy's PP so that the enemy can't cast Cure Wounds. Then again, if an enemy is casting Cure Wounds, it isn't attacking you in the same round.

By the way, is Pole Weapon paladin feasable later on?

Incidentally, I have found Axes and Pole Weapons to be rather rare so far.

By the way, what party are you using?

They are good mostly for back row due to their long range. To counter RNG it is better to have weapons of all the different types.

However, if you will switch to different weapon skill midgame, you will never recover from such decision, as you will be missing MUCh more often than usually and will lose your capability as physical attacker....

Even 1-2 levels of disregarded weapon skill will put you at big disadvantage. Front Row: Gaulen, Paladin, Thief.
Back Row: Mage, Bard, Cleric.

So far I found Paladin to be the most skill-point oriented class. He needs weapon skill, armor skill, learning, immunity, body building (I want someone with massive HP just because), auras, meditation, and so on. And he doesn't have much cheap skills.

So, similar to mine except that I have an Arcane Soldier instead of a Thief.

One thing that puzzles me is why Bodybuilding is as expensive for hybrids (Paladin and Arcane Soldier) than it is for pure casters. Why did they do this?

I have decided to leave Healing Aura at level 3 since that skill doesn't gain in efficiency.

Would Pole Arms work for a front row Paladin if I decided to prefer wounds over stun? (Not for this playthrough, but maybe another)

For Barbarians and Soldiers, would it make sense to train in multiple weapon types?

Because properly built, they are very powerful (though people say Arcane Soldiers are very bad in late game). Paladin is easy choice to solo Arena. I don't see why not. There are never enough skill points. Learning, Armors, Immunity, Weapon Skill - you won't have luxury to train in multiple weapon types.

Even with all weapon skills costing only one point per level? (Remember, this is one trait that distinguishes them from other classes.)

When you will get level ups (or switch to real difficulty), you will see that this is how it is supposed to work. That is the other classes which become problematic with their natural class abilities often costing 2 Skill Points to raise. Paladin is the most problematic of them all.

You simply don't have much choice on what to use skill points at low levels yet. Later on you will keep lacking them, and you will see that specialization in multiple weapons cripples your combatant irrecoverably.

I restarted from scratch now. My paladin (my strongest Lv.1, 27 HP) is getting 2-shotted by Askary Soldier, one of weakest enemies. I miss a lot even with Song of Courage on, and enemies take some time to kill. On "Real" mode (Old-School veteran) game simply teaches you what works and what not. It might be tearfully frustrating, but it feels so much exciting and rewarding at the same time.

Fighting the giant shrooms on Normal:

My first attempt, with all the blessings, didn't go so well. The two mushrooms in the middle kept poisoning my entire party, and that poison stacked to the point where I could not keep up with healing. One of my characters actually did survive, but I decided not to keep that save because of the XP imbalance and the fact that I would have to rest 24 hours and lose my blessings to revive everyone. (Note that these enemies drop no money; they only drop spores.)

It turns out that the best strategy is to get rid of the mushrooms that poison you first. If you can do that, the rest of the fight isn't too bad. Sleep is annoying, but anytime the mushrooms use their damaging attack which hits the whole party, everyone who is hit wakes up.

Again: Poison is deadly, sleep isn't, so kill the mushrooms in the middle first.

I have killed three groups of mushrooms so far. After every fight, I retreated, saved the game (where the game would let me), and rested up for the next fight.

One more thing: I am using the southwest entrance since that is closer to town.

Edit: My Arcane Soldier is proving useful. I saw Flaming Strike (at level 1, mind you, so it only costs 4 AP) deal 15 points of physical damage, 10 points of fire damage (total of 25 damage), and 10 points of burning.

Indeed, poison quickly stacks to unhealable amount. You are at the hardest part in the game. Killing all mushrooms will grant you around 2 levels, and game will be gradually easier after that.

But one thing to be aware about. Train Knowledge of terrain each level up. This is the only moment which can screw you later on if you'll neglect raising this skill.

And I am just done with Velegarn's Beach. Time to farm vendor for Absolute Resist gear a bit more, while gathering cereals to afford it and training... Training is twice as expensive on Veteran mode. I trained 11 times already, 12th costs 1400.

Speed is truly game-changing. Even 1-2 stat points make a big difference. But it comes at a cost of accuracy... I also got 3 super shields for my front row :)

Interesting notes about vendor's farming. They reset every 48 hours, but their inventory changes only after each 3rd-4th reset. Gearing in this game takes ages... But gear also greatly impacts combat flow.

I have passed the forest and my party is level 7. I opted for Powerful Strike for my Paladin (seems like it would be most useful early on, plus it isn't resisted the way other damage types are) and no strike for my Arcane Soldier (I am wondering if Wounding might be good on her because she already has damage over time (Flame) and disable (Freezing).)

Gaulen will have a skill point issue at next level up. He has like 2 unspent skill points, and there are 11 skill points worth of skills I want at next level up (Knowledge of Herbs/Terrain, Axes, Learning and Hunting). My mage has a bunch of unspent points, and my cleric has at least enough for Learning and Divine Prayer.

The issue I am running into is that I have gained a lot of experience, but I have not gained money to go with all that XP, as the game seems to like to throw groups of enemies that don't give any gold when defeated at the moment.

Edit: I also encountered my first Cursed Hound. It didn't even get to act. It seems this aspect of the game was significantly toned down on Normal difficulty. (I believe I actually didn't have blessings active when fighting them.)

Hunting isn't really needed skill. You might put a point in there, but more than that doesn't really worth it. You'll be able to farm food on one of next maps quite reliably.

How much training sessions did you buy? They are cheap as dirt on easiest mode. I just bought 12th training session for 1400 gold... Farming vendor some more, and then taking out guards and forcing Cursed Hound to spawn.

My gold situation is far from best, as you can see from screenshot.... I can't stand that field no more, but I can't stand that Mushroom place even more so :)
Shrooms drop Spores, which you can sell (if you are done with Mission #3 already). Ravens drops rings. Well, every enemy who drops no gold, usually can drop some item.
As I said, Normal doesn't let you feel all the danger of the world around. And it will be only easier further on. On Normal you might save-scum cursed hound for its drop, it sells well.

Personally, I wish they had balanced the game so that it gets harder, rather than easier, as you progress. IMO, Elminage Gothic handled it better (though things do get rather ridiculous later on).

I ran into another forest that doesn't let you save. As soon as I got that message, I immediately went elsewhere.

Best way, imo, is just to allow respawns, which will allow for more freedom in character progress. Fighting monsters is more fun than farming cereals. Each and every game without respawns seems to fall into this balancing pit - 1st part of such games is quite hard, and then it becomes easier and easier if you carefully plan character progress. On other hand, if you level characters carelessly, you might render such games unwinnable.
Golden Woods? Thankfully, there are no monsters in it (except Cursed Hounds which are triggered by clearing Fog of War). There is a puzzle in that forest, nothing as frustrating as mushroom forest.

I can think of another idea: Allow easy reallocation of skill points. This way, poor character planning becomes a non-issue, and the game can be designed around near-optimal builds without players getting stuck. This allows for some interesting things to work: for instance, skills like Greater Heal and Mass Heal can be made more expensive (say, 4 or 6 per level) to compensate for the fact that a player will likely want to deallocate points from Lesser Heal.

The Avadon games do something like this (and these are games that don't let you farm XP from respawning enemies). Retraining is possible early with a cheat and late by talking to a certain person. This is especially nice if you find an item that raises a skill, as it allows you to put those points somewhere else. (Note that the Avadon games don't let you raise an advanced skill higher than any of the skills below it, however.)

The Avernum remakes, unfortunately, aren't this nice.