I am thinking of starting Might & Magic 6 again (played through Temple of Baa and a bit after once with default party, but never got far...computer crashed, lost the saves).

Thinking of possibly using default party classes (with adjusted stats), but also considering possibly Knight/Paladin/Druid/Sorcerer. I don't see this discussed much online, but it seems balanced... 2 melee, 2 offensive spellcasters, 2 healers... Besides, I have heard that Clerics are underpowered in the endgame.

Is there any reason why this party would be a bad idea for someone's first playthrough of MM6, or should I go for it? Any warnings on proper use of a druid? (Haven't played that class in MM6 before.)

The trouble with two fighters in MM6 is that the game is somewhat weighted toward magic. MM7 rebalances that. (Three Knights and One Cleric in MM7 was a fun party.)

However, with the Druid you get all cleric and elemental magic. But not light or dark magic which becomes powerful later on. (With a cleric you get spirit, body, mind as well as light magic.)

The party will have two healers which is good.

Later on you will have only the Sorcerer for light and dark magic which means you would need to plan you skill points carefully.

So you get some muscle, good healing, a lot of elemental magic, but one light/dark caster.

Bob

I don't recommend having a knight. Unlike in MM7 there's no armsmastery skill. All classes have the same attack power, only the weapons or armor they can use are different. And even daggers (small but fast) are very powerful and heavy armor slows you down.

In MM6 extra hitpoints is the only advantage Knights have over paladins, in MM7 knights were powered up (and druids powered down). So I'd replace the knight with something else, but that doesn't mean the game is unbeatable with one.

I'd recommend 2x Knight, Druid, Sorcerer. Clerical magic is rather weak and you really don't need more than 1 clerical caster in your party. And knights are much stronger than they look - yeah, hit points are their only advantage, but that's a rather big advantage, you just need to pump their bodybuilding to the level of 20-25 to truly benefit from it. That's how such party survives, actually - 2x overly bodybuilded knights with dual-wielded vampiric weapons (I hope you're playing with the greyface patch) + shared life spell to keep the whole party going.

True, they don't do much damage, but that's easily fixed if your wizard has ridiculous (and I mean ridiculous - 30-40 at least) skill in light magic. Seems a lot, but that's not that hard to achieve if you buy lots of experience for your sorc. And, well, punching the dragons down from the sky is kinda priceless.

I don't really want to play 2x anything, since it is my first time, want to experience 4 of the 6 classes.

What advantages are there for a druid over a cleric/sorcerer? I know druids can't do light/dark, but what can they do extra besides casting all types of spells?

That's somewhat wrong logic with M&M games because you're not experiencing different classes - you're experiencing different parties. Despite the common opinion, there isn't that much fun/distinction in raising a particular class up - it's all about interaction between the members of your party. But, well, that's your game to play so I won't press on that matter.

As for the advantages of the druid - see, with your knight&paladin you'll be spending lots of time in melee and, well, druid is much better than cleric there because he can wield daggers (the most powerful weapon through the majority of hte game) and cleric can't (his only weapons are mace&staff and both are horrible). As for the "extra" part - thing is, all classes in this game can learn non-combat abilities in equal measure so there isn't much distinction between the classes here. It's all about their combat capabilities.

My 2p worth:

Go Knight, Paladin, Druid, Sorceror

I went Knight Cleric Druid Sorceror. I found it really excellent and in retrospect if there were any changes I'd make to it, it would be changing Cleric to Paladin. Contrary to what many here seem to write, I used might more than magic, but that seems to be my style in most RPGs.

Although clerical magic might be arguably "weak", you need 2 healers, so that if one drops to 0 HP, the other can back-up.

The high HP for knight and paladin will be very useful for spirit magic healig (the one which distributes HPs). Druid can heal + take 2 of the elemental schools, so that sorceror can take the remaining 2 and concentrate on light and Dark (if you want to skip an elemental school, you can skip earth). Like popeamole wrote, druids should use dagger. The vampiric one meant that my druid was quickly healed. Just remember that you don't get HP if you deliver the killing blow (unless you use the Greyface patch, which I didn't). Give Paladin and Knight the axe and spear. Sorceror should use staff and if you spare the skill points to master it, it will give her extra AC.
Cosider mastering staff for sorceror (and dagger for druid). I did and think it was a really good decision. Although many praise magic, I found that many many tougher enemies are immune to magic (and fire). My sorceress instead of sitting idly would hit with her staff dealing really good damage.

Ultimately any fairly balanced combination will really work, and it depends on style of play. I don't see why yours should be bad.

Fair point--from my brief experience so far, MM6 does seem to be more about how you spend your skill points than what class you pick...the class only determines whether the skills are available to you. It's unlike most of the other M&M games that way...MM7 for example puts a lot more limits to make class matter more.

Can you have one caster learn light magic and the other learn dark magic in the same party? I recall in MM7, the light/dark depended on what path you go down in the game...is that also true in MM6, or can you mix & match light & dark?

I do want 2 healers since I'm still a newbie...but also thinking Knight/Druid/Cleric/Sorcerer may be interesting, as long as I could do light with one caster and dark with the other.

Druid and cleric both can heal, so that would fit you desire to keep two healers. You can learn both in MM6 but need to be saintly to Master Light and less than nice to Master Dark (lol). I suppose you could do both by wiping out a few Cities after mastering in Light. Never tried to master both. I usually have two sorcerers in my parties and have one concentrate in Dark; the other in Light. But I get them up to expert in both.

Actually, that's a bad advice - everyone should go dagger, unfortunately. Unless you get 25 in sword of 30 in axe, nothing can beat its sheer speed in terms of damage output (and, unfortunately, it's not the base damage of weapon but its speed that matters the most here). Also, since this game uses kinda jerkish formula for to-hit chance, AC bonus is more of illusion.

See, chance that monster will hit your character in a physic attack is (5 + MonsterLevel*2)/(10 + MonsterLevel*2 + PlayerArmorClass). So if we have armor class of 100 and lvl 50 monster tries to hit us (that's the majority of the game), it is equal to (5 + 100)/(10 + 100 + 100) = 0.5. Meaning 50%. For armor class of 107, that's changed to (5 + 100)/(10 + 100 + 107) = 0.483. 48.3%. Considering that, in terms of attack speed, staff is 2 times slower than the dagger (meaning you're attacking at least twice slower), I'm not sure that this 1.7% of extra defense is worth it.


As for the healing, don't forget that for a melee/hybrid party one of the strongest kinds of hirelings are the healers - you should have at least one as they are much more effective than magic, they heal up your entire party to 100% instantly.

Honestly the best (and imo the most fun) party you can have in MM6 is Cleric Sorcerer Cleric Sorcerer. This is the strongest party you can have.

On other classes:

Knight - is the most worthless one of all by far and Paladin is just weaker Knight with mana, don't bother with either.

Archer - a bit shit and sucky mage with bow. Although the infinite bow bug triggers more frequently on him making him a fun choice.

Druid - a Sorcerer without Dark magic? No Thank you. But could be useful in a mule character with all the necessary albeit annoying skills.

Tips and :

DARK magic on EVERYONE (Sharpmetal OP - if fired point blank, does physical damage; Dragon Breath - poison fireball on steroids (almost nothing has resistance to poison); Armageddon - for funsies and killing peasants (don't worry too much about rep just donate gold until "200 - respectable" be warned though peasants spawn once a year; Day of Protection can come in handy; notable mention Toxic Cloud - is to Dragon's Breath what is Fire-bolt to Fireball).

LIGHT magic on at least one Cleric (Hour Of Power, Day Of The Gods) no need to pour too much points into it just grandmaster is enough, beware of the fake Hand of God once your book is filled with fake one you can't get it (although it is imo a shit spell and definitely not needed)

At the beginning start to get one Sorcerer proficient at FIRE magic (it's pretty good but don't spend too much points in it, notable spells - Fireball, Meteor Shower, Incineration) the other one at WATER magic just so you can get Town Portal/Lloyd's Beacon ASAP) some points also into AIR magic so you can fly. Once you have fly you can never lose a battle outside, it is simply not possible.

Start and general tips:
1) lower LUCK on every character to minimum there is a fountain in New Sorpigal.
2) (optional) get to NWC, if you don't know what I'm talking about forget about it. You'll just have a slower start.
3) get BOW on everyone ASAP, get LEARNING after that (I personally shoved a lot of points in this one)

Well this is just from the top of my head I probably missed a lot of stuff so feel free to ask me some questions.

EDIT: Saw the post above mine generally forget about weapons if you put 20 points into Axe/Sword you have Knight or Paladin so the bad weapon is the least of your worries. Speed IS king. Recommend 2 daggers on Sorcerers(expert) and Mace/Hammer+Shield on Clerics (they will mostly tank and heal party sometimes melt faces). General rule is: if you can melee them you may just as well take a step closer so that they fill your whole screen and Sharpmetal them to death (=1, or 2/3 if you are unlucky, also great against stacks)

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