I'm trekking through the Might and Magic universe and this week (or next) I'll probably finish up HoMM3: Restoration of Erathia. That means MM7 will be next.

I fired up MM7 the other day to check out the initial party creation and, WHOA, there are a bunch of new classes compared to MM6. I forgot about that (it's been about ten years since I played MM7).

So what are some good party builds? I'm interested in hearing the min/max powergaming ones, but I'm ALSO interested in hearing fun/unique builds that are less common.

Thanks!

I really haven't experimented much with party-creation in MMVII. But I think I can offer some good thoughts on the matter.

I did try a party with three spellcasters (druid, cleric, sorceror) and a monk (which I didn't know was a fighting class) and it worked out nicely. Magic is not as high-powered in For Blood and Honor as it is in The Mandate of Heaven, but it's still pretty strong. I chose the dark side, so that I could become a ninja and disarm traps, but by the time I got there there really wasn't much point, as I'd been weathering trap damage just fine the whole game. Just pick your chests wisely and always rest first and you can really live without the skill at all. Also, the lack of any really good armor skills early in the game brought the fighting monk down to the same level as my spellcasters so the combat never got one-sided like it often does with the standard party.

It does mean you level up more slowly, which is already very slow. I imagine that with all fighters, the opposite would be true, but later in the game you really really need the quicker levelling because you won't have regeneration.

So, only one tried-and-true alternative party composition I can offer. But these are the considerations I made in selecting it.

Only clerics and sorcerers can cast divine and elemental spells at GM level so I'd definitely take both. The other 2 characters are optional.

I added a thief for traps, perception and combat and a druid for backup healing and alchemy.

But other classes look interesting too.

The only necessary character is the cleric so that you can avoid death in Labirint and Stronghold. Then any elemental magician.

But the best party it seems to be the default one: knight,thief,cleric,sorcerer.

There is a certain game-critical quest that becomes much more difficult if your party does not have access to GM Protection from Magic, something that only a cleric can cast. In it, you are tasked with killing an enemy capable of eradicating you on hit. However, you can obtain the plot critical item as well as the blaster he drops with invisibility and a sufficient stealing skill without killing him, something I resorted to on my most recent playthrough when I didn't roll with a cleric.

Otherwise, you are pretty much good for whatever. iirc, the only characters with decent disarm traps are Thieves and evil-aligned monks, and not having access to master level elemental magic seems like a really, really bad idea.

Thanks for the advice everyone! Sounds like I'll be rolling a Cleric for sure. Other than that, it sounds like I can experiment... albeit with strong suggestion to have a Master Elementalist. :^)

MM7 is great for replaying with different groups. After the classic knight-archer-cleric-sorcerer-like runs I did some fun playthroughs with 4 cleric, 4 knight (might&might scenario :D), or 4 monk. The 4 knight party was so much fun so I tried it in MM6, but it was much harder.

Do not choose thief, by the way, stealing is usable only with heavy save-load magic, and the best shop is safe against even GM thieves.

Stealing is in fact quite useless and not worth investing valuable skill points but thieves have other advantages too.
No other class is that good at disarming traps, only archers, rangers and thieves can master perception for finding hidden doors and thieves are far superior to paladins, archers and rangers in physical combat.

?? Thats not what I experienced. The best available daggers are not as good as best axes, spears, or swords at any moment of the game. Less HP, smaller armors, etc.

In fact I tried a fun combo "achievment" with 4 thieves, as the most useless kind of character, and it was hard and boring, so I just stopped at lvl 8-9.

Daggers are very fast, so you can attack more often and do more total damage in spite of the lower base damage values. Since thieves can get a chance for triple damage and both dagger grandmastery and armsmaster mastery add to damage the damage output can get very high.
Thieves can also master swords and dualwield them together with daggers if you prefer this.

Thieves get grandmastery in leather which is definitely better than mastery in plate paladins get which still slows down combat.

Generally speaking, the light path is better for melee parties and dark is better for caster parties. Lots of teams work great. Keep in mind you want to consider overall point expenditures when choosing a utility party member. It isn't just about disarming traps, it's about perception as well. Yes, the thief spends the least points to master them, but the difference isn't huge. You can absolutely choose another class, such as archer with GM perception, or a dark path monk. I imagine you could make it work with ranger as well. In the late game, points come pretty fast, and that extra 2 points in dagger or whatever is not a big deal.

I like a light team of knight, paladin, thief, sorcerer. You do lose the GM defensive ability, but you add offense to close the gap.

For dark, you could consider going with a double sorcerer team supplemented by a monk or archer for utility and a cleric or druid. With the cleric you gain yet another dark caster for super shrapmetal destruction up close.

Unless you are looking for a huge challenge--a cleric and sorcerer are mandatory.

The other two slots are optional--it's nice to have a character that can at master disarm early in the game----that would be a thief. You have more flexibility with the final slot--monks, knights, and paladins are all good choices.

I find Monks to be the most interesting class and thieves a close second. Late in the game these two really shine.

I'm going to do two playthroughs, evil first and then good. For my evil party I chose Monk, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer. Since I had played a melee-heavy party in MM6 (Knight, Paladin, Archer, Cleric), I wanted to try a more magic-based party that would force me into turn-based mode a bit more often.

Obviously with that build I'll suffer some trap damage now and then, but I can live with that.

For my good playthrough I'm not sure yet what I'll do. I'm contemplating either the basic KnThClSo build or maybe Thief, Ranger, Cleric, Sorcerer for a bit more of a challenge.

Just my opinion but it is essential that you have at the very least--a character that can achieve expert disarm----and then buff him up with rings and a hireling like a burglar or a locksmith. If you don't take these precautions--you will have a very tough time in several important dungeons.

Druids are worthless IMO--they can only GM Alchemy and Meditation the two most worthless skills in the game.

Monks get Expert disarm after their first promotion... which I already have (easy quest in the Barrow Downs).

That's too bad about Meditation. I thought it was pretty essential in MM6, so I figured it would be nice to have in MM7, too. Oh well. I'm gonna stick by my druid for now. :^)