Different hirelings that provide the same kind of bonus will stack, but two of the same hireling will not stack. So a Teacher and an Instructor gives a greater total bonus than two Instructors.

I believe the Scholar, Teacher, and Instructor EXP bonuses function by giving your characters bonus points in the Learning skill. So yes, hirelings and Learning stack. I haven't experimented much with the different possibilities here (being more interested in playing the game), so I'm not sure of the nitty gritty mechanical details. For example, I don't know whether an Instructor does anything for a character that doesn't have the Learning skill (every character can acquire the skill, so this isn't much of a drawback if it is true).

I'm not sure whether items that provide a bonus to Learning stack with Hirelings. There are only a few of those items in the game, and iirc they all have pretty hefty drawbacks (like Scholar's Cap giving -50 endurance). I prefer to have my characters at around the same XP, so I tend to use other equipment that gives more direct combat bonuses.

New trick time! If you right click on a skill, you can see near the bottom how big a bonus that skill is receiving from various sources. For example, I think an Instructor will show a +15 for the Learning skill, while a Duper will show +8 for Merchant. The pop up window won't tell you where the bonus is coming from (or how many different things are contributing to the bonus), but you can take equipment on and off, checking for changes, to get an idea of what an item is providing.

Thankee!

I will try a "pure caster" party in MM7(after i complete MM8, i already completed MM7 in light side), a SSCD is a good pure caster party?

Naturally, it should easily cover all your magic needs while physical combat will be problematic.

The big problems will be getting off the ground in the first place (none of your people will be particularly good at physical combat, and early mana reserves are small) and dealing with broken equipment is going to be a pain later. Your cleric is going to be strapped for skill points if he tries to cover Item Repairs, your sorcerers can only get the skill up to Expert, while your druid can't learn the skill in the first place. Town Portal and Lloyd's Beacon can get you to town to fix broken stuff, but that will probably get rather irritating pretty quickly.

I did three S with a Knight one time. That was fun--- eventually.
But SSCC might be a better way to go because Druids are second rate in MM7.
As the above poster mentioned. Utility skills are going to suffer.

Druids are the unique "grand master" in alchemy, so no druids = few black potions...

Is it necessary to deal with broken equipment, or can you simply avoid using breakable equipment and rely on your spells instead?

(In the Xeen games, I found that, with a typical balanced party, I can ignore armor and not deal with the hassle of repairing armor when it breaks, especially since many enemy attacks are not affected by AC.)

*shrug* You'll just need to keep an eye on the shops to pick up the Pure [Stat] potions, just like every other party without a druid.

Everything that can be equipped can be broken, so the answer depends on whether you are willing to put up with using no equipment at all. I'm inclined to say it isn't feasible to play through without gear, but I guess it is technically possible if one uses magic-oriented (not hybrid) classes and is willing to deal with the tedium. By the time enemies show up that routinely break things, you'll have the stronger spells to hopefully deal with them, and early game enemies don't usually break your stuff so you don't have to worry about repairs. You'll also have to do quite a lot more resting, since your main offensive options will all consume resources.

I think the bonuses from gear are well worth the hassle of fixing it when it occasionally gets broken. Passing it to the party smith is significantly less real time investment than having to teleport out to a shop when fixing stuff, and the party smith (if skilled enough) can fix things immediately, for free, mid-combat. Teleporting out will reset surviving monsters and requires GM Water (or Master Water and a walk back to the dungeon), not to mention walking/flying to the necessary shop(s) and spending money.

About pure caster party, in begging, you can use "enhanced" bows and avoid melee(since you will run out of SP in few turns), you will have problems in some parts of some dungeons and that is it... At end game with portal, beacon, invisibility, etc, is pretty easy to avoid melee. The problem is the "between" master and normal spells, i will try and then will post in a couple of days(or weeks) if a pure caster party is viable

Why is Cleric/Sor/Sor/Sor considered the best late-game party? How do other full caster parties compare? Light or dark path: Which is better?

If you are talking about MM6, then it is because some of the dark magic spells can do ridiculous amounts of damage in the right conditions, and sorcerers are loaded with mp to cast those spells. Also, anyone can master any skill, so support skills aren't lost in the process. Also, Sorcerers and Clerics can learn Light and Dark.

I don't know that people say the same thing about MM7, but if they do then I guess it is because the same is more or less true about Dark magic. However, you'll be missing other skills.

In MM7, Light magic provides all the buffs while Dark magic deals lots of dps and has some debuffs.

Once you move out of Sorcerer/Cleric, the casters start losing access to the higher level Light/Dark spells, so they won't have as much raw power per cast. "Better" depends on what you want from the party.

For someone new to the game, are there any notable downsides to going Knight/Cleric/Cleric/Sor or Knight/Druid/Cleric/Sor instead of Knight/Thief/Cleric/Sor? No Thief means no disarming and less short-term physical damage, but Telekinesis eventually covers that. A second Cleric means more healing while a Druid means better Alchemy eventually.

The biggest thing will be lack of Thief GM utilities. You'll have some extra equipment overlap with a Druid or second cleric, with specific overlap depending on which one you take. Your overall physical DPS will also be lower until you get blasters (which render all other weapons, and most magic, obsolete).

A Druid will give you Master access to all Self (cleric) magic and Elemental (sorcerer) magic, but the Druid won't have access to Light or Dark. So a Druid acts as a backup Cleric and a backup sorcerer, as well as providing Black potions on demand (easy access to all the Pure [Stat] potions). Elemental magic gives the Druid a good source of DPS.

A second cleric basically doubles your cleric ability, including GM self and Light or Dark. Many of the cleric spells only need one character casting them, and a Sorcerer already provides extra Light or Dark. Without considering Light or Dark, a second cleric instead of a Druid basically just means you can cast Power Cure with two different characters, since a Druid can cast everything else except Enslave and Resurrection (neither of which are important enough to justify having two sources available). However, a second cleric could focus in Dark magic for the high damage/high cost spells. Two Light side clerics mean your DPS is lower the Cleric/Druid, since Light doesn't have much in the way of good, general use damage spells.

I suggest taking the Druid over the second Cleric, especially if you go Light magic. A second cleric can find their place in a Dark magic party. Either choice is certainly doable, regardless of your Light/Dark decision.

I was going to write an essay as to why that is exactly, but here's the short version:

SSSC is the best party in every stage of the game, but only becomes really really gamebreaking in lategame, and only if you choose Dark Path.

The reason for this are many, but here are the main ones:

The Air Magic spell: "Sparks"
The Dark Magic spell: "Shrapmetal" (This is the thing that makes lategame trivial)

Sparks and Shrapmetal are very similar. And in MM7 multi-projectile spells are way overtuned because they scale ridiculously good.

Sparks at novice level, with just 1 point of Air Magic already does a base damage of 9 if all sparks connect, while Shrapmetal at GM does 6 damage + 1-6 per point in Dark Magic PER PROJECTILE. So on GM having 9 pieces, you get a potential maximum of 54 damage PER SKILL POINT.

And having 4 party members being able to cast this spell, you can dish out absurd amounts of damage in a short time, oneshotting pretty much all the late game creatures in this game.

The other reasons are, that as I said casters don't need to skill a lot of other skills. But again, why?
About the only skill you might need would be "Identify Item", however in MM7 you have a "Scholar" Hireling, which will grant you ->unlimited item identification<- AND a 5 point bonus on the skill "Learning" (translates into 5% more XP on novice).

This XP bonus scales with your skill in Learning, so if you choose to get Expert Learning on everyone, this is already a 10% bonus +9% starting bonus of Learning, +3% because of the points you need to spend in order to get expert.

So, you can already cross out "Item Identifiction". Repair Item is pretty much useless for spellcasters. Most of the time your weapon will break, or your armor. Since you instagib most opponents, armor doesn't come into play anyway, and weapons breaking is an issue for a melee party, but you don't use weapons anyway!

You only really need Leather expert, after that you're free to spend all points in "X Magic", "Meditation" and "Learning" (If you want Learning, Learning is useless early, becomes super good late, so you can skip it until then!)
Merchant is kinda mandatory for the Cleric though, since Casters demand a huge amount of gold for those spellbooks.

The other reasons are just the way the game is designed.
In the early game you WOULD have issues on Emerald Island, if it weren't for the "Day of the Gods" Pedestal on top of the hill, that grants massive statbonuses and will make it so you have no issues dealing with the early game monsters with just melee weapons. No spells needed here! (Dont forget the free +3 skillpoints behind the entrance of the temple of the moon!)

Another thing that makes it so easy and isn't that well known, is that the developers forgot to include "Club" Weapons in their calculations for recovery time, so ALL clubs have a recovery time of 40 (This is CRAZY fast btw, a staff has 100)

This wouldn't be that good still, if spells like "Heroism" and "Bless" didn't exist, the former being available as a pedestal in a lot of towns (Erathia, Tatalia, Dejya, Evenmorn) and the way Heroism works.

Heroism is a spirit spell (Clerics!) which adds 5 damage +1 per point in spirit magic to your attacks (only physical).
This is an absolute value, not a percentage, meaning fast weapons gain more out of it than slower ones.

With Clubs having a speed of 40, being the fastest weapons in the game, this spell is more than twice as effective on club users than if you were using a staff or twohanded sword for example!

"Bless" makes it so you basically pretty much always hit your attacks. You get access to this spell right at the beginning if you choose "Spirit Magic" as your secondary in the character creation. It doesn't last long, but becomes very cheap and easy to maintain on expert, which you can already acquire in Harmondale!

Heroism is also available on Expert Level, but can also be obtained (like Bless) via a Hireling "Piper".

"Wind Master" Hireling also play into a casterparty, since they allow you to skip certain gating mechanics in the game, so you can enter places like "Clankers Laboratory" and similar ones super early, run in, loot the most available stuff which will be super valuable in terms of gold, allowing you to purchase all those spellbooks and skill promotions you need.
They also allow you to finish certain quests way easier. For example the Druid promotion quest which is usually suicide, but becomes a cakewalk with a Wind Master, allowing for huge early game experience boosts, skipping the weak (which isnt really weak) early phase of caster parties.

If you choose to not cheese your game by picking Wind Master Hirelings, you can instead use the combination of a "Spell Master" and a "Mystic", former giving you +4 on ALL ELEMENTAL SCHOOLS, the latter gives +3, for an entire bonus of +7.

Now, remember the insane scaling that the early game spell "Sparks" had. Just from the hirelings bonuses alone you would get an extra ->35<- Damage on a single cast of sparks of expert level. Not even adding your own skill points or the base damage onto it. This already oneshots most of the tougher early game enemies, and still makes quick work of midgame enemies!

Another thing is that you can find the "Faerie ring" very early in the game which also adds +5 bonus to Air Magic on top of the hirelings bonus.
The same applies to Dark Magic. There is an artifact you can find that will give you +10 to Dark Magic, and there is one artifact that you will ALWAYS get from an enemy, that also adds +10 to Dark Magic.

Now, a +10 to Dark Magic will give the spell "Shrapmetal" up to --->540<--- extra damage per cast (on GM level). Not even adding the base value of 10 points to it that you need to get to GM level. And it is very easy to skill your Dark Magic to 20, now also adding a +10 bonus from adding the artifact to it.

Now I did end up writing an essay, but as you can see, the main reasons are the damage scalings on multi-projectile spells that allow casters to go rampant early and especially later on.
The availability of certain artifacts and instant access to strong hirelings makes it even easier.

Later on, you won't need your Spellmaster Hireling anymore, as you will only cast Dark Magic anyway, so you can fire him for a "Instructor" instead, which will give +15 to the Learning skill, which translates to a 45% experience bonus if you are master Learning, not even adding the bonus of your "Scholar" Hireling (5 points) and the base value of your "Learning" skill!

That being said, all parties are absolutely viable. Melee parties should be considered if you want to go Light Path, since Light Magic revolves around strong buffs that favour Meleeparties way more than casters, while Dark Magic is the best option for casters simply because of Shrapmetal.

Also, Druids don't really "suck". They're nice early if you get Alchemy up because they can give you Haste and Heroism Potions which will last way longer than the actual spells, however, they're still suboptimal because a Cleric Expert can already cast Heroism on the entire party.

If you choose a melee party, I advise you to get the "Piper" Hireling for early Heroism casts and maybe use Clubs for the early game because of the 40 recovery and the Heroism synergy. The other Hireling in my opinion should ALWAYS be a "Scholar".

5% XP is nice, but not having to skill into Identify saves so many points and more importantly the stress of having to move all your items to the guy with "Identify" to identify items everytime. Unlike the repair hireling, the "Scholar" identifies ALL items on EVERY character, no menuing required!

The other Hireling should be "Piper" (Again, obviously Wind Master always wins, but Wind Master is a cheese in my opinion.), and later on you can add whatever you feel like instead of the Piper. (As soon as you can cast Heroism yourself)

TL;DR

A good party for beginners is the standard Knight - Thief - Cleric - Sorcerer + Light Path. It doesn't lack anything and can beat the game comfortably, no turn-based combat required.

Just put on emphasis on speccing "Disarm Trap", since the requirements get high very fast in this game. Kick your piper for a Burglar or Locksmith. This should take care of all midgame treasures with expert level, and is able to disarm every chest once you get Master.

You can exchange the Knight for anything else, the Thief for an Archer, but it will do just slightly worse. Again, you want melees for a Light Path group.

Dark Path is still possible, but the first quest of the Dark Path is an absolute nightmare and the only reeaaaaaaally big difficulty spike in this game. The Light quest is way easier in comparison.




The lack of Disarm becomes trivial later on if you choose to ditch your thief. A Light Group will have massive resistances and "Preservation" Spell anyway, so no chest in the game will ever wipe your party ever again. Dark Path parties have it tougher, but later on will still pretty much never get wiped by a chest either, just be left with little HP (which Regeneration will take care of quickly)

Here is a spreadsheet I put together to show more clearly what you will (and will not) have with different combinations:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MDRTqEvPpX7Ou_-EZQb6CPVsEEZQQpCMjjUyrirtv7A/edit#gid=0

Feel free to use that to input your 4 classes, then view the resulting skill progression you can expect at various points in the game.

Sam