Hello All,
I'm about to purchase the trilogy. Any suggestions on initial settings?

I played the series back in the 80's.
I bought the bards tale and played it through that but found it very hard to get back into.

Your choices may vary, but I generally like to play with the following Legacy Mode settings:
* Separate inventory for each character. This is actually a very generous setting (16 per character (counting equipped items) instead of 40 total (not counting equipped items)), while still technically preserving the idea the you might want to leave slots free to save room.
* Can use unequipped items (this works best with the separate inventories (and originally worked *only* with separate inventories due to a bug)).
* Original XP requirements: Without this option, levels come rather quickly, but you lose the ability to recharge items by selling them, and you lose the ability to enter intra-party combat at will; hence, I prefer to play with the option on. Also, being able to repeat battles is nice when training up new characters later in the game, something I like to do in games of this type.

At least that's what *I* play with.

Hmm this release is a bit more "streamlined" compared to its 80s counterparts right? A bit modded for our modern likings or all completely vanilla?

Hello,
I did play this a bit last night. I'd say it seems okay. I'm playing mostly with legacy mode on. The only option I allowed myself is the ability to save anywhere. I just don't have the time I had to sit and play. I might restart the game as I might uncheck the box for the map. It is not important for the city but it will become very important in the dungeons.
It looks like they made the game so you can check how much vanilla you want and how much streamlined you want.

There are a couple of changes that cannot be undone. Those include like descriptions of the classes when you hover over a class during character creation, indicators how a new piece of equipment will change your stats, etc. The spell casting is changed as well. You used to have to use the manual and type in a 4 letter code for the spell you wished to cast. Now when you cast a spell it brings up a menu of all your spells. You of course can still type in the 4 letter code to choose your spell.
Edit: This game is remade on the apple II version and has updated its music. The music is definitely inferior to the Tandy color computer version music on the original I played.

There's other changes you can't undo. Here are some of the ones I've encountered:
* You can't leave monsters at the Adventurer's Guild, and you can't leave the Guild with a party of just monsters. (This is the change I found to be the most disappointing.)
* In Bard's Tale 2, you need to do a lengthy quest, involving actually finding clues in the dungeons, in order to get the Dreamspell; plus, you need to be an Archmage to learn it (unlike in the classic games where the requirement was level 7 Sorcerer spells).
* In Bard's Tale 3, stats above 18 provide a much bigger benefit than in classic versions.
* Hunters can score critical hits with ranged weapons, and Rogue trap disarming has been streamlined.
* DISP and OLAY restore full HP to the target.
* Spells use the same versions for all 3 games. For example, MIBL is much less useful in 2 and 3 than in the classic games, as the BT1 version is used for all 3 games.
* Anti-magic dispels light spells, but does not dispel effects from items (so using Ali's Carpet give you levitation that persists in anti-magic zones).
* Silent areas prevent combat use of bard songs.

Awesome per se. Gosh if this one wasn't that time consuming....

Definitely wishlisted.
ps: you have great taste in gaming, man! ;)

Odd how we remember things from ~30 years ago...;) Originally, I played the Bard's Tale on a Tandy 1000 (before I started buying Amigas circa 1986/7)...and the original audio was the infamous "whistling speaker beep"--my nickname for horrible sound from the DOS machines of the period. A couple of years ago I grabbed an Apple IIGS emulator and ran BT1 and I noted that the sound, while superior to the speaker beep, of course, was done with a single instrument, the harpsichord. In the Amiga versions of the BT1 and all subsequent Amiga versions--BT2 & 3--the Bard Songs were all done with different instruments--if the Bard carried a harp--the songs played with a harp--if he carried a "horn" (trumpet) the Bard song's played with the sound of Trumpets, if he carried a drum, they played through a drum, a guitar was a guitar, etc. Pretty much, the Bard Song instrumentality of the remastered trilogy was adopted from the Amiga versions, as well as the 32-bit color mode of Amiga versions (the Apple version used 16 colors, and there were notable differences between the Amiga versions and the Apple II versions--although the two appeared similar.) Of course the Trilogy uses 32-bit color today. Even though the Amiga used stereo, 8-channel sound (4 tracks per stereo channel, IIRC), curiously, the Amiga versions did not include any sound at all apart from the Bard Songs! Yet, the Apple IIGS version included both ambient sounds and combat sounds--along with the harpsichord Bard Songs. The sound wasn't very good--you could hear the staticy effect tracks looping!--but compared to no sound at all save Bard Songs from the Amiga, and the horrid speaker beeps from DOS machines, the IIGS sounds at the time were very refreshing...;) In the Trilogy, of course, everything is better...!