You can dip empty bottles into the black bog in the swamp for a potion without having any alchemy skill.

Does anyone have a list of the potion mixes that they could post here? It's been such a long time that I've forgotten what can be combined!

Here you go.

Use the terrain to your advantage in combat by tactically positioning your party in a corner or doorway. This prevents the enemy mob from surrounding you, thus forcing them to either attack with missles or only one or two at once in melee. Attacks from behind inflict multiples of damage. It's also likely that your weaker members (i.e. spellcasters) will be in the back ranks.

Random Things I've (Re)Discovered:

Your early gadgeteer can be made much more effective by assembling a Jack-in-the-Box from parts found during your first visit to Arnika (search the houses) - a "box with hinges" and a "doll". This allows him to cast Terror, which is one of the strongest early-game control effects, and which the gadgeteer will be able to employ at a high power level due to the way engineering devices scale.

Don't forget to pick up The Handyman's Secret Weapon (Duct Tape) at Anna's shop while you're there - while it has a limited number of uses, a high-powered Paralyze can be a lifesafer against strong solo creatures.

If you're having trouble with groups of monsters in cities, keep in mind that the friendly guard patrols will join in if they're close by when the battle starts. This does slow things down (they're no faster at moving/acting than the bad guys), but they can take a lot of the heat off of you.

Be careful about doing this near the entrance to the Umpani compound, however, because one of the named NPCs there is prone to getting himself killed. (He isn't critical to anything as far as I'm aware, but unlike the regular guards, if he dies, he stays dead.)

There are a lot of light crossbow in the early game... collect them!

Your Gadgetteer can put two together and make a double-shot crossbow ... there is a an NPC for those people that didn’t take this class.

As a rule of thumb crossbows work best with high Dex-Sences characters but a bow is the better option for high strength classes.

There is a Lightning-Rod at the Monastery (2nd level) which your Gadgetteer can use to start building her engineering skill with... just the thing for snipping those pesky Sages’ in the bud without having to fight past their body guards.

p.s.
The triple-shot crossbow will take a higher skill but it’s worth it.

It might be helpful if someone who remembers these things better than I do lists the appropriate stat choices for each class. While some are obvious, others aren't so (or there seem to be 3-4 that all demand focus and you can only do two at a time), and some selections may not be intuitive to people familiar with the modern genre. (Strength for missile weapons is one such example; current games tend to push Dexterity as the be-all-end-all for ranged combat.)

If you right click on a specific skill, the game will tell you the controlling attributes for that skill. As for classes and attributes, if you select a class before selecting the character race, only the prime attributes for that class will be populated with a value and that will tell you what should be focused upon.

I realize that, but sometimes a class has three or more stats in demand and it isn't necessarily obvious which ones should be focused on, especially since the game doesn't follow modern CRPG conventions.

IE: Should a monk focus on Strength/Dexterity, Strength/Speed, or Dexterity/Speed? There are actually upshots to each combination but someone who is used to modern CRPGs might assume that Strength is actually a dump stat.

Likewise, what should a bard go for? Speed/Senses? Dexterity/Senses? Strength/Vitality and focus on melee combat? Does Power Cast (opened up via Intelligence) actually affect their instruments?

Given that the game heavily rewards specialization rather than spreading points around, it's important for someone to know which are appropriate selections (and which may actually be trap options, such as a Dexterity focus on a bow-wielding ranger).

I can tell you that Powercast does NOT enhance the effects of musical instruments. However, bards should focus on intelligence. Higher intellingence means a more rapid advancement in the music skill score which allows the bard to use certain instruments more quickly. When playing a bard, I concentrated on intelligence and dexterity first. Once intelligence was maxxed (around level 8 or 9 for a human bard if you get the intelligence bonus in Trynton), I put points into senses.

There is no magic stats for the perfect character and the way I allocate points for my Dragon Lord would be different to how I would do a Hobbit or Human.

Every skill has two stats which control it and HomerSimpson is correct about showing them by right click... a quick test you can do at level up is to watch what happens to your stamina as you put points into Vitality and then remove them and place them in Piety instead.

Some key points are to see what stats you can/ need to reach 100 in order to unlock the special skills.

The skills which are unlocked by 100 stat points are on page 126 of the manual;

Strength = POWER STRIKE: Using any close combat weapon, the ability to strike a blow so hard that it has a greatly increased chance of penetration.

Intelligence = POWER CAST: The ability to cast a spell with such force that it increases the original effectiveness and duration of the spell and makes it more difficult to resist.

Piety = IRON WILL: A strengthened mental and physical will that increases the character’s resistance to such things as magical spells and side effects of physical attacks such as paralysis and fear.

Vitality = IRON SKIN: A strengthened mental and physical will that allows a character to absorb damage, reducing actual physical damage done to him. This skill has no effect on magical damage, however.

Dexterity = REFLEXTION: Increases the character’s armour class by allowing the character to move so fast that a double image is created.

Speed = SNAKESPEED: Allows characters to move with lightning reflexes increasing their personal initiative.

Senses = EAGLE EYE: The ability to successfully hit and to penetrate a creature with ranged weapon.

So for first example let’s say we have a Bard that we want to spend some points on and we need to increase her ability to hit with a range weapon. We could put points into Dexterity or Senses but Senses will give us an even better range attack once we have 100 points whereas Dexterity would only improve her armour. If your Bard is a Mook then maybe some armour is a good thing to have but the bottom line is that there are only so many points to go around and in general it is better to have two stats at 100 than four at 70.

Spell casters get a solid skill in POWER CAST and an Elf Samurai can get good mileage out of it but a cat (Felpurr) will struggle to match the damage output from spells and would be better concentrating more on swords for her damage while just putting up the basic buffs i.e. ‘Missile shield’ and ‘Enchanted Blade’... which way you go is personal choice but having the rest of your party wanting to fight at range would make the “In your face” style of the cat less attractive.

I've started playing Wiz 6, but I get instantly nuked by either the first or second battle! My characters have at most 6 hp, so 1 or 2 hits and they die.

So what am I doing wrong?

Nothing... wizardry is harder than modern games.

p.s.
It’s kind’of hard to give you tactical advise when you didn’t tell us what class/ race your party consists of... probably best to start your own post as well.

Thanks. I'm well aware that this game is hard.

I used a wide variety of characters, 2 fighters, a priest, a bard, an alchemist and a ranger. If I remember correctly, none of them had over 6HP. I'm guessing I just need to devote more points into VIT.

last one...

You can help your Rogue by casting ‘Knock’ (&/or lockpicks) on a hard lock before he tries to open it... best to start with your weakest caster then try the stronger ones.

Cast ‘divine trap’ for traps before asking the Rogue/ Gadgetteer to take over... always use her detect trap skill first to see which type of trap it is before you try to disarm it.

Is your “Amulet of Static” running low on charges? Sell it to a vender and buy it back recharged... always ‘charm’ a vender before shopping.