Got my entire party killed at level 4. My very first run (and first Wiz game). This is the composition of my party

1. Human lord
2. Dracon fighter
3. Dwarf Valkyrie
4. Hobbit gadgeteer
5. Elf bishop
6. Hobbit bard

Strategy: Tend to overspecialize. E.g. all ATR points in the Dracon fighter are assigned to STR, DEX, SPD and all skill points are assigned to sword, shield and close combat. Generally, dont invest much in VIT, add points only when escapes get narrower (more of a reactionary strategy towards VIT, has worked in all RPGs except DIablo 2 where Diablo killed my char in two-three attempts.. hehe)

Approach
Early game: The melees (lord, fighter, valkyrie) are meant to dominate. Am designing them to be more efficient at killing rather than absorbing damage, and those races look high on VIT anyway. In rare situations the bard puts enemies to sleep. Had lost my bard in the previous round fighting those floating skulls (Cant believe the entire party got killed in the next round)

End game: Am planning on Doc Xavier bishop who is also good with healing. Mostly would be using spells that would cause enemies to lose turns or stuff like turncoat but the melees are still expected to finish the job.

Eager to know if I am doing it completely wrong or if theres scope for optimization.

Haven't played Wiz8 for a while so I may not be 100% accurate... That's good. It is usually the best way to raise the two most important skills to 100 to unlock the expert skills. Note that skills train through training as well, you can get especially get weapon skills very high without training. The usefulness of shields in Wiz8 is controversial, but try them if you like. He should not do this in rare situations only.

party composition:

- A valkyrie can be found as rpc very early in the game and she is one of the two only useful rpc's in the game, additionaly she is also interesting storywise. For that reason, you may want to switch your valkyrie to something else if want to recruit her.
- Bishops grow very powerful late in the game, but are difficult to handle early on and very weak compared to mage specialist. Probably not the best class for a beginner. Also, I would go with two dedicated casters.
- Gadgeteers and bard should be female. They use stamina instead of magic for their spells and are always low on stamina, there are a few good stamina regenerating items in the game but for female only.

Lat but not least... That probably happened to all of us... Wizardry 8 is very unforgiving in the beginning, as this is the hardest part of the game and (additionaly) you as new player are still unfamiliar with the game mechanics. Dying early doesn't necessarily mean that you are doing things wrong.

The Valkyrie and Lord are defence classes ... (the lord uses cursed armour and weapons) but your party should find melee easy with three front liners.

against the floating heads you need mental defence or try to let the bishop turn them... note the water in the holy room will heal most any ill effects but yes its easy to die early in Wizardry games so just load your last save and move on.

Thanks all.

This is what I have done:
swapped bard, valkyrie for 2 dracon fighters ... will prevent flanking on one side :)
swapped bishop for psionic
have reached level 3
am treating gadgeteer as an offensive lock opener, hence, keeping him

had initially taken the valkyrie as a mid range melee char .. someone with a better range than fighters, does great damage but misses a lot.

am keeping the lord since he can learn priest spells
if this iteration does not work will swap one of the fighters for a ranged guy in the next

initial strategy of making enemies lose turns in the end game stays

dont reload in rpgs out of a strange compulsion to find a better solution.. hehe

eager to know your views, have never seen anything as customizable as wizardry... appreciate all thumbrules

There is no reason a fighter can’t also fight at range (the lack of spells doesn’t preclude using bows) but the competition for three sets of armour | weapons can become an issue… that’s one of the advantages of adding a lord instead of another Fighter or Valkyrie.

I normally like a (mook) Bard because he can get 18 levels up to use any musical instrument in the game then dual to fighter for the end game and still use the instruments… the Lord and Valkyrie have spells | portals that make them better rounded than a pure fighter.

Your party will be melee heavy (thats fine) and the psionic is a good pick ime to distract targets however your party will struggle against targets that need magic damage to defeat them and you won't have the option to speed up large combats so will just have to slug it out.

Three Fighters? I love Fighters. Nonetheless three is a bit unbalanced. It will work though. Just see to it they learn different weapon types. Two can be equipped with Swords if you like. One ought to wield MaceS. The best offhand weapon is a mace so that might be the Lord, not a Fighter. There are multiple good shields but still not too many, unless you get lucky. The axes aren't that great later on tbh. In fact you may face a shortage of weapons unless you find some rare ones. If you do you may not least have more Swords. There are good Staffs as well yet they are more of a backline weapon usually, with extended range. Same applies to polearms, which are underwhelming imo. You always get a decent one in a shop (so you could buy ten of those) but I always found it somewhat mediocre. One may be alright though - e.g. for a Valkyrie if you have one. Maybe I misjudge it as I've always used it on a Valkyrie skilled for defense and utility.

In any case Fighter weaponry is the name of your game. Armour is fine as it is buyable - weapons are mostly unique.

Also the Bishop is quite the powerhouse, if a little slow in development. With proper training he's really strong early enough. The Psionic is easy going and doesn't need training too much but otherwise weaker. Not least the buffs your Fighters are craving for, mostly but not exclusively Divinity spells, are kind of rare in your party. Chance is you will have one Fighter being a lot stronger than the others, wielding the best weapon and consequently also receiving the buffs.

I'd say your original party was more balanced, albeit not supposed to go all-offense. For that a Ranger may have been a good addition as he has his own weaponry and doesn't compete for that while dealing a lot of damage. Your 1st Fighter will hit harder still but your third? Perhaps not. Also his searching is awesome, not least for a 1st playthrough.

All is fair in wizardry: any party can get through. Do not look any further: there is no "perfect party". Yours is strong.

Thanks again. Am not happy with this party either, too many narrow escapes :)
Was glancing through the manual last night:

I will substitute one fighter with a samurai

Hope this would be a smoother sail.. will chime in with the results soon :)

I got the bard out because near the end game it looks like the psionic's & bard's capabilities will overlap a lot.

Had few doubts:
1. how do communication skills affect the psionic
2. mana looks severely limited, 2-3 casts in a battle and takes a long time to regenerate, will this change as the game evolves
3. relevance of ranged weapons skill for gadgeteer, are modern weapons treated the same way as ranged weapons?
4. Allen's post talks about a mace being the most damaging offhand weapon, did you mean maces as a class or some unique kind of mace (was considering training the lord/samurai on dagger skills)
5. Allen's post also talks about psionics being weak... is it because later enemies will have high level immunity to mental spells?

Best.

I don't think communication has any use but if it has it is insignificant. modern weapons are ranged. He is talking about a particular weapon. but daggers are also ok as 2nd weapon. He does not say psionic are weak, but weak compared to bishops. That is both wrong and true at the same time. Bishops are the ultimate spellcasters and outclass all other spellcasters in the late game, however, they are hard to develop and comparable weak in the early game.

Unlike other casters, bishops can learn all spells, but they lack the focus that specialists have to their own spells.
While bishops can learn all spells, they will not gain enough spell picks to learn them all and have to rely on books to gain their power.
Because you will need the books you'll need to know what spells you can find and what not and plan accordingly.
Because you can find all the low-level-spells from books but not the more advanced ones you want to save your spellpicks in the beginning for the later spells and learn from books, that needs you again to know which spells you can learn from books and which not; it also makes your bishop more vulnerable in the beginning because you are saving your spell picks instead of using them immediately.
You will also have to learn how learning by experience works, which is by no means easy.
While bishops shine in the late game, this is the easiest part of the game, while it is reverse for specialised casters.

That's why I'd suggest specialised casters instead of bishops for newbies, while a well developed bishop will outclass all other magic backgrounds in the game, this is not what you as a new player should aim for.

I would replace your lord with a rogue and equip Bloodlust and Thieves Dagger. A melee machine. Have him (or her) throw bombs and powders if at range.

Thanks again for clarifying. This combo is working well, have reached level 7, was a smooth sail. Am now strolling through Arnika :)

Finalized party, happy if other newbs can benefit from it :)
2 dracon fighters (standard 1 handed melee template)
1 human lord
1 human samurai
1 hobbit gadgeteer (female) now using lightning rod as primary weapon
1 mook psionic: spellcasting terror and insanity, singlehandedly changes the tide of battle

I think I will hit strength and dex to 100 (which is supposed to unlock new skills) for the melees before multiclassing SAM & LOR

think i will settle for this for now, i need the LOR for healing

Best

PS: currently playing at default difficulty level, theres a higher level in the game btw :)

Random Wiz8 musings:

might > magic
magic: buffs > debuffs > direct damage

you need 2 spells: elemental shield in the alch/wiz book and soul shield in the psy/div bool. Otherwise casters will eat you alive, literally

Speaking of casters..melee mobs are hardly a problem, enemy casters however are outright deadly.

Bards are awesome. No, they are *awesome*. No other class has so many op class only items. Unlimited haste. Unlimited heal all. Unlimited restoration. Can use Bloodlust (an early Op sword). Dont leave the house without a bard in a 6 ppl party.

Gadgies and Valks are awesome too. Gadgies are close to useless in the early game, but rock later. Valks are very good, very good polearms in the game and cheat death is -I repeat myself- awesome.

Specialists casters are squishy. There's no way you can protect them from projectiles and spells.

Instant kill is *awesome*. Utterly useless in the early game, but later on...If you instant kill 10 out of 12 400+ hp rapax...not the norm, but my instant killers usually get 1 or 2 per battle.

dual classing has alot of gotchas and is rarely worth it.

That said...

Beginner party I:
1) hobbit bard: str/speed/sense. music/cc/ sword
2) elf bish: int/speed div/wiz
3) elf bish: int speed alch/psy
4) hobbit gadgie: sense/speed. Make sure she has enough str. Gadgets are quite heavy and she needs the stamina
5) mook fighter: str/speed. mook for a certain mid game sword
6) hobbit fighter: str/speed dual wield maces

Pos in the party rooster matters btw, alot

Beginner party II, this one I play if I want a nice relaxing murder stroll :D

1) bard as above
2) human or elf monk, str/speed, go with staves, martial art is a dead end
3) hobbit sami, str/speed
4) mook ranger, sense/speed/str
5) human or elf valk, str/speed
6) gadgie as above

hf

Edit: make sure to have your hybrids cast spells on every occasion, even if they are useless
Edit2: dont worry about mana, this is an early game problem. You can buy mana stones pretty soon and recharge them by selling/buying back to He'Li and more important, at lvl11 (hybrids lvl15) you get the portal spell. You can have one guy set a portal at a certain fountain, the other at your current position and just hop back recharging all your spell points

Have a read for your self = power skills

Thanks, was wondering if 100 is the cap for attributes?
And do these skills work the same way like others, i mean do i have to throw away skill points on power skills or they are more like maximized passive skills.

One observation i would like to share:
speed is an important attribute especially for spellcasters because it lets you control the battle from the onset, so that you can take your time to run/walk and realign positions. have been investing 3+3 in intelligence and VIT, the optimal distribution is more like 2+2+2 in INT/PIE (depending on the type of caster), VIT and SPD for a psionic.

The cap for stats (without equipment/magic modifiers) is 100, and this must reach 100 to get the corresponding expert skill. Equipment and magic (notably Superman) can raise stats beyond 100, but they won't let you get the expert skill.

Expert skills work just like regular skills, meaning they raise on their own (though you might want to put some points in the first level you get the skill). The one exception is that, if you equip something that provides a boost to the skill, you won't get the benefit unless you unlocked the skill normally.

For pure casters who aren't priests, you *really* want Power Cast as soon as possible; you should always put 3 points into that skill until it reaches 95 (a fountain in Trynton can give you the last 5 points) or 100 if you have already reached the fountain.

What dtgreene said: Wiz8 is all about specialization, the 'a point here, a point there' approach leads to 'jack of all trades' chars. You want to max STR for melee chars asap, the difference between 50 str and 100 str is dmg x2, Speed (usually) for melee chars cause it gives you more attacks and swings and hence more damage, Int for casters cause you really need power cast.

PIE is abit meh, it gives more mana, but you get much more mana from spell books and points in the realms. And mana becomes pretty much a non issue later on. I go with int/spd/senses for my casters for max. initiative (senses also gives you .2 initiative/point). The significance of initiative becomes clear later on once you face powerful casters, you really want to get your shields up b4 the enemy goes instant death happy.

Specialization is also important for skills, once your bread & butter skills are maxed, you can invest in stuff like mythology/communication etc. And dont neglect dual wield for the appropriate classes, it heavily affects performance, resp. the lack of.