>>1723631First 3 characters are front row, last 3 are back row (only some monsters can directly hit them, they can only attack with long & ranged weapons)
First 3 are your own pick of melee fighters. Thief is unnecessary, a ninja or ranger can replace him completely. Bards are utterly broken at the start, so get at least one bard in the back row. The generic choices for last two are Cleric + some offensive caster (Psionic, Mage, Alchemist), but feel free to improvise. Bishop is a caster that can learn (almost?) all spells (also cleric's), but takes forever to raise properly, so I'd either skip him or replace Cleric.
When distributing skills, remember that four purple skills - Thaumaturgy, Theology, Alchemy and something for psionics are necessary to learn higher tier spells, and they don't raise by usage - so for casters, you'll definitely want to put a plenty of points in them. Most other skills raise by usage, except for Legerdemain (thievery from NPCs, fun but unnecessary) and Kirijutsu (for ninjas/samurais - low chance for insta-kill on strike, also works on bosses!). Skullduggery is for unlocking chests/doors, decent at first but later on can be replaced completely by a spell.
Try to roll a high stat count, at least high enough to pick Samurai (even if you don't pick him). This is so you can have a wider palette of classchange options later. Classchanging is a pretty surefire way to make a godlike party, since there are very few repercussions, can be done an infinite amount of times and pretty much allows you to level your character all over again while keeping your skills (only Bards can use instruments however), HP and mana count. Stats drop to the new class's minimum.
