Party Setup?

[Thels]

PS. There's a rumor that 20+ Vitality does not provide additional health when leveling. I did not verify this yet.

22 Vitality gave me 7-9 extra health at level 2, so I guess it's incorrect.

[Disasterrific]

On my hard no automap run I did everything to max willpower on my mage and he has an obscene amount of energy now. On vitality, without adding anything except a point or two from earth magic, my first-run mage had about 57 hitpoints - paper thin!

[Thels]

You made a mistake with your rogue. Dexterity is borderline useless for an archer. It's counter-intuitive, but as there's no hit roll for ranged weapons it will do nothing for him except increase his dodge. Stick to strength for increased damage.

Getting back to this. If Dexterity is so useless to Archers, then why is the Missile Weapon Tree stuffed with +Dexterity?

Going to rethink about Human/Skilled trait. Apparently 14 seems to be a decent level to complete the game at, though 15-16 is doable with farming. Let's stick with 14. That means a human without the Skilled trait gets 56 skillpoints.

For my Fighters, I want them to tank, so that means they should at least get Heavy Armor Proficiency, which is 16 points into Armors. A 5 point dip into Athletics for +2 Vitality seems interesting as well. That's 21 points. From there it should still be possible to pick up 33 points in axes/maces/swords or 30 in unarmed, for a total of 54 or 51 points. From there, the axes/maces/swords fighter has -1-5 points remaining (depending on race and traits). If I make her a Lizardman, and give her the Healthy and Skilled traits, she can pick up the +2 Vitality in acrobatics at character generation, and then pick up the +15 health in Armors near the end, netting her 6 more Health than by picking Healthy and Tough. I'll put 4 points in Dexterity and 6 in Vitality.

The unarmed fighter has 2-8 points to spare (depending on race and traits). I don't think those 8 points will net her anywhere close to the Fist Fighter trait, which I really want to give her along with the Healthy trait, so that's at most 5. I can pick up the +15 health in Armors near the end with 3 points, so I can make her a Lizardman as well, giving her the Healthy and Fist Fighter trait.

For my Rogue, I'm going all the way into Missile Weapons, which means I have about 6 points remaining. From there, there aren't really any awesome things to pick up with the remaining 3-9 points (depending on race and traits), so picking a race or trait for the skills seems to be a waste on her. I'll make her a minotaur, and since she's my physical damage dealer I'll give her the Aggressive and Head Hunter traits. +5 Strength (the 6th point seems a waste, since odd scores don't increment attack power), +4 Vitality, +1 Willpower (that single point will net a lot of extra energy in the long run, and there's really no other stat where it will be of much use).

EDIT: Going with +6 Strength after all. Who knows if I get to pick up 4 points in one of the other trees for +1 Strength, or maybe find an item that gives an odd amount of Strength.

For my Mage, I'm going 18 in Spellcraft, and then 35 in Air Magic, trying to frontload Willpower as much as possible. That's a total of 53 points, leaving me with 0-6 points remaining (depending on raise and traits), so picking a race or trait for the skills seems to be a waste on her, just like with the rogue. I'll make her an insectoid, obviously with the Strong Mind trait, and I'm guessing the Aura trait as well.

So for now, I'm going with:

Lizardman Fighter:
Strength 10 (before Skills & Traits)
Dexterity 16
Vitality 16 (before Skills & Traits)
Willpower 9
Healthy
Fist Fighter
Athletic 2
1 skill point remaining
Progression:
Athletic 5
Armors 16
Unarmed 30
Armors 19

Lizardman Fighter:
Strength 10 (before Skills & Traits)
Dexterity 16
Vitality 16 (before Skills & Traits)
Willpower 9
Healthy
Skilled
Athletic 5
1 skill point remaining
Progression:
Armors 16
Swords 33
Armors 19

Minotaur Rogue:
Strength 21
Dexterity 6
Vitality 18
Willpower 7
Aggressive
Head Hunter
1 skill point remaining
Progression:
Missile Weapons 50

Insectoid Made:
Strength 8
Dexterity 11
Vitality 12
Willpower 20 (before Skills & Traits)
Strong Mind
Aura
Spellcraft 2
1 skill point remaining
Progression:
Spellcraft 8
Ice Magic 10
Spellcraft 15
Ice Magic 35
Spellcraft 18

[Disasterrific]

It's completely counterintuitive but the dexterity makes sense if you have a front-row archer with dodge and a backrow dagger assassin. I'm running that atm with an unarmed fighter. The assassin backstabs for instant kills, the ice mage has a huge amount of mana for freezing. The archer is kind of lame - should have put more into dodge, the unarmed fighter desperately wants heavy armor but hopefully the secret technique at the top of the skill tree rocks.

[Thels]

I wonder if going 2 times to Armor 16 was a bad choice, considering one of the special armor sets that can be found, which only counts as medium armor.