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Creating Your Character
Character creation is one of the most important parts of the game. I personally believe that 20% of a good RPG is character creation. I will suggest what I think is good, but don't let that restrict your own ideas and imagination. For now on STR means Strength, DEX is Dexterity, CON is Constitution, INT is Intelligence, WIS is Wisdom and CHA means Charisma.
Warriors
A fighter should have the highest STR possible (18/00) to deal much damage when he hits and to be the one who carries armour and weapons (which are heavy). Also a fighter should have high dexterity, so as to have increased chances of hitting an opponent and having a good AC without wearing any armour. A high DEX will also allow your character to use bows much more easily, having a high chance of hitting an oponnent and dealing damage. Finally, a high CON is required if you like him to fight at the front, covering the weaker characters (mages/priests) who will stay behind. I personally prefer an elven warrior, because elves get a bonus to the DEX (max 19) but a minus to CON (max 17). More on that later.
Thief
A thief should have high dexterity, persumably of 19. So, only two classes can have this and these are Elves and Halflings (see Pg 139 of the manual). My best choice is a halfling thief, because he has a +5 to all statistics but stealth (+15) and after you distribute the 30 skill points you can get easily a very good thief (Lock Picking 50% Pick Pockets 50% Detect Traps 35% Stealth 45%) Add up the fact that you can get the boots of stealth early in the game and you can have a very good thief. On the other hand, he is a Jack-of-all-trades, so if you plan to have two thieves, decide which skills you will prefer.
Priests
A priest should have high wisdom (no race for that, sorry) because he manages to have much more spells that way. I would recommend a druid, although he is weaker than a cleric, has two advantages: shape change and the easiest level progressing (see Pg 140) He should learn two spells for sure: Cure Light Wounds and Entangle. The first is obvious. But why insist so much on the latter? Well, play through the game and you will find out that some of the most difficult encounters can become much easier with these spells. So, if you cast entangle the creature cannot move, so you can take him out with ranged attacks.
Wizard
If you like you can become a specialist, something which I fully recommend. My choice is a conjurer simply because the only he cannot cast are Alternation spells, which are the fewest in the game. See the speels by school for more info on that. There are some useful ones such as 'Identify', but I don't think you could sacrifice any other category for a few spells (this is a personal opinion). He should have the highest INT possible, but avoid gnomes (max INT 19) because the only specialist wizard available for them is Illusionist. If you want to become a non-specialist wizard then prefer it.
Ability modifies depending on race
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Ability
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Human
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Dwarf
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Elf
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Gnome
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Halfling
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Half-Elf
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STR
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18
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-1
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DEX
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18
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-1
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+1
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+1
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CON
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18
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+1
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-1
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INT
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18
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+1
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WIS
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18
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-1
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CHA
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18
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-1
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Note that there are other benefits/penalties as well, apart from abilities. For example, Half-Elves have the ability of Infravision without any modifiers, Gnomes are resistent to magic... (See Pg. 84)
Last notes:
- A good idea is to have a proficiency in budgeoning weapons (Blunt & Spiked Weapons) because most armours are unaffected by them (See Pg. 143).
- Another good idea is to have all your charcters wear helmets. They are cheap (1 gp each) but prevent from oponnent critical hits (2x damage, always hits).
- Try to use the best shield kite/large shield, which also gives -2 to missile weapons, but try to have free inventory space to leave the shield and grab a bow quickly or be able to change armour as fast as possible, if you see a weapon your armour does not cover. For example if you wear a Chain Mail (+2 to budgeoning, AC 5), and you see that the opponent yields a club, change it with a Splint Armour (-2 to budgeoning, AC 4)
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