> What I meant by "ideal" was the best party for gameplay, that offered the best prospects of killing whatever it encountered on the way to (through?) Murkon.

In that case, I think an ideal "party" would be a single assassin who knows all the spells (probably started out as a wizard, retrained to a sorcerer, and retrained again to an assassin). Those are lethal, as they gain experience six times a fast, and so become much stronger, much faster. This easily outweighs the fact that he's only one character; after all, would you rather face Murkon with six level 20 characters, or a single level 120 character who knows all the spells, can effortlessly take out entire monster groups, has an AC of at least 65, maximum resistance, and arbitrarily high amounts of HP (and maybe even SP)? Would you rather face the snakes and flies of dungeon level 2 with six level 2-3 characters, three of which know crap spells, or a single level 10 character, which knows up to wizard spell 20 and can take out a swarm of killer gnats with a single FUMES or CONTAGION? Would you rather go pool-raiding on level 5 with six level 10-12 characters or a single level 12 sorcerer who also knows all of the wizard spells and is well in his way to knowing all of the sorcerer spells as well? In all three cases, I'd go for the latter option.

The wizard-turned-sorcerer-turned-assassin method at a one-character game is also a contender for the quickest game. As previously stated, one character alone gains experience much faster than a party of six can. If a normal party can level up at, let's say, one level per character per excursion (I know that's way too high but just bear with me here), one lone character can level up six times on an equally tough excursion. What could beat the game faster, six level 1 characters or one level 6 character? six level 10 characters or one level 60 character? Again, I'd hold with the latter.

It is true that at the start, a single level 0 wizard can't take out much of anything. So, I create a semi-throwaway "escort" character for the wizard, and once my wizard gets up to level 4 or 5, I ditch him and delete him from my roster. From then on, my wizard (destined to become a sorcerer and then an assassin) can manage by himself.

As if all that weren't enough, there is at least one other advantage to the one-character party. Once you do beat the game, the retired party only take up one slot on your roster. A six-character party takes up six. You can play 18 games of MR without ever having to delete a single character if you play one-character games (unless of course you have an escort early in the game; then it would be 17). With parties of 6, you would only be able to play 3 games until you have to delete characters (and who wants to do that?)

Two of my most successful games have been played with a single character. These games have been so much easier than the two other, six-character parties that I've played with (one of which resulted in my party getting stuck at Teralt and me deleting them). So, as a general rule, one-character parties are much easier than six-character parties.

knivetsil