A couple of questions...

[Northraven]

Ok so I've finally settled on the party I THINK will take me through my first run of the game [img]smile.gif[/img] they are:
1.Felpur Samarai
2.Human Monk
3.Felpur Rogue
4.Mook Ranger
5.Human Gadgeteer
6.Elven Bishop

I started playing this party and it just felt right so I am hoping for good things from it...I just have a few questions about it. Firstly, I am going to build my Samarai as a fighter/mage taking full advantage of his hybrid abilities but how much should I worry about developing the Monk and Ranger's spell casting skills? My thoughts are to keep the monk developing primarily as a fighter but I really don't know how to handle the Ranger's development any advice would be welcome.

Finally, can anyone explain to me what has changed with pickpocketing if you have the latest patch installed, I keep hearing about how pick-pocketing was nerfed in the patch or something can anyone give me the lowdown on this?

[otter]

Yah, i like it.
Depending on how much repitition you can take, you can build all four Magic Schools to 100 in very little game time (and incidentally Earth and/or Mental realms). It does take a lot of 'real' time, and depending on your taste for taking time to practise all at once or in stages, to make sure you keep your Skill points up with the caster's level to learn new spells.
If you do it all at once (you have to be casting L3 spells for it to go really fast) you can then spend your Skill points on combat or other skills, and in battles you can fight for combat points and cast only when you really need to. The other realms can all be practised outside of combat, so you can get them going, too, just not as quickly. For the Monk, building Psionics and Mental are a zip. There's a site, i think the person's name is Avenster, maybe it's Wolfie, i don't remember, that has an explanation of how to build Magic painlessly. (and at no expense to building other skills)
For the Ranger, and anyone else with Bows, if you max Bow you get 1 more shot per round, and another for maxing Ranged Combat. If you switch to bows even when you're up close, you'll build this up fast. Esp if you have your Gad merge X-bows when she can. For the Ranger's Magic, you can mix potions or practise casting , this also applies to the Alchemy skill for Bishops. One game one of my quests for myself was to max all four of the Bishop's Schools as early as possible, and i actually made 100 in Psi and Mental at L1 by casting Charm at Burz. But it took ages of game- and 'real' time. It wasn't too boring though, mobs kept wandering by to kill. Ended up getting 2 levels in XP by the time i had the 100.
Pickpocket results with the patch are determined when you kiss the victim. This means you can't reload to change the number of goes you get before the merchant busts you. Only by gaining PP points or levels can you get another chance. This makes it very hard to increase skill points, so you never get the good stuff. If i want to play for all the nice drops early, i play on the version with Patch 1.
But you can get everything you need by mixing potions for money. There's a thread on that in here somewhere, too.
Good Luck on your first run!

[Gimli]

I would say if you're not patched to stay that way until/unless you run into a bug that you know a patch will fix; you can make enough $$ via alchemy, but PPing will broaden the range of items you get access to, some you'd have very little chance to see other than swiping them.

[Wereboar]

Firstly, I am going to build my Samarai as a fighter/mage taking full advantage of his hybrid abilities but how much should I worry about developing the Monk and Ranger's spell casting skills?

Ranger and Samurai can use the Infinity Helm with its extreme spell point regeneration. Thats why i usually play them as real hybrids.
When i use monks, then as pure fighting machines with hand&feet or Zatochi Bo.