Is it necessary to have a magic user in party to finish?
 

Right now I'd say I am pretty far into the game. Currently about the enter the 3rd cyclopcean door in the .

My party for the bulk of the game has been:

Myself (Human): Master Archer/Boyer that dabbles in alchemy
Rhulana (Amazon): Saber Master, Master Archer, & Natural Healer
Tank SLOT: Either The Human Fighter from the Castle (forgot his name) ---> 2 handed swords, blacksmith (tank #1) / or Fugromm the Dwarf in the same capacity (tank #2)
Dranor: Everything else. Arcane Lore, Thief/Social Skills, Throwing Master, Fencing Melee if needed

So far I've gotten by on the broad strategy of using Rhulana/Dranor/Tank to melee with the mobs while I stand back and deliver crippling shots from my bow. In cases where the battlefield is wide open (as opposed the cramped spaces of dungeons), I'll even have Rhulana join me with the bow duty as we both deliver killer arrow shots while Dranor/The Fighter wade in melee. After the battle, Rhulana treats poisons and wounds. During the battle, potions are used for immediate healing if needed.

Right now, the only weak link is Dranor. He is OK as a fighter/throwing master, but in the tough contests he just doesn't contribute as much as my other 2 members. The plan once I return to Ferdor is to swap him out for yet another tank. Either the Elf fighter I met in Tallon, or the dwarf again. My personal character has enough skill points banked to take over all of Dranor's thief duties and even Arcane lore. The ultimate goal now is 3 big frontline guys to cover my archery escapades.

So, is this plan a folly? Should I use a magic user instead having another fighter?
I've not had a permanent magic user in my party since I got rid of Gladys as soon as Dranor was available again. As I barrel towards the end, are the enemies just unmanageable without a spellcaster to mass damage/mass dehabilitate? As far as buffs are concerned, I've gotten by just fine with potions.

Let me know how to proceed and if so, which magic user to pick. I think I've picked up everyone that is available so far.

Interesting, I have a near all caster party with only the dwarf as a slightly useless tanks who gets himself killed faster than I can heal him, while the rest stand back and hurl spells or arrows for the most part. I'm surprised you survived the dragon!! :)

Strange, I liked Gladys a whole lot more than Dranor. Why did you ditch her? To me, she's like Dranor, but can cast spells (and in my case she had better defense with the armor spell).
Casters are good for several reasons:
- Pet: Another attacker/tank (pure casters only)
- Debuffs/Buffs: Make your meleers much better and your attackers much worse
- Firepower: Once they get the fireball spell, many fights start with your opponents at half health and their hair burned :) (also, pure casters only)

But hey, if you've made it that far without one, you probably won't need them.

Also Dranor annoyed the hell out of me. I prefer not to have frickin' idiots in my party (Minsc being the only exception).

At that early stage in the game, I wasn't yet sure of how generous experience points would be. I wasn't sure there would be enough points to manage both theif/social skills and magic points. For that reason, I decided at the time dranor was better because I could get his lockpick/pickpocket/disarm trap skills higher sooner than Gladys.

Of course, as I progressed through the game, I am seeing things more from your point of view. I've not had to increase Dranor's picklock past 15 or his disarm trap past 11. With the right rings and natural dex he can pretty much handle any chest or trap. With this in mind, there are plenty of extra points to spread around. Maybe I should have given Gladys a bit more playtime.

My party consists of this :

My character (a human fighter)
Rhulana (my co-tank) I mostly use her as a tank except in particular reasons
Gladys (Spellcaster/thief semi-tank/axe thrower)
The druid girl (Archer/spellcaster)

Personally, I like having at least some spellcasters because it expands the in-game possibilities. Not using any casters for me would be like missing an important part of the game.

I played mostly with Rulana, Forgrimm, Dranor and my main char as battle mage.

Gladys is the more attaching character and she has plenty little dialogs and most are quite funny. But for a fight and skills point of view it's another matter. Her strength are social skills plus a bit of both magic and thieving. But Dranor is a best fighter. Eventually you concentrate too many skills on him and that make him weaker.

I would suggest continue with your team base but don't spend train points of other characters. And if you feel the game becomes too difficult then you'll try another combination with plenty options open thanks to the training points available for the other characters.

Some basic advices could be:

• Try to avoid to concentrate too many skills on a same character.
• All characters are improved a lot by going further than their class by training attributes to open new skills. For example if Rhulana is the best fighter during a long time, later in the game Fugromm becomes the best of all, best swording, best life, best armor, best attack, all fight skills. This can be achieved with few attributes training.
• Many attribute don't need to be pushed at the max. In general the golden rule would not train them systematically at max but wait you feel you get too many failure. As you already quote thieving skills don't need to be push at a max. But that's true with arcane lore too and probably some social skills. And also animal lore and Survival don't need to be push at the max. For Artisan skills wait to need increase them for a craft, plus I don't remember they need be pushed at the max too.
• Many spells don't need to be pushed at the max, read carefully the description to know what is really useful for each spell and why. There's a lot of training points to save here.

I'm on my 2nd play through right now and I'm toying with that same idea right now. The spellcasters just don't seem to do nearly enough damage with slow casting and limited mana.

My first play through I was a warrior with gladys, gwen & traded out for the latest melee companion as I went through the game. This time around I'm an elf fighter ( so I have a pet, heals, buffs, picklocks and still a good fighter ) with Ruhlana, Fulgrimm and Gwen as an archer. But I'm tempted to drop Gwen for another melee.

I guess you could view it as a strength of the game that you can play through with any combination of characters.

Though I think that's part of what bothers me about the game a little. The mages never really get powerful, since anyone is able to take lockpicking the thieves are pointless and there's very little to distinguish the melee fighters. Swords vs sabers vs maces don't seem to make any difference. I'm so sick of D&D crpgs I could puke but I will say with the v3/3.5 perks character development is a lot more interesting.

I was a mage when I played it, and they do get really powerful. When you get the AoE spells, even though they're slow, they're awesome fight starters. Most fights I had were against enemies that were already half dead. Plus, I can't fathom playing without a pet (efreeti/djinni in my case)

Just "Fire Elemental". Nothing else.

Although minor elementals in Aventuria are also called "Djinns".