They sell the MM's quite cheap, and from time to time they put them on sale, which means that they're dirt cheap at that moment. I haven't ever had disks for MM7 & 8, so I purchased them there, and they happened to be on sale. I paid something like 2.5 Euro total for them. I played through their MM7 without any problems. (Though I added Grayface's patch and played under Wine, which often works much better than playing the old Windows games under Windows!)

And there's a generally a reason for the patches!

As per previous post, I'm sure I've previously used all GOG versions on current kit, and they played as if fully patched. But when I fired up MM7 it was contained in a 4:3 box and did not stretch to my widescreen monitor (not windowed, a full-screen game but just in a 4:3 box with black bands down both sides). Some Googling revealed a new Greyface patch that I didn't remember, so I installed it and this fixed the game to run on full widescreen.

BUT, in a surprise I definitely haven't seen before, Greyface has played with the positioning of the interface to take advantage of all the new widescreen real estate. The character portraits are still in their familiar place along the bottom, but with space between them rather than the familiar solid bar (so you can, for instance, collect objects, drink from fountains etc by clicking in the space BETWEEN the characters!). Further, the status icons I remember being in the top right have been split so resistances are now in the top left while buffs (Haste, Heroism etc) are in the top right, and again in a see-through chunks rather than the familiar solid box. It is a VERY nice feel and a wonderful surprise!

I never liked the Druid in this game. After he's prepared the black potions, I judged him to be a near-total waste of space. In this game especially, there is a significant difference between the capabilities of a master-level character and a grandamster, and I found that it was nigh-on (pun fully intended! ) essential that all members of the party should be able to GM at least one combat skill. A Druid cannot do that. He's a loust fighter, and he can't GM any magic skill. He can GM Alchemy and Meditation, and that's all.

You don't get the Black Potions until fully promoted, obviously, by which time you could argue the stat buffs are less useful. And you can generally find the Black Potions in the right shops, if you're willing to reload.

But I made it my central goal to get her promoted asap, and I actually enjoyed the challenge rather than another run-through with my standard min-maxed parties with all GM skills. She's definitely not as strong, but it's new as I've never played a Druid before, and there's a certain satisfaction in getting through the Eeofol Tunnels and the Dragon Cave at a much earlier stage than otherwise. If you do this, the Black Potions are actually useful at this earlier stage, and you've collected enough raw materials by this point that you can mix them all up as soon as she gets promoted, which gives you a satisfying single bump to all your characters' stats. She can dual-wield daggers and learn Armsmaster, so she's a handy enough fighter, and the Dark path game is less conducive to melee anyway. And she's also a handy backup healer, buffer and elemental school supporter. Overall, I'm glad I played her, but you do need to pick the rest of the party around her.

On the Light path, the Druid actually does fairly decent in melee battle (MASTER dagger!) As well as magic attacks -- they can Master all magics except light and dark. On the other hand, Druids can only possess basic bow knowledge, so ranged attacks really aren't their strong point, unless they use magic.

When I said the Druid can dual-wield daggers, this is at Master level, getting the chance to triple damage. They can also learn Leather to Expert, removing any recovery penalties, so their action economy is quite good, making them a capable enough fighter, behind the Knight, Thief and Paladin. Probably also the Archer due to better HPs and dual swords, although I've never found the Archer to be that strong either. I'd say the Druid is slightly ahead of the Ranger despite the lower HPs, due to the general weakness of Axes. Never played a Monk, but I can't imagine that Unarmed damage keeps up at higher levels, even with Staff added on top.

The familiar also gives +3 to all magic skills, so if you develop to max your spells are at level 10 without being GM level, a useful bonus. There are some overkill elements: GM Meditation is a bit of a waste, as you say, even moreso as the familiar also gives the Druid SP recovery - she has far more SP than she would ever use. (Meditation as a concept always fit the Monk best to my mind, but obviously with the game mechanics it would be virtually useless on a Monk. If it had some sort of HP bonus as well............)