The most destructive spell in the game is Shrapmetal at contact range. That is a Dark Magic spell, and the only characters capable of learning Dark are the Cleric and Sorcerer. If you get their skill in Dark up to about 25, and equip each of them with the artifact ring Guinevere and a Ring of Dark Magic, the damage that they can mete out with Shrapmetal is such that 3 casts will dispose of a golden dragon, which is the toughest monster in the game apart from a couple of the specials.

My personal preference is for a magic-heavy party, and my favourite party for this game is ACSS, but if you want a party that can use the artifacts and relics to the optimum and makes the least possible use of the Temples' healing abilities, I would recommend APCS. But that's up to you. APCS has two primary spellcasters able to utilise two Guineveres, two Igraines, and two Morgans together with the rings of the individual magics, and each primary spellcaster is backed up by a "half and half" character. You don't have a "tank", but in the later part of the game, the Dark Magic users will more than make up for this, believe me.

I don't like a druid as a character, either in this game or in MM7. He doesn't have access to the Mirrored Path and so cannot use the most powerful spells in the game, he's a lousy physical combat fighter, and needing to get to 12 skill levels to achieve Mastery in his magical abilities, he takes forever to get there.

But having said that, KPDS is a perfectly playable party if that's the way you want to go. Enjoy this great game, and if you need any help, we'll be here — as long as our links with the 'net hold up! *grin*

I also agree about druids. I recently tried a 4 druid game and really didn't care for it that much and gave up. It takes a long time to get that many magic skills to a useful level and in the meantime you're really struggling.

All in all, I always used to prefer Might to Magic, though admittedly MMX is curing me of that!

I certainly first played MM6 on a Win95 O/S, though, and I still maintain a vintage 1999 laptop with a Win98 O/S specifically for playing MM6 in the fashion originally intended. It'll play MM7 and MM8, but it won't handle MM9. Additionally, I have an old dual-drive computer with a Win2000 OS on one drive, and a Win98 drive on the other, which I play most of my games on. But even by the time I got that one, which wasn't really very long after MM6 came out (a couple of years or so), it was too fast to allow all MM6's Easter Eggs to be deposited, or all the hirelings to have names and trades.

To really thrive in late game, at least two Light/Dark characters are a must. One should obviously be a Sorceror, for Fly/Town Portal/Lloyds Beacon. Many people like two Sorcerors, but then you need other healing & if you don't want the Cleric, you're either tripling up on elemental with a Druid, or going with a secondary healer with no backup (Paladin). XPSS probably works if you already know the game well, but for your first full playthrough you need healing, you need elemental, you may as well at least go with the ones that also give you Light/Dark into the bargain.

My personal playstyle always favoured might over magic (at some point you get sick of continually entering turn-based, & you're tough enough to just run up & bash away at many things, & drop into turn based if you need to heal up or TP out), so I always favoured KKCS. This also gives you plenty of protection in the early game & allows plenty of room to quickly develop those useful secondary skills like Disarm & Repair.