Ah, I loved the way you could transfer your party to the next game and keep a lot of the good stuff. I remember the +3, +4 and +5 longswords particularly well from EOBI, as my ranger always carried the +5 and +4 and brought along the +3 (Nightstalker, was it?) as a spare when we transfered to Darkmoon. (Of course, I never had further use of it, heh) My favorite party was Figther, Ranger, Mage, Cleric. The figther usually a dwarf and the ranger human, mage elf and cleric gnome. I seem to remember something about gnomes being able to read some writings the others couldn`t? I did play figther/thief on at least one occasion as I realized multiclass characters would not actually fall more than about a level behind anyway. Even better when I found that the Kenku in EOBI and the Guardian Daemons in EOBII respawned at certain points allowing a little levelling for the patient player...There was a dagger +5 called Flicka also. 
The more I think back the more it comes back to me. I always had both figthers dual-wield. The ranger came along for that purpose, but also the figther seemed to be more effective with two weapons. I didn`t like the mouse control as I was able to attack more swiftly with the keys (starting with the figthers main weapon, running around clockwise via the back rank characters ranged weapons (slings and daggers) ending up with the figthers left hand weapon before a break until they all recovered, repeating the process.)
I`m not sure I did bring along NPCs much at all, and I think that crazy hobbit Insal was partly to blame, heh! I remember Amber and Calandra now that you mention their names. The only other NPC I can remember the name of off the top of my head is San Graal, the ... mage?
Btw, I never realized halberds could be used by back rank characters in EOBIII. I`ll be sure to remember that since this conversation certainly has made me want to replay the series yet again.
