Forgotten Realms Party

Well, the party for the Forgotten Realms series has been assembled now. I've played this series so many times that I have a pretty good idea of what classes to pick and how to evolve the party composition through the series.

My new party is

1. Andreas, male human fighter
2. Eugene, male human fighter
3. Gabrielle, female human cleric
4. Ardhiel, male human thief
5. Janna, female human magic-user
6. Daenerys, female human magic-user

(As you can see, I don't put too much originality into naming the characters.)

I mostly kept rerolling until I got good enough stats instead of modifying, as has always been my custom. I made an exception for the characters that will dual-class to something non-basic (see below).

I have found that having two magic-users is a good idea in Pool. There are a few mass combats where having double the Fireballs is going to be very useful, e.g., the kobold cave and Zhentil Keep. Also, in the second-to-last battle the 8th-level fighters tend to align themselves nicely for Lightning Bolts...

I intend to play with these same characters through the whole series, so instead of making new characters for new games, I'm going to dual-class to get an appropriate party later on. The usual requirement for dual-classing is 15 in the old class's prime requisite and 17 in the new one's, but this isn't completely accurate. The reality is that the character needs 17 in the new class's prime requisite and any stat that has a minimum requirement, which means that dual-classing into a paladin or a ranger requires five 17's in the stats, so I cheated a bit and modified the stats of such characters.

My dual-classing plan is

1. Immediately after Pool, Andreas becomes a paladin and Janna a ranger (after leveling up in magic-user, since Pool doesn't allow magic-users to get as high as the XP indicates). This is because throughout Curse the enemies are magic-resistant and the characters too low level to overcome it, so a fighting-heavy party is appropriate. Also, it's good to have a paladin for the extra healing and a ranger against giants instead of plain fighters.
2. At the beginning of Blades, Ardhiel becomes a magic-user. At the higher levels, magic-users are really necessary firepower, and it's a lot easier to survive with two than with just one. And having a thief isn't really needed anymore; in previous games backstabbing is still useful sometimes. Wandering through the ruins will provide some initial XP.
3. Somewhere during Blades, or possibly at the beginning of Pools, Eugene becomes a magic-user. I'd like to get him up to level 13 first to get two attacks per round, which should happen during Blades. I've never tried three magic-users in a party, but with the multi-direction battles in Pools it may be very useful (not to mention the insane amount of firepower three high-level magic-users have). The things I'm worried about are the iron golems in Blades and the final battle in Pools, though the fighter and thief levels of the two dual-classed magic-users should help a bit there.

Previously, I've done approximately the same thing, except that I've had an elven fighter/thief, so no dual-classing there. But a multi-classed character is a bit underpowered (especially in hit points) during the later stages of the series, and getting levels in thief doesn't seem very useful at the higher levels. So this time I'm trying with a plain thief in the beginning and an extra magic-user in the end.