Elminage Gothic

This game works like the Might & Magic series in that you don't automatically level up just from experience, you have to return to the town and sleep repeatedly to actually gain the associated character level. You don't want to go too deep into the first dungeon until you've got a few levels under your belt. There is no easy way back out that I've yet found.

Combat damage works oddly in Elminage Gothic. You generally don't do very much damage--this is compensated by getting multiple blows in a single "attack," which raise as you gain levels. This holds true for monsters too--high level monsters will often attack dozens of times per "attack". Each one of those attacks gets a separate roll against the target's AC. So the only consistent way to reduce combat damage if you're getting hammered is to improve your AC as much as you can, so more of those attacks whiff each round.

Every class in the game has value, and you should probably experiment with all of them. All classes can get special skills when they reach High Master level (level 26, 32, or 36 depending on the class) and even seemingly-mediocre classes can get very powerful at High Master, e.g Thieves.

Extra skills you pick when creating your characters are pretty important. Some of them are worthless, some of them are very valuable, and some of them are class-specific. You can change them for a fee that gets more expensive the higher your level, or when you change class. Your life will be a lot easier if at least one of your party picks the healing song for their skill.

The best characters in the game are summoned monsters converted into PCs using a Summoner extra skill, as they have innate resistances better than any player-made PCs can have. However it requires an obscene amount of grinding to get to a place where you can utilize the best summons like this. Also summons converted into PCs can never change class, or they lose those innate resistances.

Some races aren't available when you start off--you have to unlock them. Most have advantages that the stock races don't, especially Devilish characters.

The one character class that is non-negotiable is Alchemist. You need an Alchemist in every party, especially if you intend to tackle any of the post-game dungeons. In addition to their spells, high-level Alchemy is practically a requirement as you'll need to beef up your equipment.

Summoners are very powerful, but it's best to class-change to a summoner after you've spent some time in other caster classes. The only thing a pure summoner can do is summon and recruit monsters--a "pure" summoner is a very weak class. Speaking of summoners, virtually any monster can be recruited by a summoner, though some have very high resistance to recruitment spells. High Master monks can reduce resistance, including recruitment resistance, with chain strikes, so Monk + Summoner is often a good combo.

The only real use for class changing is to acquire new spells. Frontline class-->another frontline class is almost always not worth doing. You should settle into your final class as soon as possible as you get sent back to level 1 when you class change and you need very high levels to survive in later dungeons.

Changing classes has another price--there is some equipment that can only be used by characters that have never changed classes. This equipment falls into two categories: "nice to have but not essential" and "ungodly powerful." However most of the "ungodly powerful" stuff isn't available until the very end of the final bonus dungeon.

Thieves are very versatile once they hit High Master. You can use them to unequip all of a monster's equipment and then steal it. There are many, many items that you can only get this way. You can even steal "natural" weapons this way--like the beak off a cockatrice or the claws off a dragon. They work the same way on characters too--you can steal a vampire's teeth, then use them to bite monsters and level drain them. However "monster" equipment is very frequently cursed.

Unless you're an absolute masochist or cheat, you probably won't have the patience for the grinding needed to finish the final bonus dungeon. You need levels in the high hundreds-thousands to survive on the upper levels there.