Building my first Wasteland 1 party

Well I'm about to start Wasteland 1 for the first time in my life and I'm looking for some tips for the party building. I'm expecting to reroll several times for sure, but that doesn't mean I can't try to avoid some pitfall since the start.
First question: is the default party any good? If it's decent I might start a first run with it until I get the hang of the gameplay

Googling around I put together the following pieces of information (please correct me if anything is wrong):

1) IQ should be at least 15, better if 18. Most important attribute.
2) Avoid wasting points in knives, rifle, gun.
3) Invest in 2 brawler points for everyone, since at the beginning it's the best skill and is actually pretty strong later on, too.
4) Pugilism is only useful for a dedicated melee character, but it's probably better to use crowbars anyway and save skill points.
5) AR is THE long range skill to put points in. Energy weapons later in the game
6) I don't understand the difference between doctor and medic, but people on the internet say it's better to have 2 characters skilled in both.
7) I need one team member skilled in Climb, Swim, Perception, Lockpick (well not the same one, ofc).
8) It seems all the other skills not mentioned here are either very situational, or totally useless (are we sure I don't need bomb disarm?)

I'm a bit lost when it comes to stats though. Apart from high IQ (15 or 18) I can't understand how much I need of each.

1) STR is important for melee (how much do I need?)
2) AGI is for turn order. Important for everyone, but more for melee (but still, how much?)
3) DEX to use AR (can I totally dump this for melee?)
4) LUCK. Whatever, keep it at least average
5) CHA. Dump stat

Anything else?

 

roll until INT is 16-18, and pump it on level ups to +/- 25 (may be less, dont remember). Rest stats would be nice to have +/-18 (LUCK is important IIRC) but you can really grind a bit to get it, so it's not that important. STR 12+ at the begining helps (with 2 attacks with brawler you will deal a lot of DMG), AGI makes it easier to hit a target in melee IIRC, so is as important as STR (12+), DEX is for long range battles, so you can rise it up later. CHA is indeed dump stat, but have it decent (12+) on one character just to avoid frustration, when NPC snubs you.

HP - you need a lot.

As for skills:

Ad 2 - true, you can finish game without those skills, it's actually recomended to avoid rifles (wasting ammo - it's limited IIRC).
Ad 3 - yup, first 50% of game (until Las Vegas) you will fight mostly with melee enemies (with few exceptions) so meele is a king.
Ad 4 - you can go to Quartz and buy axe for everyone cheap, so yeah, that's also true.
Ad 5 - 100% true, AR's are very useful, energy weapons are end-game kings
Ad 6 - IIRC it's like first aid and doctor in Fallouts, Doctor is just better (or medic... don't remember....) and you can just have 1 skill. BUT! Having 2 or better 3 skilled doctors is FUCKING IMPORTANT! You don't want to have your only med uncouncious!
Ad 7&8 - Sneak is useful, safecrack in 1-2 places, same with bomb disarming. Almost every skill is used somewhere at least once, but the ones you mentioned are most important.

 

Well, I was looking for a new lightweight game to play at work and remembered that I have never played Wasteland 1. What a shame. I reckon it's time to finally change that.

Downloaded original copy from some abandonware site, prepared a PDF manual for reading paragraphs, but for some reason it starts me in the Agricultural Center with the pre-made party and I don't get how to reset the savefiles. Unofficial reset utility just gives me disk error message.

Will go with re-release, I guess.

 

Tried the game properly today and sadly, I didn't like it much.

I'm fine with the interface - remembering keyboard combos to use skills and items is kinda cool; RPG system in Wasteland is interesting, but I don't dig the combat. I don't see much choice in combat, and the game has a lot of it, that's for sure.

 

The Combat is only good if you like BT I-III combat. Overall it is about the choice of weapon and a possible firing modus (Single, Burst or Full Auto Clip). You can divide the part and this way protect your less armored party members, but this is only useful in very very few encounters.

 

Combat Shooting is a worthless skill, they never got around to implementing it.

 

I think that the game's biggest limitation is "one turn - one action" rule. No use of cover, no breaking the line of sight, no hit and run tactics. This severely limits your options in combat.

I know it's unfair to compare Wasteland to some newer games, like Fallout or Dark Sun, but I guess I'll better play Pool of Radiance instead.

 

This has Bard's Tale engine IIRC and it's mostly the same. I kinda like it, as it is fast, easy to learn, and still challangeing in late game.

 

Which is why it's so funny in W2 and W3.

 

And that is why i take it always as a skill in W1 for every character. One wasted point from 25 (later) is not that important.

 

Wasteland is a game you enjoy not for its combat, but despite it. The combat is dumb, but it's fast and only a minor hiccup interrupting what makes the game interesting—exploration and using skills to make progress.