Anyone can give me tips for a really great party setup for Etrian Odyssey I?

@Ninten: You're going to want to have at least one of every character class sooner or later...they tend to be needed for various things further down the line. A good MAIN party is Landskencht, Survivalist, Protector, Medic, and Alchemist. A few good skills to go for quickly: 2-hit for Landskencht, Smite for Protector, and TP Regen for Alchemist (it's good to get that for the Medic as well, but more difficult to earn early on because you need those healing skills). You should also probably pour most of your skill points for the Survivalist into Ambush/Aware and Multihit, making a separate Survivalist to concentrate on gathering skills (Chop, Take, and Mine).

@Stuffgamer1

Thanks for the tips! I'm currently at the fifth floor of the 1st stratum. My party has a Landskencht, a Dark Hunter, a Survivalist, an Alchemist and a Medic.

I took HMack's advice and stopped fighting FOEs, so now I'm at floor B4F about to do my first mission there.

Wait. Rockin' Kats is an Atlus game!?
where do I sign up?

You just did.

@lockelocke: That was kinda...random. Anyway, yeah, I think I've heard of it. There's also a puzzle based on it in the Atlus SNES game "Pieces," which I gushed about early on in this thread (first or second page, if you're at all interested). I don't really know much about the game itself, though.

What up lockelocke and welcome to our little hideout of everything Atlus.

OH Demon Souls is having a special month with righ now there is full white tendency and later in the month will be full black to celebrate the new Greatest Hits and it also October

lol... Im like Lv 15 on Floor 2 in EO3

Got a move on now!

LOL, yeah I know, Ive been playing YS7 like crazy so when my PSP dies Ill grab EO3 and just run around and gather stuff and level up some. Im out of work on medical leave from a surgery last week and Im to where I can play my PS3 so Ive really been knocking through my backlog of games on it. When I finish up some I will dive back full force into EO3.

@H-Mac I need to find the carpenter to upgrade my ship. Where is he please!!!o_O

And once you visit an island while sailing, is that it for an island or can you go back to them?

I think you can go back to some of them if you have not triggered a certain event.

I'm finding the sailing frustrating as I have the dried peas for 8 turns but I can't seem to find anything else to get me further.

You really have what you need. It will be enough to search the local area and find better items. Just search every island but for most You need to face a certain way to trigger the event.

gotcha...thanks.

FINALLY...I found the cedar and got sheep cheese! Now I can really explore!

@Tech I don't remember lol... I think he's in a city, like that trade city Sheba or something? But you do get a ship upgrade for clearing the 2nd stratum IIRC.

Thinking of retiring my level 40 characters. I'm a little stuck, and made some bad decisions with skills.

@HM...if you retired your characters would you be starting at level one with new characters?

No it usually sets You back 5 levels but allows you to redistributed your points all over again!

@H-Mac Thanks for nothing LOL. Just kidding! No seriously I found him shortly after I posted and it opened up a whoever new world of exploration for me now. I'm in the northern sea now.