Well for a mage yo can start by cutting it down to three or two schools of magic and think about saving throws. Then you have to think about whether you want your lone wolves to be apt at anything other than combat. Charisma? Leadership? Any of the three rafting areas? What about loremaster? Most of the loot you find will need to be identified, are you going to invest large amounts of gold to identify things? Hell to get the big bucks you'll need things identified. That's just one example.
For your fighter-mage you have to think about how to spread your supporting attributes. You need lots of strength for that double handed sword and if you want to be able to take a hit you need constitution. But then you have to think about things like speed(AP recovery/turn) Perception is kind of huge in terms being able to advance a lot of quests and not getting lost because the game already gives you very little help as is and gleefully lets you screw yourself....want to destroy/drop/sell that quest item and be done with capacity to progress the main story? Go right ahead. Oh and by the way you only get about 15 points to distribute among all those.
I actually think the game's leveling system is broken all to hell.
