In my current play Bairdotr & Wolgraff are with us, two kind of mages, one with earth & fire skills, the other with air & water skills.
One of the mages (man) is a battlemage (just because of using melee weapon & shield, but also have a staff in case of ...), the other a pure mage with also Witchcraft skills later on ...
We spend all their money on buying 2 rings with "Loremaster" on them for the battlemage so now level 3 he has already Loremaster 5 (I like to know the weak spots of my enemies

!) so we can set your strategy up depending the weak (and strong) spots !
For example : she has Summon Spider, but do not use it discovering the enemy has poison resistance 100 ! Aha, that enemy is vulnerable for crushing damage, I take my stick with nails (or something) or use Teleportation (also one of my favorites!) smashing that enemy, dealing crushing damage, on a puddle of oil so my companion now can strike Flare on it IF that enemy survived that smash

!!
I think I gonna try giving Bairdotr or Wolgraff more Sneak ability points to try new things out ! Thanks for the info about sneak !
Yes, Lightning Strike is also one of my favo's .. !
I'm always in for skills giving the possiblilty to do a "tactical move"

!!