I'm also interested in this, the most experimenting I did is doing "false starts" (create Priest, immediately change to Valkyrie to ease into divinity training, same with Mage -> Samurai, Alchemist -> Ranger and Psionic ->Monk). Since the XP to level up in Wizardry 8 doesn't reset like in previous games, doing multiclassing like old Mage 13 into Cleric is pretty pointless, easier to just make a bishop.
This makes sense ONLY in priest>lord/valk's case.
Samurais/rangers/monks are better kept pure - I never bothered to raise spellcasting for those, since they're way better in dishing out damage. If you roll with two bishops you don't need any supporting casters anyway.
My pick is human fighter 1/ bard X
One level of fighter to bump up sword and close combat, then switch to bard. You'll miss out on the lute, but I naver use it anyway since the game is way easier than Wiz 7, so the sleep spam in early fights is not mandatory. Bigger downside is that if you don't have rogue or gadgeteer, you will be crippled in opening early level locks/chests. Later on when you put couple of points in locks&traps and get knock knock, this becomes irrelevant.
Melee bard with bloodlust + shakespearean gear, which provides shitload of skill bonuses, becomes a powerhouse and on my last expert playthrough she was party's MVP.
Instruments are way better than gadgets - you can have high level magic screen running constantly, start every fight with rousing drums, and throw occasional debuffs/CC like armormelt or freezing flesh. And with bloodlust, she can hit hard as fuck, especially after getting powerstrike.
It's tempting to roll with bard until music is maxed, and then switch to fighter around level 15 or so, so you can get berserk. Never tried this route, since you would lose access to bard's only gear, and that would be a major bummer, since you can get some OPd shit like ring of the road which gives like +20 STR.
