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7: Delayed Blast Fireball
8: Mind Blank(1-2), Symbol of Hopelessness, Horrid Wilting
9: Executioner's Eyes, Aegis(0-1), Wail of the Banshee, Meteor Shower

Fairly basic stuff.. Charm Person, Dire Charm and Dominate are great spells at the time you receive them, allowing the party to tackle early melee battles much easier. Eagle's Splendor is needed to boost Sorc's CHA until he gets the spell. Cat's Grace and Luck might be good buffs to have in order to speed the buffing-up. Haste becomes obsolete once Sorc learns Mass Haste.
Fireball replaces Dire Charm if the monsters you're fighting against are immune to various charm spells. Acid Storm most certainly beats the bugged Chain Lightning spell in damage and Disintegrate is sweet with
GSF: Transmutation. Delayed Blast Fireball is the basic blasting spell, end of debate. Sorc might need to cast so many Horrid Wiltings that an extra
Mind Blank could be transferred here, otherwise use Symbol of Hopelessness and Horrid Wilting as necessary. Aegis is a last-ditch protection spell, but
I wouldn't keep more than one memorized. Finally, choose between
Executioner's Eyes and Wail of the Banshee depending if a boost to melee power or mass-nuking enemies is better.. Usually, I'd take Wail of the
Banshee almost any time. Don't forget about Meteor Shower when fighting in areas with monster that are highly resistant or immune to the Wail.

Alternate Character Choices:
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None. As described in the original UPP, choosing Drow for this profession is the best choice, bar none. Only change has been the choice of Diviner instead of Conjurer to access evocation spells in those levels that don't have many good enchantment or transmutation spells. Also, we're not that much interested in summoning - and we have the Cleric and Sorcerer to animate undead if need be.

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4.5 - Optional: First extra Bombardier

Aasimar Paladin(1)/Sorcerer(29)
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Fairly similar to the diplomat/bombardier, but with different starting statistics. This character only needs to put points into Concentration and spellcraft, so extra INT isn't really necessary. Feel free to transfer points between DEX and WIS just as you please - DEX gives an edge in the early game with crossbows, while high WIS is useful for Will saving throws. However, both saving throw types benefit greatly from the Paladin's Divine Grace ability, so it doesn't really make that much of a difference.

STR 8
DEX 12
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 10
CHA 20

Spell selections should follow the diplomat's selections, but in cases where some buff was needed for the decoy, that can be skipped initially and take later to later speed up buffing. Except for level two spells, the selection of the Diplomat/Bombardier already contains pretty much all the spells that one could expect to ever need.

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4.6 - Optional: Second extra Bombardier

Aasimar Paladin(1)/Sorcerer(29)
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A carbon copy of the previous character for extra firepower.

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5. Do-it-yourself UPP
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This chapter deals mostly with the process through which both the parties in JUPP were created. Use it as a guideline to create a party of your own, should you find that you want something else that suits your personal needs better.

As this document is about powergaming, this chapter won't go into details on stuff like aesthetics and doesn't even try to be an idiot's guide to powergaming either. This guide assumes that the reader is familiar with the various bonuses and penalties different races have, knows what makes good or bad spell casting, has at least somewhat decent grip on combat tactics and acknowledges the fact that the very reason this document exists is to make stuff in optimal way, not doing stuff that "just works". Of course, reading the previous chapters of JUPP is assumed, don't expect to find too much reasoning behind the various choices here. Having the ability to "see reality behind the numbers" is also a huge plus - it's not always so clear if it really pays off to boost feature A at the cost of B. For example, it really helps to notice that if one needs to drop INT to 11, one might as well drop it all the way to 3 as the amount of available skill points will be exactly the same.

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5.1 - Set goals for the party
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The first step is to consider what the party is all about. Is there a specific tactic that suits your play style? Do you want lots of magic for blasting & buffing (my personal preference) or carefree play without too much micromanaging via using melee characters? Do you want to avoid EXP penalties at all costs? Do you want to include a diplomat? Or someone to disable traps?
Or do you want to go with a bare minimum of skills? Or with everything the game has to offer? Is there some specific race you just absolutely MUST or
MUST NOT have in your party? Do you base your party's strategy around one character as in "The Leader and The Rest of the Group" or do your characters have more generalized abilities so that losing any single character doesn't cripple the whole group? List just goes on and on.

In broad terms, the warrior classes have a slight advantage at the very early stages of the game, that will say before the spell casting classes get their breakthrough spells into play. However, as the monsters become tougher towards the end, they start requiring more and more assistance from the other members of the party, most noticeably the healers and buffers. Even the high hit points, good offensive abilities and other similar bonuses from being a warrior won't help much when the enemies outnumber you like three to one.
Any plain-vanilla Cleric that has the Heal spell memorized has effectively a lot larger hit point pool to draw from, not to mention those divine spells can be used to make the odds favor the cleric by heaps and bounds. In other words, whereas warriors advance only about linearly in power (as a function of their character level, that is), the spell casting classes advance in squares, if not even faster.

When done, jot down a list of skills, spells and other stuff that needs to be present for your group to work. Take a peek at WeiDu Item List if you're not familiar with what kind of equipment there is to be found, and refer to various walkthroughs to get a general idea what is really needed, what could be nice and what can just as easily be lived without.

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5.2 - Start with the protector
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Through theory, practice via playing tests and experience, the one thing that a strong party needs the most is someone to take the heat off from others. Thus far the absolute best known method for protecting a character from harm is getting a very high AC value. This removes the largest source of incoming damage, namely beating from melee monsters and monsters with physical ranged attacks. Combine with spell resistance, good saving throws and preferably the Evasion special ability to make hurting this character even with spells a remote sigh for the enemy. Adding stuff like Mirror Image,
Blur, Blink and Stone Skin into the mix makes it pretty much impossible to get such a character killed even if one plays poorly in the tactical sense, making the high-AC character stereotype at least reasonably easily playable to even the worst of the newbies out there.

Not too surprisingly, the Deep Gnome race is rather invaluable choice here.
Bonus to both DEX and WIS, a natural +4 generic racial AC bonus that also has spell resistance just screams for high-defense character builds. The next best choice, Drow, has to deal with -5 AC penalty compared to a Deep
Gnome, making reaching those 70's in AC rating quite a bit more difficult, most likely requiring bringing in a Bard and taking the high-WIS route together with Dreadmaster level(s) to reach high ACs. Choosing any other race will also take the spell resistance away, which would have to be "rebuilt" via the Spell Resistance spell (cumbersome), via using the Holy Avenger and Holy Aura spell in tandem (also cumbersome) or utilizing the Monk's 13th level spell resistance bonus (making complex multiclassing schemes impossible and taking away from the character's spell casting potential).

Most likely classes for a character with high DEX are Rogue and DEX-based archer warrior types. However, as noted in chapter 2.2, advancing as pure
Rogue doesn't give any real benefits over being a Rogue/Wizard multiclass, so in a way this build is tailor-made for Wizards as well. Taking the high
WIS route together with the level(s) as Monk makes the divine caster classes
(Cleric, Druid and even Paladin to some extent) shine in their role, with between very good to outstanding spell DCs from high WIS score.

However, taking the high WIS route to reach higher ACs brings one rather severe problem - neither Monk nor any of the divine classes is Deep Gnome's favored class, so unless the levels are kept equal, there's nothing that can be done to avoid the 20% EXP penalty. Together with the fact that Monk class doesn't allow for free multiclassing, going high WIS route means an almost automatic hit to EXP gain. Also, having to max both WIS and DEX doesn't allow for much stat points elsewhere, making at least melee builds with high STR and CON quite unlikely. (The tank in Melee party barely makes it to the critical AC of 72, but not without quite a bit of help from other team members.) Even further, as one of the items granting generic AC boosts requires level(s) as Rogue, the EXP penalty can worsen to 40% faster than one says "hey wait a minute!"

There's two exceptions, however. One is to utilize (female) Drow's favored class as Cleric and boosting the missing AC via bringing in all the other bells and whistles. Playing such a character may prove to be quite tough, as many of those extreme AC buffing measures are either once per day (Cleric of
Helm's bonus), require the presence of Bard (doesn't mix too well with any other caster class due to level cap of 30) or place tough limitations on stats (Expertise with INT requirement), freedom of class choice (Dreadmaster quest bonuses) or equipment (Every God's Ring might be needed elsewhere, just as Potions of Holy Transference).

The other exception is to make sure that a vast majority of the level-ups is put into the Illusionist class, treating any other class as mix-in class.
Arcane party's Decoy character uses this rule exception. This allows for a very good AC, even without extensive party support, but one has to live with the fact that the high WIS score just sits there for no apparent good other than boosting AC. A matter of taste, really, but a veteran powergamer like me dislikes any stat that doesn't get at least some sort of synergy bonus. =)

However, there's no one that saying that one HAS to use a race with natural spell resistance for the protector character. As a matter of fact, there's a whole bunch of spells that don't care piddly squat about spell resistances, take Blasphemy, Horrid Wilting, Meteor Shower or Cone of Cold as example. So, in fact, if your play strategy doesn't include bombarding your own decoy character with mass destruction spells, it might be worth the while to concentrate on finding high-AC builds that do not get any EXP penalties. Here are some examples. Refer to chapters 2.4 and 2.13 for extended info on the various tricks & tips on the list.

1) The defensive, spell casting Paladin
Aasimar Paladin(27)/Monk(1)/Rogue(1)/Wizard(1) (Wiz for scrolls & wands)
Start statistics: STR9 DEX18 CON14 INT14 WIS20 CHA5
Stats with buffs: STR20 DEX25 CON21 INT14 WIS38 CHA8
AC: 10 (base)
+7 (Shield spell)
+6 (Divine shell)
+7 (DEX bonus with DUHM active)
+14 (WIS bonus)
+11 (Equipment)
+6 (Feats)
+9 (Haste, Barkskin)
     ===
70
Adding a Bard with 11+ levels into the party would bring AC up to 72. It's probably easiest to take the three mix-in classes first before committing to the path of the Paladin.
Note: It's not possible to reach high enough AC if armor & shield is used.

2) The untouchable decoy Monk
Human Monk(28)/Dreadmaster(1)/Rogue(1)
Start statistics: STR7 DEX18 CON16 INT14 WIS18 CHA3
Stats with buffs: STR15 DEX21 CON16 INT14 WIS38 CHA6
AC: 10 (base)
+6 (Spirit Armor)
+5 (Ghost Armor)
+5 (DEX bonus)
+14 (WIS bonus)
+11 (Equipment)
+6 (Feats)
+5 (Monk levels)
+9 (Haste, Barkskin)
     ===
71
Adding a Bard with 11+ levels into the party would bring AC up to 73, but it's unlikely that it'd be safe for the Bard to come close enough to this character. It's also possible to take Tiefling if one drops the Dreadmaster level. The racial DEX bonus compensates the lost quest bonuses for a net
-1 AC loss. Note also that using a Deep Gnome as a pure Monk would sacrifice
-3 AC for the headband and -2 AC for the quest bonuses, but would in turn gain +1 AC from both DEX and WIS, +1 from the final Monk level bonus and
+4 from the racial bonus for a net +2 AC gain. (Note how much trouble it is to try to compensate for the deep gnome's racial bonuses...)