Have some basic questions - Story Mode, not Free Mode:
1. Are you forced to have story specific characters in your party? Such as Liesel or Max? Or can you dump them in the Guild and only take them out when/if required?
2. For Liesel quest stuff, is the order for the initial stuff important? IE doing the book gifting prior to the 'Save the Missing Girls' quest for instance - does the book gifting have to be done 1st, or can it be done afterwards?
3. Just how much difference does race & stats make?
For instance - Elves start with 2 higher max int and 3 higher max faith than humans. If specced as Mage, how much difference would those stats make?
4. Is 9 the highest count of spells castable per type/level?
IE if you leveled a class and had 9/9 Elemental level 1 cast's, then switched to another class that had Elemental.. would you gain more then 9/9 or stay on 9/9?
5. I've seen that some ppl suggest leveling a Mage then switching to Sorcerer, is this purely because Mage gets spells and spell max/level faster than Sorcerer? Or is there another reason?
1. You get stuck with guest characters similar to Maria and Schwarz but for a longer period of time, but mostly it's just Lisel and Max (one or the other). You can't change Lisel's class, but you can change Max's.
2. Nope, it's automatic progression. If you're stuck just rest at Sapphire inn with her in the room; it'll progress eventually.
3. In the long run, not much. For character creation and multiclassing purposes, it's significant. For example if you switch Elf to a non-magic class she'll easily be able to switch back or to a different magic class because her base stats in INT and PIE (translated as Magic and Faith by Xhebit patch) are 10 each, so with one point in INT she can be a mage again. The main reason to change classes is to get more spell slots and spells from different schools of magic for your characters, though I'd suggest strongly keeping the MC in his starting class because you want him to have Counter for convenience (unless you adamantly want to put him in a casting class instead, or something). Skills don't transfer over, so take caution when making the decision.
4. Yup, 9 MP for each spell level, but only for that school of magic. You'd have to get that max MP raised by leveling up normally in a class that gives you that type of magic, or drink from a Max MP barrel.
5. Mage has lower stat requirements than Sorcerer, but also you want to get Blizzard ASAP. Once you get Blizzard you can comfortably level Sorcerer and continue to get more Spirit magic spells along with Alchemy ones.