A few other points to help in your character creation:
About 50% of the Time will be spent on the on the surface, in cities, towns, wilderness, frontier, etc.
The other 50% of the time will be spent in darker places, the Underdark, ruins, tombs, dungeons, caves, etc.
Success and survival will largely depend on the overall talents of the party, this comment being directed at the Players not the Characters:
If this were an actual Face to Face Game played around a real table with real PnP, you would all be discussing how to make up the best most effective party, based on the information you had. Since this is not the case, you have to think of this Forum as that Table.
Let me ask you potential players this, would you like me to put up a sort of Virtual Table module, where you can decide to meet and discuss, if I am around I'll answer questions. The Link would be sent to you privately and I'll would leave it up for a while, on most nights.
Understand that Game Publishers like to put out as much material as possible, to tempt players by adding more and more ways to customize their characters, they do this BECAUSE IT MAKES MONEY, but at it's roots they still try to make sure that every new class, race, feat, skill, ability, etc does not throw the Game out of balance. Point is if you look at all the options trying to find an edge, there really isn't supposed to be one. It is the Player Behind the Character that makes the Character Seem Real, not the Rule Set Used to Create Him/Her.
So enough with the Lecture already: Let Me Know If you think the Virtual Discussion Table module is worth putting up?